Pirate or Private broadcasting
With Ofcom legalizing the use of micro FM transmitters in December 2006 for personal use, defining the boundary marks of what is or isn’t illicit broadcasting becomes increasingly blurred. Strictly speaking these micro transmitters are limited to an output of 50nW with a range of about 8 meters. But I recently purchased one from the local supermarket with the CE marking, and to my surprise I could pick up the signal almost a mile away, and that is broadcasting from within a brick building without any kind of external antenna attached! Recent tests have shown that many of these transmitters are actually nearer 20mW in power output - thousands of times greater than what is legally stipulated and yet they still carry the CE marking. Nobody has ever been prosecuted for using one of these devices, so the question is, how powerful does the transmitter have to be before Ofcom will consider pulling the plug on it and consider it to be a pirate transmission. Is it 100 nW, 50 mW 500mW, or 1 Watt?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
