Customer Reviews

Pirate Radio: The Incredible Saga of America's Underground, Illegal Broadcasters

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Personally, I enjoyed this book. At the time I bought it,12/95, I hadn't heard a pirate broadcast so I listened to the enclosed CD which was especially valuable. It helped me understand how difficult the broadcasts can be to hear, even under the optimum conditions. The book has a nice history of the active pirates both in the U.S. and international past and present. It describes nicely what pirates do, why they do it, and a little on how they do it on shortwave and FM micreobroadcasting. It tells about how the FCC and their perpetual search for the transmitting pirate. Overall, I've learned a lot more about shortwave pirates. Thanks Andrew Yoder for and excellent reference. P.S. I finally heard my first pirate! Take it easy radio on 6955 MHz, they even QSL'd me.

Andrew Yoder has attempted to provide a thorough and in-depth look at the history of the phenomenon of pirate broadcasting. In some respects, he succeeds. The book presents a great deal of information not only on the history of pirate radio, but on other important issues such as FCC enforcement, technology, programming, and more.

However, the book is at times a struggle to read due to being poorly written. It is at once chock full of facts and glaring grammatical errors. Someone so passionate about their subject matter should take more care in crafting their presentation.

The cd included is virtually useless. It includes 18 minutes of extremely short segments from pirate broadcasts. Granted, little pirate material has been recorded, but this audio document serves little purpose. Complete broadcasts, or even more substantial excerpts would have been a much more useful companion to Yoder's book.

The book focuses heavily on pirating in North America. While Yoder covers other cultural contexts, he does so very briefly. As such, these moments seem to stand only as a comparison to US broadcasts.

Overall, the book is worthwhile reading for those interested in the history of pirate radio. Despite the aforementioned flaws, there is a lot of good history here.

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in free speech or broadcasting.