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How to start your own pirate radio station
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What follows is an edited version of a series of articles written by
David B. Thomas describing how to get into Pirate Radio. Pump up the
Volume.
This article also includes random stuff about building a cable descrambler.
Think of that as a "bonus".
Prometheus @ Balanced pH
-----
Thanks everyone for all your interest. I have lots of stories to tell and
neat information to share, but I think the single most useful thing I can
do for anyone interested in pirate radio is to turn you on to this company:
Panaxis Productions
PO Box 130
Paradise, CA 95967-0130
(916) 534-0417
This is a one-person shop, owned by Ernest Wilson, a cool guy with the hippest
possible attitude. He puts out a bimontly (or whatever the term is for
"once every two months") newsletter called "ERN: Experimental Radio Newsletter"
which features discussions of who's pirating, who's been caught, how you can
get into legit (or illegit!) broadcasting, transmitter circuits, circuit
theory... a neat publication! I forget what the subscription costs, but it's
mentioned in the $1 catalog you should send for right this minute!
The catalog contains various exciting projects, including bugs, am and fm
transmitters, stereo generators, compressor/limiters, filters, linear
amplifiers, jammers... cool stuff! These projects are available in various
forms: you can buy just the plans, which often include a foil layout for
making the PC board, or you can buy plans + ready-made PC board, or for some
projects you can buy a complete kit (talk about classy: he throws in wire and
solder!).
The laws regarding the sales of some of this stuff are strange. You can
be assured that Wilson will do whatever is remotely permissible, however he
has taken some heat for some of the ready-made items he's sold, so recent
catalogs are perhaps a bit less fun than they have been in the past. However,
the laws are so screwy, he's told me he expects to be able to redesign some
of the equipment to get around the restrictions.
For example, my very favorite project from his catalog is the 10 Watt stereo
FM transmitter. It's a complete 10 Watt FM stereo radio station in a compact
package. Now, this project consists of four circuit modules: stereo
generator, 500mW exciter, power supply, and 10W power amp. Turns out the
FCC has passed a law restricting the sale of RF power amplifiers (to stop
ham shops selling linears to cbers), so there's some configurations in
which he cannot get away with selling the 10W power amp. But he can redesign
the transmitter so the whole 10W exciter is on one circuit card and there's
no standalone amp, and THAT'S okay. Ain't that America?
I haven't checked with Panaxis in a while to see what the latest is, so that's
your homework for today. Call or write Panaxis, [tell him I sent you so he'll
be less paranoid about me possibly being the heat when I call him next time!]
send for their exciting catalog, and subscribe to the Experimental Radio
Newsletter.
Next time: for those of you who are not electronically inclined, you *can*
assemble a pirate station without having to build any equipment! I'll tell
you how.
---
Hello again, fellow hackers! This posting was going to be about getting on the
air without having to build your own equipment, but I've pushed that ahead to
sneak in a topic of interest to radio pirates and others: telco loops.
A loop is a pair of phone numbers that are connected to each other, so that
if you call one of the numbers, and I call the other one, we'll end up hearing
each other. There's no ring, but you'll hear a click as the other end
connects. They are used by the telco for legit testing, but have other
uses! For example, a pirate could announce one of the phone numbers over
the air, and then call the other number and wait for requests to ro"side" is silent except for a cliwhen the connection happens,
plus of course the audio from the other end while connected. I prefer to
call the "silent" side and wait until I hear someone on the other end.
Phone companies will often use numbers of the form xxx-99xx for testing. In
my area, the loops are xxx-9904 and xxx-9905. (xxx could be any exchange in
your area, or even outside if you dial 1+ and pay.) You can identify loops by
their behavior as I described it above. There's one BIG catch -- phone
companies are onto our use of loops, so they often mute them when they're not
in use (legit use, that is!). When muted, loops act normally except that
audio is not passed across, so you need two phone lines to find a good loop.
You might have to try several exchanges before you find a working combination,
if at all. But, if you do manage to find one, it sure is nice! Now I can't
promise that you're untraceable, but it's a lot more complicated. Pirate
stations have been known to use loops, as I did when I was pirating, and
I felt reasonably safe. Then again, I might have been fooling myself!
With a sufficiently slick computer setup, you could automate the process of
hacking out loops (something I've never done). With two modems and two phone
lines, you could set one up in answer mode, the other in originate mode,
then set them both to dialing known good guesses. (In my area, I'd try
all known exchanges with 9904/9905). If the carrier ever goes through,
you've got a winner!
