[BC] The demented pirate (WAS:sign off procedures.)

[WFIFeng@aol.com]

In a message dated 02/21/2006 4:09:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
SBailey at nespower.com writes:

> Wow...I'd love to hear them! 

Well, I hope I can find it. It was on a cart. I'll have to see if it wasn't 
discarded a number of years ago, when the "white tornado" swooshed through, 
after we had our automation system up & running.

> Why in the world would a pirate fire up on
>  1500 after your sign off. Did he have some beef against your station?
>  That makes no sense to me!

It only made sense to the guy who did it. To say that he had a "beef" with 
the station would be an understatement. He was obsessed with being a "radio 
terrorist". His insanity dates back to years before this, when he would so 
seriously tick-off the local CB'ers, that they did things like pour buckets of urine 
into his car, slice his coax into little 1" pieces, filling his mailbox with 
them, and finally culminated by them throwing a dead dog through his living 
room window. I think that was when his wife said "Enough!" because my 
understanding of the CB story is that after that, he stopped.

Then he targetted us.

We found out about it when a listener called us to tell us that there was 
"some guy getting on the air after we signed-off, saying all kinds of wierd 
stuff." The following day, I set up a radio to listen to our frequency, and sure 
enough, there he was.

The day after that, I created that special sign-off cart. We never got 
another listener call after that... but he persisted, anyway. Numerous reports were 
filed with the FCC, and I understand that twice, they sent an Agent here but 
the guy was not on the air either of those two times.

He was *very* sporadic, sometimes he'd run two days in a row, then *weeks* of 
nothing. Then he'd be on, then nothing for a month or two. Then he'd be on 2 
or 3 times in a week, then nothing for several more weeks. This went on, 
literally, for *years*, playing cat-and-mouse. Only the content of his "blabcasts" 
changed, once we got to Court. (More on this, later.)

Within the first year, we got a visit from the engineer at WICC (Ed Butler, 
who remains a friend to this day) asking us if we knew we had a pirate 
operating on our frequency. "Do we ever!" was my reply. Well, he asked if I would like 
to know where he lived, and I just about jumped out of my socks! "Yes!" (I 
had been trying to triangulate him for *months*, by this time. (Many of his 
transmissions were only a minute or two in duration.) So, he showed me the guy's 
house. It was only about 1/4 mile, line-of-sight from us. 

After Ed was kind enough to point out his location to us, I didn't have to 
park in different parts of Milford every day after sign-off, FIM at the ready, 
waiting to try and get a fix on him. (I did that routine from the time the 
Baseball strike & Berlin wall fell, until the following spring.)

Turns out that I was getting close, actually, but it would probably have 
taken a few more months of his sporadic transmissions before I'd have found him. 
Ed found him because he had left his transmitter on for about two hours, long 
after dark. Ed had decided to just "scan the band" and where he expected to 
hear WTOP, he heard a loud heterodyne and the "Delilah" show, instead! He also 
heard the liners, spots, and so forth from WICC's sister FM station, WEBE, and 
determined that it was a show which had aired some weeks before. He went home, 
got his FIM, and did a little "recreational RDF'ing" that night. Since the guy 
had left his transmitter on all that time, it didn't take Ed too long to 
zero-in on it. I certainly am grateful to him for this, among other things! :)

I'll never forget the July evening when I left Church, and started the car... 
only to hear my radio with his voice coming out of it, calling me denigrating 
names! I high-tailed it to the station, and dumped the carrier on top of him! 
(At that time, we were signing-off at 8pm, but we could have been on until 
8:45. Since I had several more minutes to go, I jammed him for as long as I 
could, gave an ID, and that was it.)

He also decided to try his hand at it in the morning, before sign-on. Well, I 
was ready for him. I always kept a radio on so I would know if he was 
there... and sure enough, one morning, he fired it up. I grabed a portable radio, ran 
upstairs to the TX room, and hit the Plates. 5Kw of white noise, right on top 
of him. He barely got two words out. I left it run a few minutes, then 
dropped it. (This was before 6am, during the "Experimental Period".) Nothing but 
WTOP. A minute or so later, there was his carrier. I waited. The instant I heard 
audio, "Click!" and 5Kw of white noise greeted him. We played that cat&mouse 
game about 3 times, until he gave up. After a few minutes, I just put the dead 
carrier on, and went downstairs and gave the Legal. The carrier remained on 
for about 5 more mintes, until the 6am sign-on cart.

The following morning, lather, rinse, repeat. That was the very last time he 
ever tried the morning, though. He knew by then that it would be fruitless. He 
was no match for 5Kw, and my tenacity. ;)

Anyway, after a whole bunch of his kind of on-air hoopla, we finally had our 
day in Court. I came in with a voluminous amount of recordings. I think he 
must have been startled at the amount. I had carefully chosen the most damning 
recordings of the stack, to be played first. One was a recording of him 
testing... in it, he called-out his sister's name several times. 
She responed (way-off-mic) by saying, "What (name)?!?"
He said, "Can you hear me?"
She said "I don't WANNA hear you!"

There were many others, but that was the best, since we had documented the 
fact that he does have a sister by that name, and you could hear her call out 
his name as well.

Well, after that first day in Court, all the time vehemently denying that it 
was him, his on-air routine *completely* changed! Never again did we hear his 
voice. From that time until the trial was done, and the Judge's Order actually 
carried-out, all he did was play excerpts of Howard, and part of the 'Stones 
song, "Start me up!" where it says, "Start me up! I never stop! I never stop!" 
over and over. Still, we kept recording. One evening I was able to get 5 or 6 
directional readings, all converging on his house, all the while a friend sat 
in my car, watching. (He was a witness at the trial.) We presented that in 
Court as well.

It was a nightmare, let me tell you! At least it finally ended sometime in 
1994. A couple years later, he begged to have us drop the lien we held against 
his house, and actually apologized for all the trouble he caused! (This after 
years of vehement denials.) The best part is that all of it had finally 
stopped, and has never returned.

There's more, but it's just tedious and somewhat redundant. This is the 
"Reader's Digest" version. ;)

Willie...