Ofcom and finding

[piratefm]

Ok, so I'm curious as to how Ofcom find pirate stations and know about them in the first place. I've looked around on Google and see they have Monitoring stations. Does this mean that when a transmitter is switched on, it flags up?

At the moment i'm experimenting with my transmitter and have it only on 1 watts, the signal only goes for about a mile or just under in some parts. Would Ofcom bother with a low power station like this?

At the moment I have the transmitter at home until I can get a Microwave Link sorted.

Excuse my ignorance on this but I don't have a clue, and just want to find out to prevent myself getting caught somehow ahaha:)

[pjeva]

No one will hount you for 1w... they do band scans daily or weekly. Usualy from few measuring points around the country. They also can guess what amount of power you are using and from what direction. You can do the same by using very directional antenna and radio with signal meter

[shuffy]

They were evaluating this kit a couple of years back - I don't know if they went for it in the end. Someone posted it on the old site, I think it might have been Sharky or someone. It's impressive.



I'm guessing you're not in London. A Watt won't get you noticed there by anyone, and you'd have to be quite rural to get any distance. As far as I remember, there are only a couple of monitoring stations outside of London, so unless you're right on top of one, someone would have to complain to get you investigated.

[sinus trouble]

TBH i dont really know how they do it these days? but they used to band scan and use yagis to pin point the stations they were gonna eat! and as mentioned, they aint bothered by small stations or any station!!! unless it is causing severe interference!! unlike in the past, tecnology is killing radio quicker than they ever could!! ofcom have bigger fish to fry!! Eg regulating TV broadcasters using so called offencive language!!
the "rig theives" are more of a threat than ofcom!!

[shuffy]

You're spot on Sinus... after reading fuze's thread about the FOI act, I had a look through the records myself and I soon realised that ofcom's remit is huge. This was after ploughing through countless piles of crap about You've Been Framed, O2's wifi hotspots and complaints about Jimmy bloody Savile. I can't imagine ofcom have time to be bothered with DF'ing pirates unless there's something important to be gained from it.

Somewhere like London, a setup like the Agilent one in the above video would save a lot of time, and with judicious setup I'm sure could be made to alert them whenever a new signal appears. But unless you're interfering with someone important, it's over to the likes of Killer to do the raids. Which is why I'm much more liberal with the old cricket bat these days

[McDonalds]

Be good to try this if can get access to an empty building or home and power it up.
If its just a cheap China transmitter then if it gets eat it does not really matter.
I guess with connect something upto it you don't care loosing helps. ?

[Maximus]

Totally agree with the advice. As long as you're not causing interference or a legit station gets jealous and reports you, then everything should be ok.

I was so confident at one point that I ran 300W direct and went to Amsterdam for the week with the lads.

Just make sure you're not causing interference or being a nuisance and you should be fine. The only thing is if you ever get busted, they may continue to monitor the area after the gear has been confiscated, so you may have to lay low for a while.

Everyone has to start somewhere but I'd advise getting rid of the Chinese rig ASAP as the audio and spectral purity isn't good. You'll know what I mean when you upgrade a quality Dutch or NRG type rig.

[james_wilson16]

I ran 1w for 9 years direct in Dorset, which had little or no activity of pirate radio whatsoever. 08 upped to 30w and in 09 was raided, due to a direct hit. The higher power had stemmed complaints my a local radio station, and someone locally who thought my so called "cb" antenna was messing with the TV signal, however this was down to the construction of Poundbury where I resided at the time and builders generally taking out the cables or fiddling with communal antenna's as we are not allowed antennas there.
So in my case complaints driven.
After my interview with OFCOM at Dorchester police station, Richard **** who was an OFCOM field officer ran me back to my flat, he was actually a fairly decent chap as far as OFCOM goes, who had grown an interest in radio, but obviously pursued it in a completely different manner to me. He showed me a monitor which they use in the car to track the signal which gives a general pinpoint in the direction of the signal and a signal read out which gives the power outage and field strength which obviously increases as OFCOM get closer, so that's the trace, as well as access to the GPS location of mobile phones used as studio lines and access to my personal Facebook account.

[WEBB-TECH]

You say a watt won't get you noticed...There is always some old biddy who cant pick up her Radio 2 that likes a moan!

[Mr F]

and access to my personal Facebook account.

Can you expand on this? Are you saying they had access as in they could see everything as if they were logged in as you?

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[shuffy]

Facebook is optional, not compulsory like your NI number or NHS number or passport number. If you post something on facebook which can be linked to your actual identity, they you've only yourself to blame