Forum.RttP{Pirate radio station}

...well sort of. I was flipping through the radio a couple days ago and somehow had it on AM. I came to a station playing Metallica, some very old Metallica. The stuff you don't normally hear on radio. I was sort of stunned. I kept listening as they played Black Sabbath, Queen, Quiet Riot, Sex Pistols...some good ol classic rock. Now keep in mind that i'm in Albany. And Albany doesn't have any good classic rock stations anymore. They've long since been changed over to alternative or shitty modern pop-rock (thx clear channel!). So after listening for a damn long time i realized that there was no DJ. No commercials. No station ID. Just good music all day long.

I eventually figured out i was listening to WCKL 560kHz AM out of Catskill, NY about 20m south of me. Doing some research i dug up what little info there is about this station online.

http://blog.free103point9.org/2009/06/cats...lls-silent-radio-station-doing.html

It's a pretty long and confusing story, but apparently the station was bought by the Black United Fund. Some African-American nonprofit support group. The group was under investigation by then AG and former governer Eliot Spitzer (oh yeah remember that guy? Mr Resigned-cause-i-used-tax-money-to-buy-a-prostitute). Well i guess they were using the station as talk radio to promote African-American...something or other. I guess in the wake of the Spitzer investigation, the guy who was in charge of paying rent on the stations studio left the organization. Eventually the landlord threw all the stations stuff out and the frequency went dark.

The FCC has been trying to pull the stations license but someone read some fine print i guess and as long as they broadcast a few weeks a year the FCC cant kick em off the air. Thing is, i guess no one really knows who 'owns' the license anymore...if anyone. My guess is someone once affiliated with the BUF or maybe just and old WCKL DJ figured out the frequency wasnt being used and threw together a transmitter and once a year they broadcast to get around the FCC stuff. I'm guessing they're just playing out of their own personal stash.

I'm hoping this keeps going. Everything i've read says they usually are only on-air for a few days. Well that article is from the beginning of June when they played a Quiet Riot CD and Twisted Sister "Were not gonna take it" on loop all day long. So it's been going almost a full month now.

Currently i'm listening to Primus, they just played Pink Floyd. Zappa before that. I'm loving this.