What happened to Jewish Radio In Flabush??

It’s hard to know what happened. Years back Jroot which was on 97.5 was raided by the FCC and shutdown. There is discussion about this in t archives. They were back on the air shortly after. As mentioned earlier equipment is cheap. Also, enforcement actions from the FCC are slow and mired down in bureaucracy. Additionally even when fines are levied, there’s a government statute that allows the fine to be reduced ability to pay. There are also more informal actions where enforcement comes by and orders a shutdown without additional penalty. Jroot stayed on the air until a Christian religious station from South Jersey was allowed to legally place a “translator” transmitter on the frequency. They moved to 94.1 but went off shortly after that. Kol Hashalom has been on more than ten years and very rarely goes off. Last time that happened, several weeks went by and they came back. There’s a website about Brooklyn’s pirate stations that might be of interest: pirateradiomap . It has recordings of some of the Heimish stations that have popped up over the years…an unidentified one on 91.9 that only lasted a few weeks and 105.7 which seemed related to the Lubavitchers. Btw, they were one of the earliest Jewish pirates on the air starting in the late 90’s…with WWMN: We Welcome Moschiach Now.

<Why does anyone need broadcast radio?

Oh, that’s easy. Outside of owning the radio it’s free to use. You don’t have pay a monthly fee to the internet company, install and update software etc. and that makes them easily accessible to the poor and elderly. The interface is simple to use and they’re very portable. Even if you feel the programming is not kosher you can keep one around to hear the weather and announcements in emergency conditions. Radio will get through when the internet is down. In totalitarian countries like China and Iran radio will get through from outside the border when the government pulls the switch on it’s internet service.

Kol Hashalom 88.7 has come back on the air this evening. It’s unclear why they were off for about the past six weeks. Perhaps they got a notice or visit from the FCC while they laid low for awhile and looked for a new location for their transmitter and antenna….(a common modus operandi among Flatbush’s pirate stations.) Or maybe it was a unrelated technical or financial difficulty or an extended trip to Israel by key station personnel. If anyone has word on this please share it here.

Because the FCC is largely a paper tiger. For years stations get warned and if they wait long enough they can go back on the air and not get bothered for awhile longer. There is a new law the PIRATE act which increases fines and tries to pare down some of the bureaucratic red tapes that makes it hard to take the pirates off the air. But there is no extra money in the Act to enable more enforcement and there has long been a statute on the books that allows fines to be redu
ced to ability to pay. As for the station operators, many of them have a strong need to serve their community, be it Jewish, Haitian, Jamaican etc. and there’s probably a profit involved too from selling ads, although I don’t think a whole lot of money comes in that way. Mostly, it seems to be a labor of love.

Oy huju, such reasoning! If your marriage is a labor of love why would you hit your wife? You love her!

Anyway, what I was trying to give some insight into what the motivation of the pirate radio operator is and why they consider it a grey area and something they can sometimes get away with. It depends who you talk to…when Jroot was raided and shutdown several years ago there was a big discussion on these forums. The Jroot people said their rebbes had justified their breaking the law (and also attacked frum Jews for reporting them, although it’s more likely the complaints came from the Long Island station they were interfering with) Other people cited other rebbes that said it was wrong and how could they do such a thing.