John Anderson at DIYmedia.net breaks down the 103-page report from Meintel, Sgrignoli, & Wallace, Maryland-based consulting engineers hired by the New York State Broadcasters’ Association to report on the breadth of pirate radio in the New York City area. The firm camped out at two New York City locations and two northern New Jersey locations and tuned in 76 different illegal transmitters recently, using dozens of watts up to 3,000 or more. Anderson writes that, "the rest [of the report] is full of conjecture, including such specious assertions that pirate stations interfere with Emergency Alert System broadcasts (they provide no substantive evidence of this); expose unsuspecting citizens to 'significant public health and safety issues' from antenna-radiation (again, no evidence beyond best-guesses); and have the potential to interfere with aviation-related frequencies (yet 'Importantly, our survey did not find that these unauthorized pirate stations were directly causing interference to FAA systems')." Anderson says the reports claims about the interference the station's cause is filled with words such as, “potential,” “may be,” “likely,” “not certain,” and “certainly possible.” The consultants main takeaway is that, “While it is beyond the scope of this analysis to make policy recommendations, it appears more resources and a new enforcement strategy is necessary to address this growing problem since current efforts do not appear to be effective.” Read the full story at DIYmedia.net.

FULL DISCLOSURE: John Anderson is on Wave Farm's board.