North American Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame

Fellow Radio Enthusiasts from all walks of life, please welcome to our ranks, the North American Pirate Radio Hall of Fame! Ragnar has posted the introduction over at HFUnderground. Suffice it to say that of all of the unique halls of fame, this is likely the most meaningful because most anyone can learn the everyday things that a hall of fame is usually meant for honoring, but radio is quite a technical skill.

When people see a radio, they usually just think of a microphone and a transmitter, their minds jump to some sort of antenna and it ends there. The word "Pirate" in Pirate Radio does not mean some guy who looks like Captain Hook on the high seas with an old gun ship and a radio transmitter! Pirate radio means an unlicensed station transmitting on the shortwave bands.

A proper pirate radio station sticks closely to the engineering standards ascribed for licensed amateurs or licensed commercial stations, does not bother the neighbors by tearing their electronics up, and does not knowingly transmit on top of existing radio signals authorized to be on their frequency. The most unruly pirate stations will discard these rules and most who behave this way do not last long. The longest running stations operate for years or even decades without being detected by the Feds.

Let's be honest, we all love hearing pirate stations because it is a break from the same day in / day out shortwave listening. Want to know something? The Feds don;t care to chase down these stations so long as they behave. They have other places to use their resources in.

The NAPRHOF as we will always know this organization, devotes itself to professional standards that call for uniqueness, creativity, and other requirements before a pirate station becomes an inductee. According to the most important piece of their standards, a list is made and then whittled down in the same way most other halls of fame whittle down their lists to get the finalists for induction.

Welcome to the North American Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame! Shortwave America wishes you all the best as the organization grows.

The first list of inductees, ever,  starting in 2010 are:

• Allan Weiner/RNI
• Radio Clandestine
• Radio Garbanzo
• V. of the Voyager
• Voice of BoB
• Voice of Laryngitis
• WUMS
   
   Meet The NAPRHOF Board:
   
  Pat Murphy, John T Arthur, James Brownyard. Larry Will, Ragnar Daneskjold, Bill Finn, Gregory Majewski, Andy Yoder, and George Zeller. 
   
  All of the above are gentlemen of the radio circle recognized for their expertise.
   
  This organization is something for the friends and fans of radio to keep an eye on!