FRSD 96.9FM Raided By FCC / US Marshalls (July 22, 2005)

On Thursday morning, July 21st, 2005, the FCC and US Marshalls executed a raid against Free Radio San Diego. This raid (in a nutshell) took all of our broadcast equipment, including antenna, transmitter, cable, computers, audio mixing equipment, and other essential hardware.

It was understood that this raid was coming. Not from anything that happened as of late, but hey.. if you roll the dice against the FCC, there's a pretty high chance (roughly 100%) that they will do something else other than sit around and lament.

No one was arrested, all of our spare equipment is intact, and we have absolutely no plans to pack up and go home. We will be having a regular staff meeting to discuss the situation, and probably a public meeting as well. Our next announcement will be on this website, no later than 22 July 2005, 2100 PST.

Link to interview conducted on Free Radio Santa Cruz [download mp3] (14 minutes). Link to interview conducted on Enemy Combatant Radio [download mp3] (30 minutes).

FRSD Raided (July 23, 2005)

U-T: Agents raid, shut down unlicensed Free Radio. This made news on every radio news website. Federal agents representing the FCC, who were armed with a search warrant, shut down Free Radio San Diego 96.9 FM, the self-proclaimed oldest-running and most notorious unlicensed radio broadcaster in San Diego, in a midmorning raid Thursday morning at about 10am. The agents seized everything involved but the kitchen sink including amplifiers, computers, a transmitter, and other equipment that effectively knocked the station off the air, as well as the Internet stream that accompanied the signal at pirate969.org.

Free Radio San Diego 96.9 had been broadcasting for almost three years out of a private residence on Bancroft Street in South Park (no relation to the cartoon show, but like the show, featured shameless foul-mouthed deejays that proved more humorous than shocking.) The FCC has said it investigates underground stations if it receives enough complaints from commercial broadcasters or the public that the illegal signal is interfering with legitimate transmissions. Bob Ugly, the founder of the station, vows to get the station back on the air at an undisclosed location in a month, saying that they, like other pirates, went on the air illegally because the FCC, which doles out the frequencies and licenses, said that San Diego had no more room for new licensed broadcasters. Aside of punk music, Free Radio 96.9 broadcasted hard-hitting commentaries on the world issues that most of the mainstream media (including the U-T) completely ignore.

Commentary: There are two kinds of groups overrepresented in light of the raid on FRSD. The fans say that it's sad that corporate radio wins again. The legitimate broadcasters say that it's a relief on the drain of the licensed station's ratings towards unlicensed broadcasters who spent a pittance to get the station up while the legit station owner has to lay out thousands of dollars just to get a license, and let's not get into the millions of dollars involved in assembling a staff, purchasing equipment, renting or buying a building, etc.

Here's my thought on this. When there are legitimate broadcasters ignoring the needs of the communities they are serving, people go elsewhere for the kind of stuff they need, such as web blogs, music downloads, streaming Internet, and news websites to learn about issues and genres of music that the legits are completely pushing aside in favor of more of the same kind of irrelevant music and news that's overplayed or overreported. Yes, I know that pirates are illegals, but I depend on pirates to give me what local radio doesn't offer, such as USENET or web downloads of the latest Dr. Demento radio show, which I have been doing for almost nine years already if you can believe that.

As for the local pirate broadcasters, I feel for you, as you provided programming and information to fill in certain niches that the legits wouldn't cover. To stay below the radar for about 34 months from the federal raiders of the lost art of broadcasting is an achievement in a sense that they were willing to have enough guts to take on the outdated rules of broadcasting and unattentive legit broadcasters by putting on a screamer that could reach 30 miles in radius from Linda Vista to Fletcher Hills to San Ysidro. News about the FCC raid on FRSD made headlines in every major radio news website I regularily visit, as well as the usually dormant Union-Tribune newspaper. This will get the word out to the public that a change in the way broadcasters are ruled should be in order, that there comes a time when some broadcasters own just plain too many stations to allow diversity of views and genres, ignore the needs of the public, or engage in exploitative practices to get ratings without merit. People reading about this should be angry enough to fire off some letters to their Congresional representatives in D.C. asking them to get the FCC to change the rules to allow more low power broadcasters to start up in cities such as San Diego. Why let Mexico bitch and whine whenever someone on our side of the border wants to fire up a station when the folks down south have launched some dozen Mexican stations freely for years such as some overpowered classical station on 90.7 that blots out Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles from being received in San Diego. We should get new rules to allow us to fire up new stations on top of the Tijuana broadcasters on 90.7 (take that, Diaz!), 94.5, 95.3, 97.7, 99.3, 105.7, 107.7, etc. to serve listeners on our side of the border since most of the stations down there don't serve our side, and if the Mexican government objects, screw them. With modern-day radios, many of the stations 0.4MHz from stations on eiher side of the broadcaster come in without interference from the weaker station and vice versa, but it's only the cheaper radios that have that probem, but for those who have cheaper radios from China, dump them and buy the American-made radios. The issue of alternate channel (0.4MHz) interference should have been defeated back in the 90s and the government mandated that radios be able to tune in FM stations that can pick up adjacent-channel stations free from interference from the stronger stations, and that would no longer be the issue to the legitimate broadcasters as the issue of interference from the alternate low power stations would be moot.