Your homework assignment is to try and find at least a muted loop (which
could be unmuted in the future, so it's not useless!) in your area. The
xxx-99xx form may not be universal, or they may only use a subset of those,
like 9950 and up, or who knows. I recommend scoping out the territory during
the day, so you're still 100 times less annoying than telemarketing slime.
You're also more likely to find an operable loop. You may even encounter
an astonished telco worker who was using the loop at the time! Just say,
sorry, you were trying to call radio station [your call sign here], and hang
up!
[comp.dcom.telecom is a good place to find out more about loops]
---
Hi Hackers! This installment will be about how you can hack your way onto
the airwaves without having to build equipment, as promised. I feel this is
an important sideline because not everyone who would otherwise have
the interest is an electronics whiz. I still prefer to build my own, as
I have more control over the product, and it's a blast! Plus the equipment
is not as easily recognizable for what it is.
To drastically simplify things, in order to get on the air you need the
following:
1. An audio source.
2. Some sort of transmitter.
3. Optionally, an amplifier to boost your transmitter's power.
4. An antenna.
Let's look at these components one a a time, and consider how you might obtain
each, without having to be a soldering expert.
1. Audio source.
Gotta stereo? A boombox? A tape player? You've got part 1 covered!
2. Transmitter.
This is of course the biggie. It takes your audio signal and "modulates"
a radio signal with it, putting your program on the air. I'll only consider
AM and FM broadcast for now. See the possible sideline hacks at the end of
this posting for other possibilites.
The simplest solution to this is almost too simple -- just buy a real,
professional broadcast exciter. There are lots of ads for used equipment in
Radio World (magazine)
Industrial Marketing Advisory Services, Inc.
5827 Columbia Pike
Suite 310
Falls Church, VA 22041
(703) 998-7600 (voice)
(703) 998-2966 (fax)
Anyone can buy and sell this stuff, so you probably won't be asked aneel tape recorders, cart machin audio signal processors,
stereo generators, microphones, record players, mixers.... you name it!
It's worth getting just for the want-ads.
If you go with FM, you might want to broadcast in stereo, in which case you
would need a stereo generator. Panaxis has these in kit form, of course,
and they'll even sell you a wired-and-tested circuit card, but you'll still
have to provide a power supply (+ and - 12v) and an enclosure. If you're
not so inclined, you'll have to find a stereo generator for sale in Radio
World or a similar publication. Expect to pay about $300 for a decent
old, used one. Now you know why radio stations don't pay their employees
much. :^/
[Part of the allure of stereo broadcasting is getting the STEREO indicator
to light up on the receiver, which can be faked! You just inject a phony
19 KHz pilot signal and the stereo lights will glow.... a fun hack in itself!]
Besides buying the ready-made, genuine article, there are other possibilities.
An FM wireless mic (a la Mr. Microphone) is actually a very small and very
crippled FM radio station, which can be improved upon. You can take the wires
from the microphone element, and run the shielded cable to a stereo instead.
You'll need to reduce the level since stereos put out much more voltage
than microphones. This can be done with a couple of resistors. Also, you can
disconnect the builtin sorry antenna and run coax to a cable amp, which will
exhibit some gain. You can even stack cable amps for extra gain. Some of
the most powerful cable amps made (which aren't cheap, and aren't at Radio
Shack) are strong enough to drive 2M ham linears, and presto! you've got
as much power as you want. Not very clean, neat, or economical,
buy hey.. you didn't have to build anything!
3. Optional power amplifier.
As I mentioned earlier, cable TV amps will exhibit gain in the FM broadcast
band, and you can use these to boost feeble "mr microphone"-type signals.
Within reason, you can stack them for extra gain. 2M ham linears, such as
those made my Mirage, will also provide gain at 100 MHz, though they're
unlikely to give you their full rated power. The model I used was a
Mirage which could put out 80 watts on 2M. At 100 Mhz, after retuning
(just turning a screw or two) you could still get a solid 50 watts. Not bad!
