Propogation 101 for Shortwave Pirate Stations

[The Poet]

Propagation Gives Away Your Location

"Being as pirate radio is, well, illegal, operators like to stay anonymous. At least ops who want to avoid the FCC. Naturally, most ops consider keeping their location secret very important. Some even go so far as subtly, or not so subtly, providing false clues about their location, in an effort to fool the radio authorities. Unfortunately, basic rules of radio propagation make this futile.

"A warning in advance. I’m going to be discussing some basic shortwave radio propagation theory. Nothing here is brand new, or unknown to anyone in the radio field. Certainly not the radio authorities. Some fur… err… feathers are possibly going to be ruffled by what is presented below, possibly with loud protests of “destroying pirate radio” and “releasing the identities of operators”. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is Propagation 101 stuff. If it scares you, then you probably shouldn’t be operating a pirate radio station. The purpose is the educate listeners and operators, so they know exactly what information can be gleaned from observing signal reports. It’s better to know exactly what can be done with this information, than to stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Read more:
http://www.hfunderpants.com/?p=1127

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[Vacuum Splitter]

From the Smolinski article:

"Not interfering with allocated radio services, especially government and military, as well as operating from random remote locations, will go a long way to avoid getting The Knock."

Yes, it would be treasonous to interfere with the government or military.

What about interfering with commercial broadcasts.

Is that treasonous?

Would you still get . . .

THE KNOCK

[The Poet]

Oh, that would be even MORE treasonous-- since commercial stations exist for the capitalistic purpose of making money-- interfering with them making money is not just treasonous, but blasphemous, since money is our god.

Workers of the world unite, and seize the airwaves as well!