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89.1 Reggae

K

kf4rca

Guest
Walking all over WBCX (Gainsville). Is this a pirate or a legal station? Thought it was a car transmitter but its following me everywhere.
 
kf4rca said:
Walking all over WBCX (Gainsville). Is this a pirate or a legal station? Thought it was a car transmitter but its following me everywhere.
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Deleted post...I was looking at wrong frequency...
 
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No ID of any kind at 5PM today. I wondered what happened to the Riddum 94.5 guys from a while back
 
Good signal spaghetti junction area but falls apart around PIB. My guess its located in Decatur area.
 
They've gone high power now. I can hear them in my driveway in Doraville. I called the number they frequently give out and told them I could hear them in Doraville and asked if they could play the song Doraville by the Atlanta Rhythm Section and he hung up on me.
 
I wonder if these are the Jamaician pirates from Stone Mountain. They have a long history in Atlanta. They have been on several frequencies and have been shut down by the FCC more than once. They had a very elaborate setup, high power, high tower. I remember they had over 10 DJs, phone in shows, etc. Also very complete website with phone numbers, etc.
 
Guess I'll have to find another source for BBC News in the morning, at least, until these guys get busted (again)!
Welcome to the forum, Ray.
 
Ray said:
I wonder if these are the Jamaician pirates from Stone Mountain. They have a long history in Atlanta. They have been on several frequencies and have been shut down by the FCC more than once. They had a very elaborate setup, high power, high tower. I remember they had over 10 DJs, phone in shows, etc. Also very complete website with phone numbers, etc.
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These guys have been at it for years. Back in 2004 I found (and helped shut down) one that was tearing up Kiss 104 in Smyrna. All started when I was driving down South Cobb near Windy Hill road and heard terrible co-channel on 104.1. These guys were at 103.7 and had the WORST over-deviated audio. At the time, I was driving a 2002 Corolla which had one of the retractable whip antennas on the door pillar. So it was easy to roll the window down and put that sucker inside the car body. Drove about 1 block north and it got so strong OFF FREQUENCY I started looking for antennas.

Sure enough, on top of an old 3 story office building at 2426 Old Concord Rd, I spotted a newly placed VHF ground plane on a 30 foot mast. I also saw a phone number on the side of the building "for rent". Ended up being the owner. I told him I was a public safety radio technician and amateur radio operator who had tracked down interference. He knew there was a new tenant who had a radio station. I advised him per publicly available FCC records, no such license existed. He replied "I'll be down there in 15 minutes".

When he arrived, he was on his Nextel phone with the tenant. He handed me the phone. The pirate himself was on the line! He claimed to be in Philadelphia PA at the time "setting up another station". I inquired if his ATL station was licensed and he said he "was getting a license" (yeah right). He said his name was "Loco" and he sets up these stations around the country. I told him this one sounded like a cat stuck in a clothes dryer and was causing interference, and he asked ME to "turn it off until he could get back and get all sorted out". I handed the phone back to the building owner, who then led me inside to the third floor.

What I found in a suite was a make shift studio with crude automation and a home made single board transmitter (wasn't even in an enclosure) with an unbranded (probably Chinese import) amplifier brick. RG-58 cable went up into the ceiling. The automation consisted of two Sony Mini-Disc players daisy chained together with a Gemini four channel mixer and a couple of RS microphones on a stand. All of this was plugged into a single power strip. I physically unplugged the power and left.

Three days later it was back on the air. I remember sending en email to Cox engineering describing my discovery and encounter. Two weeks or so later, the signal was gone and off the air, and the ground plane was off the building. So, maybe someone from Cox remembers this guy and dropped the hammer. Good for them if they did. His off air signal was atrocious and splatter up and down the band. Didn't have a portable spec-an at the time (Signal Hound hadn't been invented yet) but I'm willing to bet that thing was creating a "blades of grass" effect all over VHF. Being that close to Dobbins/Lockheed, this guy could have made them mad too.
 
Interesting story! I don't think I would confront any of these people since they might be weaponized. Might be associated with a drug cartel. Loco was his name? Thats crazy in Spanish.
With a good receiver, you can get an idea of whats going on, so you really don't need a spectrum analyzer.
I don't know what the purpose of these pirates are. They don't sell spots (or very few). It would be a loss to operate one of these. And we all know how hard it is for a legal radio station to survive in the ratings.
 
Its a legel station.

Doctor_Technical said:
Spanish: Impresionar a las chicas
Parisian French: Impressionner les filles
Haitian Creole: Enpresyone ti fi yo
In other words, just like here the USA: Impress the girls
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WAKP licensed to Smithboro, GA. (wherever that is).
 
kf4rca said:
WAKP licensed to Smithboro, GA. (wherever that is).
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here is where the FCC thinks it is:

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/map...ITHBORO&state=GA&fileno=BLED-20100726AIQ&.map

I am kind of surprised they are heard in the ATL:

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...&EW=W&size=9&NextTab=Results+to+Next+Page/Tab


even looking at the Radio-locator map I doubt you would pick them up @ spaghetti junction:

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/patg?id=WAKP-FM
If the FCC info is correct they have no horizontal power which (in theory) could limit non car pickup
 
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I agree with the reception problem near spaghetti junction. Smithboro is down near Eatonton. Could be a directional antenna that might be 180 degrees mis-oriented.
 
2.9 KW @60 meters HAAT going that far requires something special in the terrain. IMHO the FCC site is wrong or someone has made "changes" not reflected in the FCC site.
 
secondchoice said:
2.9 KW @60 meters HAAT going that far requires something special in the terrain. IMHO the FCC site is wrong or someone has made "changes" not reflected in the FCC site.
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This station is operating under a STA to remain silent. The STA filling states, "station has been sold and will be re-located." Sounds to me like maybe it has a new owner who didn't bother to hire a consultant. Possibly didn't bother to file a FCC application.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/w...t=25&appn=101726786&formid=910&fac_num=172935

There is an application to transfer the license to a new group.
 
On their live afternoon show...

the DJ stated he was getting calls form Decatur area.
 
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