If you want to know what micro radio stations are, read on. There are a couple of explanations, choose the one you like the best.
Do you want to know what micro radio stations are? Well, let’s tell you. They are little tiny microscopic radio stations run by tiny little microscopic bugs! They’re favorite music? Ant Music of course, by Adam and the Ants, not forgetting “The Ugly Bug Ball.”
Alright, there is another kind of micro radio station, maybe these are the ones you really would like to know about. Micro radio stations are known also as ‘micro-power’ radio, ‘free casting’, ‘sandbox radio’ and more familiarly as ‘pirate radio’. Ah, now the penny’s dropped hasn’t it, or was it a gold doubloon? Shiver me timbers!
Micro Radio – Pirate Radio Stations
Pirate radio played a significant and important part in keeping the public informed and entertained throughout Europe and Africa. A most famous example, Radio Caroline was broadcast from a ship anchored in international waters off the coast of the UK throughout the 1960s. The term ‘pirate radio’ just made it all the more glamorous and exciting.
Micro Radio in the United States
Micro radio is becoming more and more important in the United States. With the big corporations aiming to control all of the last independent broadcasting media outlets, the airways are in danger of becoming more and more stifled. In one way, micro radio really is grass roots community radio, because its micro signal can only reach a very small geographical area. This depends on the power output, but the distances can vary from around half a mile to 10 miles or even perhaps a little more. This can only really manage to cover a college campus or a small town, which doesn’t truly cause much, if any interference with community broadcasting, even if it’s on the same frequency, as it is such lower power (micro-power!).
Micro Radio Stations – Are They Legal?
Technically, not really. In 1980, the commercial broadcasters and The Corporation for Public Broadcasting ‘encouraged’ the FCC to tighten up its licensing requirements, and the minimum price to establish a radio station is now more than $50,000, which doesn’t include operating expenses by the way. Not surprisingly, not everybody has got that amount of cash spare to set up a radio station, but with micro-power all that is changed. A complete micro-power station can be up and running for a few hundred bucks – now you’re talking!
There is a movement of micro radio stations who are trying to force the FCC into establishing a new, low power radio license. To be honest, there are many micro radio stations which have been operating successfully without interference from the FCC, who only really seem to act if there has been a complaint.
Micro Radio stations are here to stay, long live the micro radio station, although somehow it doesn’t sound quite as romantic as ‘pirate radio’ does it? Off now, to dream of Captain Jack Sparrow mixing the vibes on the turntable!