I have given this some thought myself. However, I ended up coming to the conclusion that this thread is no more dangerous to the station than are reports to the Loggings section. A quick search there will find all of this data. Of course, that then brings up the question of should we be logging pirates at all, or is that a danger to them? As it is, with YHWH I am logging less than 1 out of 4 times I hear it, and I am not hearing every transmission he makes, for example I seldom listen during the day. He is also being logged in online SWL lists by other listeners. I have been on the verge of no longer logging him online him at all several times, and I am about there again.
I am not sure what could be done here to protect YHWH in any way other than maybe to not report him on the forums at all, and even that would probably not help. If he is not the next SW Pirate to get the knock then it is simply because the FCC does not want to do it at this time. His habits are almost every possible thing you could do wrong while operating a pirate station. The other day I heard a couple hams on a local repeater discussing his transmission at the time he was on the air, they obviously where listening to his transmission and knew of him and his habits, and it was not the first time they had heard him. They had DFed him and had his location fairly tightly defined. As a side note, these guys did not appear to have an issue with his transmission, other than to comment on his somewhat out there views, it appeared to be more a curiosity than anything else, and when I jumped on the machine to ask questions no one appeared to have any intent to report him.
What does he do wrong for an HF Pirate? A quick search of the forums or other web site SWL listings, and listening to his programming, will show:
He transmits multiple times per day, almost every day, in programming chunks about one hour each. Some days I have seen him be on air for up to 6 hours. 2 or more hours per day is almost a given.
He fairly frequently runs back to back programs on the same frequency, meaning he can be on one frequency for sometimes 2 hours or more.
He runs the same frequency, or very close to the same frequency, multiple days in a row, and at approximately the same time every day. He announces the approximate frequencies and times as part of his program.
He makes a periodic habit of running just inside or just outside a Ham band.
His on-air announced power level is 500 Watts.
He has on-air announced his location with fair detail and accuracy, although he stopped doing that a while back.
Unless he is driving to multiple locations for his multiple times on the air each day then he is transmitting from the same location each time.
I really just don’t see much that can keep him off the FCC radar other than to stop or alter these habits. With his power level, location relative to 3 different District offices, and repeated use of given frequencies, there is almost no way he has not been noticed, unless they are just too busy to bother, in which case nothing said here matters. What do ya’ll think?
T!
