The concept of ‘Pirate Radio’ may be steeped in nostalgia for Radio Caroline but the country’s telecoms regulator has kicked off a clampdown of modern-day pirate DJs that it says put lives at risk.
Modern day pirate radio stations are not stationed on ships off the coast as they were in the 1960s but in tower blocks and high rises where they use lift shafts and rooftops to install illegal transmitters. Ofcom, the telecoms and media regulator, has a specialist team that hunts down those stations by monitoring frequencies and identifying illegal stations.
There are 100 pirate stations operating in Britain with three quarters of those in London. New data from Ofcom reveals it made 154 raids against illegal transmitter sites – often the same