Pirates Whip Up Storm Of Sounds

(Evening Mail August 9, 1988)        Pirates whip up storm of sounds
Cruise the radio airways and new sounds leap out, How come? Because listeners fed up with Kylie Minogue are tuning into an alternative - Birmingham's pirate stations.        Zak Mughal started Midland Asian Radio (106.5 FM) because, he believes, Asians had nothing else to listen to. More seriously, he claims, vital information on such issues as AIDS was not getting through.           The station broadcasts music and chat shows, mainly in Hindustani, and now claims 10,000 listeners.         Yes, pirate stations are illegal - broadcasting without a licence carries a maximum penalty of £2,000 and/or three months in jail  -- but	they justify their existence by claiming they often provide a service which doesn't exist else where.        Raids by inspectors from the Department of Trade and Industry, which monitors the stations, are the price pirates have to pay.   DJ Chicken George said that since PCRL (103.5 FM) started three years ago, it has been raided 111 times and had £200,000 of equipment confiscated.            These days the pirates image is changing. Gone are the days when fumbling presenters broadcast from bedrooms when they felt like it.	They take their work seriously and want to be legit. Many have already applied for community licences, ready for the Home Secretary's shake-up of the radio network.        PCRL prides itself on being a community station and it ran a campaign to encourage listeners to beat the deadline and register ass British citizens.       Weekend station Fresh (95 FM)  plays a whole range of soul music - from hip-hop to soca. Enterprise (91.9 FM) is a predominantly black music station. It's DJs are aged 11-60 and programmes include oldies show and a gospel set. Pirates have been criticised for broadcasting over legal	stations and hampering the emergency services but Hakeem of Fresh is quick to respond. Fresh's wavelength is officially given to BBC local radio, but the nearest station is WM on 96.6 FM. Hakeem say's that nobody broadcasts on 95 FM - so they use it and believe that it's far enough from WM not to cause any interference.        The pirates know which frequencies are the emergency services use and stay well clear, he says.        Their image is sure to improve if many are granted licences. Then the market will be ripe for a surge of small stations playing jazz, lps of heavy rock.
(DJ Chicken George, Pumping up the volume despite the raids and confiscation of equipment) home: pcrlfm.co.uk