The Pirate Radio, by Henry Bowman
This is a very grey area, for what constitutes a crisis that warrants you, the Guerrilla Radio Operator or GRO for short, to fire up rig and start transmitting, in clear violation of FCC rules? In order for the message to get out to the community it will require the use of transmitters that exceed the power level mandated. To me, it is when the normal modes of intel gathering, like radio/tv/internet/etc., are offline to the average person, who depends upon said services for info. Now, that could be due to some low probability, high impact event like a CMP/EMP strike or a regionalized disaster, like a major ice storm, hurricane or even regional terrorist attack. Each GRO will make that call based on conditions in their AO and criteria.
The Where:
auxiliaryradiohide.jpgGiven the fact that the goal is to convey info to the local populace or OpFor, that means your transmitter needs to be in the same area, based on tx power levels of miliwatts to 25w or more and to be clear, you will need a device of actual wattage to be effective. Mine is a 1-7w unit and capable of transmitting out to the legal limit (yup) with stock antenna, and if I added the larger, higher gain, FM transmitting antenna to a mast and increase the height I am confident I could cover my immediate AO. That brings another set of issues: RDF’ing by OpFor/.gov agencies, if in a hostile environment. So, just like amateur radio operations, one must be very careful to mix up times, durations, of transmissions in order to reduce the possibility of being RDF’d. However, if it gets to the point where that is my concern, then down the rabbit hole we have gone and I suspect other matters will be more important. If a short term incident, one can probably get away with limited transmitting from home base. If not, then the ability to remote locate the device is key and a very good idea. No matter where, the set up must be, in my humble opinion, discreet and covert.
https://brushbeater.wordpress.com/2018/05/11/guest-post-the-pirate-radio-by-henry-bowman/