There are many broadband amateur linears available that will work (at least
marginally) on the AM broadcast band. Most will be rated from 1.8 to 30 MHz,
since those include frequencies hams use (note that this includes the 27 MHz
cb band). The AM band ends at 1.6 Mhz which is very close to 1.8. Sometimes,
it's close enough that the amplifier will still work. [note: there's some
laws regulating the sale on these, because they're capable of amplifying
cb signals. Your dealer will fill you in with their version, which may be
nonsense they made up because they don't like you, but it's more than likely
really the law. Anybody who knows want to help me out here?] Some older
amateur linears just work on specific ham bands, and many omit 10M and CB
on purpose, so they can be sold without hassle to hams. Any of these that
will do the 160M band (1.8 MHz) can probably be converted without too much
hacking to operate at the top of the AM band. But that's beyond the scope
of this message.
4. An antenna.
With a nifty device known as an "Antenna Tuner" (which you can buy from
ham supply stores with no troubles -- or build for much cheaper, if you're
into that), you can use just about anything as an antenna. For AM, you want
BIG and TALL. Put up a big pole (40 feet minimum) and insulate it carefully
from the ground, anything tation
on with such an antenna and covered a broad section of town. [In fact it
worked well enough to draw some unwanted attention from local broadcasters
who didn't want the competition, and they knew who he was because he bragged
about it, so they quietly suggested he shut it down, and he did. He just
wanted to experiment, anyway. The experiment was a success, and he left the
air.]
For FM, you can use a regular VHF tv antenna, or a special FM receiving
antenna from Radio Shack. These are not the *best* choices, but they're
easy to come by and work ok, if you use a balun (a little transformer
dealie like you probably have on the back of your TV where the cable hooks
up) to match the 300 ohm antenna to the 50 or 75 ohm coax coming from your
transmitter. There are some great ready-built antennas for FM broadcasting
which are a little hard to get, but cost very little ($20 or so) and work
exceedingly well. This article is getting too long -- I'll cover these
next time!
CONCLUSION
Well, I didn't give out as much information as I wanted to, but at least,
after reading this, any of you who are interested can feel confident that
what you've been thinking about can be done, and you can do it if you
want. There are much better ways to do all of the above, but they all
require more technical prowess. The purpose of this article was to
establish the minimum technical proficiency required to at least
get you on the air, not necessarily with any finesse.
If I barely mentioned something in this article, and you want more details,
just email and I'll fill in what I can. Next time I plan to talk about
building modest transmitters. I might even attempt to draw circuits
in ASCII (it's been done!).
OTHER HACKS
I'm just going with the flow here, so if you're interested in any of the
following sideline hacks, let me know and I'll touch on them:
1. abusing cordless phones and baby (room) monitors (both spying and
injecting your own signal)
2. setting off weather alert radios
3. having free reign on the VHF and UHF public service bands
(police, taxis, marine, security, mobile telephone, etc.)
4. having free reign on the MF and HF bands (shortwave)
5. getting CB radios to do more than the manufacturer supposedly intended
(more channels, more power)
6. having free portable telephone capabilities without stealing service
(this can be done legally)
7. embedding auditory subliminal suggestions over any other audio, safely
and undetectably (I don't say it does any good...just how to do it!)
8. listening in on a phone line without telltale clicks or load increases
(you use capacitors -- next!)
9. pirating cable television
Standard disclaimer: I'm not suggesting you try any of this stuff. I'm
giving you information, and hopefully you won't be irresponsible and go
off and get yourself into trouble. "For entertainment purposes only!"
---
I'll be continuing my series on pirate radio hacks tomorrow, but today I wanted
to clear up a misunderstanding, and document a delightful cable tv hack!
When I said "cable tv pirating", I didn't mean stealing cable, or stealing
premium services. If you are getting cable, and on one of the channels that
HBO or somesuch is normally found you get instead a flashing picture and
noisy audio that sounds like "beebeebeebeebeebeebeebeebeep!", that's a
primitive jamming technique that can be defeated with a primitive circuit
(all passive: two coils you can easily wind yourself (take my word -- it's
easy!), a potentiometer, and a variable capacitor. That's the whole circuit!)
Let me draw it for you techies out there:
cable in 100pf var out to tv
O-------+--| |--+-----------O
} }
C C
O-GND O O s the cure. They are actually
sending all the information contained in the program (another good hint
is that you can usually tune for sound but no picture, or a ghastly picture
but no sound, just beebeebeebeeping), but they jam it with a narrow band,
but high energy, jamming signal. The filter eliminates this signal (the
resistor adjusts the width of the notch (the Q for you techies), and the
capacitor tunes it to the right frequency).
If there is interest, I'll post more detailed plans including where to find
the parts, physical layout and construction, etc. But the above should be
enough for some of you. Anyway........