As for the legit broadcasters, the threat of pirate broadcasting is more than fearing that it could cause alternate or adjacent channel interference with their legitimate licensed-broadcasters. Pirates could (but not FRSD as far as I know) cause interference with Air and Police band transmissions among other necessary government uses of the airwaves, often using subquality equipment with excess hum and low fidelity, suffers from clipping of sound, and even cause interference from receiving legit distant radio stations such as KLSX 97.1, home of athiest lunatic Tom Leykis as some pirates did when you drove too close to a pirate's transmitter on 96.9 FM. There's more to pirate broadcasting than causing a commotion. They're addressing issues and genres that the legit broadcasters never thought to ever bring to light to the public being served by the legits. Sure, the pirates can grab listeners from the legits, but have the legits ever thought of playing their game and launching a pirate station of their own to beat them at their own game? Let Clear Channel consolidate KGB and KIOZ into 101.5, and launch a "pirate" on 105.3 playing edgy alternative music, carry some libertarian or democratic public service programming, allow listeners to take over for a while and play whatever they want, play some house and comedy music, and other stuff. After all, the broadcaster on the airwaves still has an influential edge over Internet-only broadcasters, but they need to start addressing the needs of the public they are serving or sell the station to a local who will. Sell 91X to Bob Ugly and let him put the edge back in the station, cutting out the girly-man acoustic folk tunes. He and his crew could play and say whatever he wants, even the dreaded f-bomb seven times in 60 seconds, since it is a Mexican stick and the FCC can't touch that.

FRSD Raided Letters: (July 24, 2005)

Most of the licensed stations don't provide any local service (KOGO's four news headlines an hour doesn't work for me) and fill up most of the day with syndicated talkers that don't serve San Diego. Why do you think FRSD was better than KLSD? FRSD was live and local and provided a service. KLSD does not provide a service except to just blast the Republicans over and over again without providing anything useful. KFMB-AM and KCBQ-AM are also nothing but headlines at the top of the hour and syndicated rant the rest of the hour. Nothing useful for me from these stations either.

I read some of the responses on your post on the radio-info board, a place I won't post because the moderators are too hot tempered and intolerant of off topic subjects. They need to reread your article. Those who responded are broadcasters that obviously don't see the forest because of the trees. Times have changed. Radio is dying. IPods are everywhere. Get with it, Bob and David.

From Tom: f--k yeah! The radio band needs more competetion and more low power broadcasters legally (not the pirates) is the answer. The broadcasters don't like it because it's competetion? Does David Eduardo ever listen to Roger Hedgecock? If there is competetion and they're providing better service to the listener, then what should you do? Provide better service. That's why the San Diego Gouge and Extortion company doesn't have an incentive to improve. No competetion. That's why Southern Bell Crooks and Sux Cable continue to rip people off with high prices on phone and DSL service: no competetion. So, therefore, that's why corporate radio continues to rip off their listeners by ignoring the public's needs: no competetion.

That's an incentive to keep people from going to satellite and getting the ignorant teenagers to start tuning in radio instead of their cell phones for music. Crusty Clown on the board says your article is anti-corporate radio, but what he didn't comprehend the fact that your article is pro-independent. Corporates need to stop picking on the pirates in touch with their listeners and get with serving the city instead of the suits in Texas.

It's the locals such as the illegal pirates that are providing relevant timely news, information, and entertainment they feel that corporate radio isn't doing, and belive me, the corporates continue to lose listeners by hanging on to legacy oldies I don't like or ever did like.

