The Radio Informer- It's About Radio: Pirates grounded as pilots tune in to wicked tunes over Birmingham

EST

Please Note

New Radio Informer Site/Address

Welcome to the radio informer! You will be directed to the new site shortly Or Click Here to go there now.

The radio informer unveils it new site using the utilities site that the radio informer had all it links and info on. Now that has been combined with the news that you would see on the original radio informer site.It gives better navigation with items on seperate pages. It is a long web address to the site which is http://www.freewebs.com/theradioinformerutilities so a shorter url is made for you http://shortlink.co.uk/p90 this will direct you to the new radio informer site.Best to put the link in your favourites/bookmarks.The old site http://theradioinformer.blogspot.com/ will still be up might not be updated as much but will still have archive news items on it. Thanks.

mailto:theradioinformer@hotmail.com

Remember victims of war november 11 11am 2 minutes silence a link box with links to radio resources at bottom of site

toolbar powered by Conduit

Visit The Radio Informer Group Click Here

Translate

The Radio Informer Radio News Content: Below:

-------------------------------------------

Name: The Informer

Location: Essex, United Kingdom

View my complete profile

Orion Radio on air orion_radio_...

Relay on 9290 khz -7th May

Message Board

Pirate Radio Survival Guide

RFL Mailing list group.

Talking radio makes tuning even easier

Dutch market leader Radio 538 reportedly up for sale

Scandinavian Weekend Radio

Pipeline radio Sky Announcement

The Radio Informer Radio Watch for 30/4/05

View my Links Page
Free Links Page by Bravenet.com

View my Guestbook
Free Guestbooks by Bravenet.com

View my Online Calendar
Free Calendars by Bravenet.com

Downloads
Technology News
Templates
Web Hosting
Articles
Games
Blogger
Google

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Pirates grounded as pilots tune in to wicked tunes over Birmingham

CREDIT: www.theguardian.co.uk

Laura Smith
Tuesday May 3, 2005
The Guardian

Pilots coming in to land over Birmingham have been greeted with an unexpected sound over their headphones: garage music.
The dance music, which has a loud, thumping and repetitive bassline, threatened to drown out vital instructions from air traffic controllers as passenger jets made their descent into Birmingham international airport.

Officers from the communications watchdog, Ofcom, along with West Midlands police, shut down the musical distraction after tracing it to a pirate radio station transmitter atop a city centre tower block.

The "cobbled together" transmitter and aerials, which broadcast over two frequencies, were seized in a raid on a flat in the Highgate area on Wednesday. It is thought that the DJ and the pirate station's studio, which is believed to operate nearby, have yet to be found.
An Ofcom spokesman said it had launched the raid after receiving complaints from pilots. "This is not just some guys having a bit of fun and trying to get their break in radio," he said. "This has the potential to cause massive problems for essential services."

But a spokeswoman for the National Air Traffic Services stressed the music had not posed a threat to passenger safety.

"These were short bursts of interference which did not upset our operations or instructions to pilots," she said.

"It did not threaten safety because we have got safety procedures in place and we can switch to other frequencies if we have to. We did not need to in this case."

The plane crews whose flightpaths took them over Birmingham were warned of the specific locations where there was a risk of interference.

The Ofcom spokesman said inspectors had used directional receivers to locate the transmitter. "There was not a safety issue in this case although we take these situations seriously," he said.

Birmingham is not the only airport to have been affected by interference from pirate radio stations. Three years ago, the pilot of a passenger jet coming in to land at Heathrow was forced to switch to a back-up frequency when instructions from ground control were drowned out by dance and garage music from a transmitter in south London.

The station disrupted air traffic control for more than six hours until an enforcement team shut it down. Pilots from City airport in east London have also complained of music in their headphones.