THAT ISN'T WHAT I MEANT! (but since some of you brought it up in your letters,
there's at least some info for you).
What I meant was getting your own signal to appear on a cable TV channel.
I'll describe this by relating a hack I heard about after the fact!
Here in Albuquerque the PBS station is channel 5. The cable company receives
the signal off-air with a big beam pointed right at channel 5's transmitter,
and rebroadcasts the signal to the happy subscribers. Channel 5 goes off the
air a little after midnight, and when that happens, the cable company does
nothing special. Their receiver simply picks up the noise on the empty
channel, faithfully retransmitting it over cable.
Aha! Some of you are already onto the hack...but it gets better. Our
hero just happened to have an RF modulator like you use with computers
and video games that worked on channel 5. They exist. Anyway, it puts
out a very weak signal (suitable only for driving a tv directly), but
weak signals can be turned into strong ones. He stacked a couple of
cable amps to boost the power, and -- get this -- did the whole
thing from his car!! He got a power inverter, a VCR with a very special
tape (I think it featured something deliciously naughty, but I heard the
story a long time ago), the modulator and cable amps, and hooked it all
up to one of those cheapie wall timers (mechanical) that turns things
on at a certain time. He used his car's ordinary antenna for transmitting.
So armed and ready he parked his car right near the cable tv building, set
the timer for a little after midnight, and caught a ride with a friend
(who had cable!) to watch the fun. The signal was reasonably clear,
and they were assured of a nice large audience, because the real channel
5 had just barely switched off. It didn't make headlines, but it certainly
made one hacker's night a night to remember! I think I'll call him
"lieutenant midnight" :^)
Till next time... little david
---
Okay, I apologize. My previous post of the cable filter was a teaser.
It really didn't have enough info to get the job done... so here's the
real thing, by popular demand! My apologies to those of you who might
have started down some wrong paths. Let me know how you get on, and feel
free to ask questions. This is a limited medium, and in any case, I'm
a limited instructor.
THE SYMPTOM: If on some cable channel, you get audio that sounds like a
loud "beebeebeebeebeebeebeebeep!" (roughly 5 beeps per sec, audio tone
in the ballpark of 1000 Hz), and you can get the program audio by tuning
away from the center of the channel, you are the victim (and soon the
conquerer) of a primitive narrow-band jamming technique. Many cable
companies are moving away from this method because it is so easily
defeated. Heh.
REQUIREMENTS: You'll need to have some electronics experience, but I've
kept this pretty nontechnical. It's an easy project, as they come.
You could become very popular among your friends. Of course I mean
by inviting them over to watch your cable, *not* by building boxes
for them. Heavens, I didn't mean that! Also this design is for
tv channel 3, and is meant to be used after your cable converter box.
If you have a mods (eg. radio shack 278-212)
100 pF variable capacitor (open air, chassis mount type)
100 ohm linear taper potentiometer (again, chassis mount, wirewound not ok)
some 20 ga. solid core wire
(see text for acceptable deviations from above parts list)
I'm sure there are plenty of great parts supply places where you could
find the cap and the pot. Check your local yellow pages. If all
else fails, try Electronic Surplus Co. in Albuquerque. (505) 296-6389
They definitely have all this stuff, and real cheap, I might add! Plus
the owner, Dave (not me), is very knowledgeable and friendly. He'll
probaly know right away what you're building, and might even offer advice.
The schematic, again, looks like this (it's a pi notch filter):
100pF var.
IN o-------+--------| |-----+-----------o OUT
| |
C C
O O
I I 100 ohm linear
L L ___
| | | V
------------------+--/\/\/\/\----GND
Here's my attempt at a pictorial. You are seeing a side view of the opened
project box. Uhhh you might get a better idea of the wiring from reading
the WIRING text below. Sorry I'm not much of an artist!
| |
conn ===---+ +-------------+-=== conn
| +-> | <----ccc+ccc^ | --> <-- are connected
| | | | |
| +-x x /-12 3 |
|_____CAP____|_POT______|
| |
|
controls
First you should mount the pot, cap, and connectors to the box, and wind
the coils:
BOX: The box should be metal both to serve as a shield against interference
and to make wiring simpler (the ground connections are made for you).
CONNECTORS: These F connectors are chassis-mount and thus they ground the
shield of the coaxial connection directly to the metal box. This is useful
and important. You need only connect wires to the "hot" terminals. I
recommend attaching them on opposite ends of the box, since the box is
wired inline with the cable. Where you put the connectors won't affect
the electrical operation, as long as you wire it carefully.