KLSD is a joke, pure and simple. Left radio indeed. More like cookie-cutter mentality. Again, Clear Channel just doesn't understand the intelligence of the public it's licensed to serve and the failure of KLSD is an example of why people in this city don't care for syndicated talk shows except for Rush on KOGO. An all-local talk station was tried on 760 years ago but failed. Why? Too much fluff subjects? How about trying hard-hitting local subjects that people are talking about and want to do something about.

KPRI 102.1 independent? Bulls--t! They play the same stuff the other stations play. That's why they're in the cellar. Try a local talk format.

Ugly Bob buying 91X won't happen as he's otherwise ineligible to be a broadcaster, but we need someone else rich enough to buy the station and make it over into a true hard rock station and get rid of the corporte s--t they've been playing since Jacor bought it 10 years ago. 91 sucked since 1995 and still does suck today. Clear Channel will always suck. I never read the 91X newsletters on your site because it's nothing but promotional s--t I don't care about. Even if they get a new programmer, it will still suck unless they are not corporate.

More Letters About FRSD's Raid (July 25, 2005)

Thomas: what the licensed broadcasters isn't seeing is the complete picture. Radio stations have been gobbled up and streamlined to the point where a format change from a useless old music station to something interesting is no longer needed, thanks to Cheap Channel running 14 stations lacking a uniquie sound, even former competetors sounding alike. This is why we need pirates and low power stations to send the licensed stations a message that they are just too lazy to try a new format with new music instead of launching another oldies station to compete with an existing oldies station. It's Jack this or Oldies that or 80s this or Standards that. That music is for the old people. I don't care for f-word laden punk music either from a pirate station. Even FRSD couldn't serve me with what I want. How about mature new music. Can't anybody do that in radio anymore? Thank god for mp3 players.

Kyle: I noticed that in Kearny Mesa that I could get another pirate on 96.9, but all it does is play reggae music from a CD changer.

Cliff: the licensed radio broadcasters have a right to tell the FCC to get the pirates off the air, but they're missing the point in doing their duty. They're derelect, as are the pirates, of serving the listeners in their area with programming that is geared for all ages, instead of toilet humor from Mikey and Howard or cursing and swearing from Ugly Bob on the pirate station. The licensed guys are just as bad as the pirates for allowing the filth on 105.3 and 103.7 to continue. Even Dave Rickards on KGB is mild compared to these other guys. It's no wonder that I'm glad the pirate is off the air, but the legals should be the ones that should fear losing their licenses if I catch them using a bad word and I complain to the FCC about their obscene broadcasts. To me, the legal broadcasters are hypocrites. Either clean up your act or let the pirates put out filth unreported.

Alan: We don't need any more Spanish broadcasters in San Diego. We need to push American values and cultures, not Mexican junk on our airwaves. Did you know that some Spanish broadcasters broadcast subjects as taboo as Howard Stern in Los Angeles? I can't understand the language, but a few folks who are billingual were disgusted in what some of the Spanish talkers are saying on the air. Why isn't anybody complaining to the FCC about this? We should make non-English broadcasting illegal in the U.S. because most of us cannot or won't monitor what they are saying. David Eduardo who runs a few Spanish stations in Los Angeles should be monitoring what's being said on his stations. I hope somebody who can understand Spanish knows how to report obscenity to the FCC.

We need legal LPFM in San Diego even if it obstructs the Mexican stations that are not powered high enough to serve north of Chula Vista. Better yet, I like the idea of putting stations on 90.7 to block out Victor Diaz's (deceased) classical station I never listen to because its too strong to allow me to listen to Pacifica Radio from north. I read that Pirate 96.9 put some shows from Pacifica but I never listened to the weak station to be sure. Why didn't Diaz simply not use the 90.7 frequency Mexico alloted him whether he knew it would block out Pacifica? Is it because he was a conservative and Pacifica was liberal? Surely, there was a motive to censor out a liberal voice in San Diego, and he simply took what Mexico gave him. That's why I boycotted his other stations since (until Clear Channel bought out Z and Country).

And no, we don't need any pirates getting away with bad language here either. Somebody down there knew how to report that pirate when they heard some deejay using that kind of sailor slang over the airwaves.

Pirates beaming religion from satellite or some idiot playing nothing but CD tracks are also a waste and useless. They should also be dealt with and raided by the FCC.

Pirates running local family programming is okay with me. Just keep it clean.