Pirate radio in Australasia

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Australian radio audiences have had virtually no exposure to pirate radio. There were no broadcasts as part of the World War II propaganda campaigns and commercial as well as community stations alongside the taxpayer funded Australian Broadcasting Commission were available during the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s - a period when the UK was experiencing a surge in illegal broadcasts during the early days of acid house and the Second Summer of Love. The absence of pirate radio in Australia is primarily attributed to the relatively large number of commercial licences that were issued, particularly after World War 2, as well as the existence of public (later renamed community) non-commercial broadcasting licenses supported mainly by listener subscription. Additionally, the lack of availability of imported broadcasting equipment and the likely application of severe, legislated penalties including jail for offenders, would also have been a factor. A mere handful of incidents are documented:

Australia

• Early to mid 1960s Bruce Jackson and friends from Vaucluse High School were raided by the PMG for operating an AM pirate station that unbeknown to them covered all of Sydney.^[1]
• 1966 Radio Prosh transmitts from a ship in international waters off Kangaroo Island. Ernie Sigley plays host. The PMG jams the signal from the mainland. A number of protests result but the station is short lived.^[2]
• Early 1970s: University students and draft resisters, protesting against conscription in Australia and the Vietnam War, set up pirate radio stations broadcasting on the AM band called Radio Draft Resistance at Sydney and Melbourne Universities for short periods of time.
• December 1986: A series of test broadcasts from a radio station calling itself Radio Uranus was heard in Melbourne on 98.4 MHz. They said that they were preparing for a major broadcast on Christmas Eve. The test broadcasts consisted of two people (possibly the station's founders) playing music and talking in between tracks. The second test broadcast sounded like they were on a boat, as a boat engine could clearly be heard in the background, and they may have even said that they were on a boat or ship.
• 18–19 November 1989: Radio Uranus was heard once again, with another series of test broadcasts, one on each day, heard on 93.7 MHz. It was not until 5:00 p.m. on 19 November, when the test broadcast ended and a proper broadcast began, that the identity of the station was known. The broadcast consisted of the same format of music and talk as in 1986. According to the presenters, they were using a 10 kW transmitter located in Kinglake (in the outer east of Melbourne. The transmission even featured a cross to their 'stereo cruiser' located near the City. The broadcast ended suddenly some time after 8:30 p.m. when the presenters interrupted the song being played to say that they were raided.^[3][4]
• 30 December 1992: A pirate radio station calling itself 3PPP was heard on the FM band in the inner suburbs of Melbourne from before 10:30 p.m. till some time after midnight. The broadcast featured music and talk.
• 1990s: Two pirates broadcasting on shortwave from Australia were heard world wide. The stations were called Radio G'day and Tasmainia Radio Int.
• 1991: An FM pirate radio station called "Radio Heinz" broadcast from Wangaratta (Northeast Victoria), with a power of 50W for three months. The station played entire music albums with voice announcements in between. It gained rapid popularity as an alternative to the 3NE commercial station and WPR-FM community radio station, until it was forced to shut down.
• 2001: Radio Eureka made several broadcasts with power of approximately 12 Watts on frequency 6235 kHz.
• 2004: 22 August. Tower Radio 11412 kHz also 6270 kHz 50 Watts.
• 2011: 25 September-5 October. A station was heard in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne on 1485 kHz on several evenings commencing 25 September.^[5] The station carried a rebroadcast of My MP, a digital only commercial radio station. On 5 October, the Australian Communications and Media Authority reported that it shut down an unlicensed AM radio station operating on 1485 kHz from Chadstone following a complaint.^[6]

New Zealand

• 1966: Radio Hauraki broadcast from the MV Tiri that was moored in international waters near Auckland, and in 1968 from the MV Tiri II. This was the only ship-based pirate station to ever broadcast in the Southern Hemisphere which it did for 1,111 days, although it was subsequently discovered that the ship had in fact always been moored in NZ territorial waters (Hauraki Gulf).^[7] In 1970 it was granted a license to broadcast from land and a successor company still broadcasts to the Auckland market under the Radio Hauraki brand and is networked nationwide.
• 1972 Radio Bosom broadcast briefly until Post Office inspectors found and seized the transmitter which was concealed in a maintenance tunnel under a University of Auckland building.^[8] Now known as bFM, the station broadcasts legally from the University of Auckland student union building.
• 1980: Kiwi Radio began broadcasting as Radio Freedom on both shortwave and FM, changing the name to Kiwi Radio in 1983. Kiwi Radio ceased in 1997.

References