CAPACITOR: The capacitor should be a chassis-mount open-air type 100 pF
variable. Don't use anything less than 100 pF, but you may use larger,
up to 400 or so. (They don't *make* variable caps much larger than 400 pF!)
All variable capacitors have two sets of plates which move through each
other without touching. There should be at least one terminal (solder
point) connected with each set of plates (just looking you should see
how they are connected). Nearly all var.caps. have the moving plates
connected electrically to the control shaft, and some also have the
moving plates electrically connected to the mounting bracket. This is
unfortunate, because this particular circuit requires both sets of plates
to be insulated from ground. So, you must use a plastic control knob for
tuning (otherwise the capacitance would change too much when you removed
your hand after tuning it), and you must make sure that both sets of plates
are electrically insulated from the chassis. There are capacitors that
are easily mounted this way, and there are those that have the mounting
hardware shorted to the moving plates, which are very difficult to use
in this project. Email if you need help.... if you measure a short from
either set of plates to the chassis (before the coils and pot are wired in),
your circuit won't work.
POT: The potentiometer should be a 100 ohm (75 to 200 should work okay)
linear taper pot, and *not* wirewound. Get the chassis-mount type (not
a trimmer). There are no dangers as with the capacitor above. In fact,
this circuit calls for two of the terminals (an end one and the center
one) to be connected to each other and wired to the case. You can't
solder to the aluminum box, but you can twist a bare wire around the shaft
before mounting the pot, and it will be pressed against the box, making
a solid connection. My favorite way to do it is a little different:
I rough upalled, its metal surface contacts the box, and the connection
is made :^)
COILS: You'll need some solid core, 20 ga. wire and a bic pen or some
other object about 1/4" in diameter. To make a coil, twist the wire
around the core (the pen, screwdriver, or whatever), counting off four
turns. The turns should be spaced about 1/8" apart from each other. You'll
want to cut it so there's a few inches free on each end for wiring the coil
into the circuit. You'll need two of these coils. (This same wire is
suitable for all other wiring in this project.)
WIRING: Generally, you want all the wires and coils to be as far away from
the metal box and from each other as you can manage. Space things out in
there for best results. Also, keep all leads as short as is practical.
0. Ensure that the grounded terminals of the pot are in fact connected
electrically to the case. Also ensure that the moving plates of
the variable cap are not shorted to the case.
1. Solder a wire from one F connector to one set of the cap's plates.
2. Solder a wire from the other F connector to the other set of plates.
3. Connect a coil from one set of plates to the ungrounded terminal on the pot.
4. Connect the other coil from the other set of plates to the same ungrounded
terminal on the pot.
HOOKUP: This box is designed to filter narrow band noise around TV channel 3.
Unless the premium service you're trying to get is transmitted on 3
already (as it happens to be here in albuquerque), you'll want to install
this box after your cable converter box but before your tv. If you're
modern and don't have a cable converter, you may have to do some investigation
and redesign, or it might work anyway if it's still on a lower VHF channel.
(Or you could install if after your VCR, but then you could only watch that
channel, not tape it.)
If the box is constructed carefully, it should introduce negligible loss on
all channels, and enable reception of the jammed channel once tuned.
TUNING: It takes a while to get the hang of it. Set the resistor to max.
resistance (what direction to turn it depends on how you wired it...don't
sweat it if you're not sure), then start with the capacitor and alternate
from one knob to the other, back and forth until the picture is best.
ENJOYMENT: For best results, tell your friends, but don't sell any. People
have been busted for selling these, but if you're aware that you don't
want to invite cable tv people into your house until you hide the box,
you're in practically no danger. If you're paranoid about the cable tv
people coming around and checking your cable from the outside to find out
what's connected to it on the inside... it's theoretically possible to
detect this box if it's connected directly to the cable. Any sort of
converter or amplifier in between is sufficient to make it impossible
to detect.
Well, I wish you all the best of luck ... do report your successes and
failures, and feel free to ask questions. If you discover a flaw in my
plans, let me know so I can revise them and get the information out.
I'm just going with the flow here... we'll get back to pirate radio
eventually!
By the way, everything I'm relating in this article was published as a
front page story in UT Austin's excellent student newspaper, The Daily
Texan, in 1976. It was controversial, but the Texan was able to
successfully defend its right to disseminate the information. So,
this is nothing new *or* secret!
little david
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