Every so often you meet someone who lives by his or her own rules. Not that they dont acknowledge the rules of law, or physics, or of nature, but theyll occasionally bend a few of the rules in order to suit their own psyche, their preferred method of making their way from one end of this life to the other. One such man lived in the hills of Tennessee, not that far from me. Out of respect for his family, Ill not reveal his name, but I was in his home for the second time today although I never had the chance to meet him. I wish I had, though. By all accounts he was a very good and decent man, and remarkably intelligent as evidenced by the work he left behind. It was that work that drew me to his home and to become acquainted with his family, who all seem to be among the best folks Ive known. Chuck, which is not his real name, was into electronics. It had been his lifes passion, his career, and in retirement it was his pasttime. Looking at the work he left behind, it becomes clear he had a unique understanding of all of the little parts in many of the devices that occupy our daily lives. If Chuck needed a radio, or a battery charger, or piece of test equipment, hed simply build it. He often modified the electronic devices he bought, and made them even better. One of his other passions was music, old country, bluegrass and gospel music. Chuck found a way to marry the two passions and share them with the rest of us. He built a radio station. That bears repeating: Chuck built a radio station. It was a fully functional, fully equipped, full power FM stereo radio station and he operated it for years out of his home. Typically, I understand, it was powered up around the clock and several hours a day Chuck would take control and do his own little radio show from a bedroom that had been converted into his studio. The studio was filled with Chucks passion, including a microphone like youd expect to see in a modern commercial radio studio, control board, CD players, tape mixers, racks of all kinds of equipment, you name it. Everything except a license. Chuck built and operated a pirate radio station. Simply explained, thats the common term for an unlicensed broadcast station. The federal government has a small army of folks who scour the nation and its airwaves looking for pirate stations handing out stiff fines, tersely worded letters of warning, even going to far as to seize equipment and arrest the operators. Yet Chuck managed to operate under the radar for years completely undetected. The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, is responsible for regulating the airwaves in the U.S. Theyve divided up the frequency spectrum into the various uses, they regulate any and every device you may own that makes use of any part of the spectrum or might cause any interference to it, and they are the ones who license the commercial television and radio stations you hear and see. Getting one of those licenses is no small feat. In the old days, a commercial broadcast license was referred to as a license to print money. Youd put a little radio station on the air, hire a few people to talk and play some music, and sell ads to cover the bills. Savvy operators made a comfortable living. Today some of those licenses are bought and sold for millions of dollars, not including the real estate, equipment or people to run the place. Think of it as the franchise fee to open and operate a fast food restaurant like McDonalds or Burger King. Long gone are the days when you or I may have been able to apply for a license to operate a little radio station in our respective communities, and hopefully make enough money to pay the power bill. Its big bucks and big business. Which is where people like Chuck come into the picture. He was one of hundreds of people across the country to quietly elbow his way in, lay claim to a small slice of the frequency spectrum and put his little pirate radio station on the air. The difference between Chuck and the vast majority is he didnt get caught. Well, thats one difference. Coming up the driveway at Chucks home, there were no outward signs of what youd find there. You wouldnt see the 125 broadcast tower until you were about to walk into it. Literally. What appeared to be a garage was actually an elaborate workshop filled with the products of his talent. In the corner near the door was a rack of electronic equipment that was the pulse of the station, the transmitter. Having worked in radio stations since I was a teenager, I was drawn to the transmitter and related equipment. At first glance, it seemed like ordinary broadcast gear youd order from one of only a few companies that make and sell the stuff. And then I looked closer, and realized that only one of the many components in that rack of gear taller than I had been purchased, the rest was all homemade. The only piece Chuck had purchased was a device called an exciter, and it was an antique piece of gear Chuck had modified for his use. He had built the entire thing from scratch and spare parts. Chuck even designed and built the broadcast antenna himself. I was absolutely amazed. I fully understand the need to regulate the frequency spectrum. There are only so many frequencies, or channels, in the spectrum and were it not for the FCC, it would be impossible to operate any commercial station without possible interference from unlicensed transmitters and a host of other types of equipment. In fact, the reliability of many things we take for granted, from medical and diagnostic equipment to police two-way radios, to cellphones and satelite dishes, and an endless list of other devices would be comprimised. Yet Chuck found a way to operate his radio station without interference to any other station and thus went unnoticed. A few months ago, just a few days after his sudden death, Chucks family went in and turned the transmitter off. His widow is selling his tools and equipment. The extensive record, tape and CD collection is gone. Most of the studio equipment has been sold. The big microphone came home with me. The tower is also for sale, but youre on your own taking it down! Out in the garage still stands the massive rack of equipment, the transmitter and related components, all made by Chucks talented hands. Its for sale. There are, and probably always will be, plenty of other pirate broadcasters out there, theyve been around for ages. Theyve been the subject of movies, and some of you might even remember tuning in a distant station at night on an old AM radio and hearing a DJ named WolfMan Jack on a pirate radio station just across the border in Mexico and just out of reach of the FCC. Todays equipment is purchased on eBay for just a few hundred dollars. Thanks to micro-electronics, its small enough to be concealed in your cars glove box and about as reliable as anything else that comes from China. Plug it in, turn it on, and there you are. Chucks equipment is quite different. Its big and heavy, filled with tubes and filters and wires and the many other components that gave his little station a rich and full-bodied sound lost on todays digital receivers, the means by which he shared his passion for electronics and music with a small and grateful audience in the hills of Tennessee, where he lived out his life by his own rules. Yeah, I wish Id had the chance to know him.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 05:14:49 +0000
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