Linkage Radio, the New York pirate & the FCC Chase

 

In 2022 I was lucky enough to walk the streets of Flatbush and Brooklyn with Professor David Goren, the creator of the ‘Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map’, seeking out the myriad of pirate radio stations that were located in that area. In 2023 I came across an excellent video from Ringway Manchester about pirates in the New York area and they mentioned how a new crackdown had begun in New York by the FCC against the illegal broadcasters.

At this point we must mention President Donald Trump (yes, I must) as during his singular term in office in January 2020 he signed a new Act that would attempt to tackle the issue. The PIRATE ACT, standing for Preventing Illegal Radio Abuse Through Enforcement, was designed like legislation in Ireland not just to go after the transmitters and studios of pirate broadcasters but also to implement penalties against landlords and landowners who provide space for the stations. In the video they spoke about a landlord, Michelle Hepburn, in Mount Vernon who had received a notice from the FCC that pirate transmissions had been traced to a building she owned and that as a result she was liable for fines in excess of two million dollars. This set me off on a trawl to find out more about this station which was broadcasting Caribbean music.

 

When I searched for pirate radio activity in the Mount Vernon area of the Bronx in New York, the name Dexter Blake appeared and he is a fascinating character. His first brush with the FCC dates to August 13^th 2008 when the FCC traced broadcasts on 101.5mhz FM to Mount Vernon and a Caribbean restaurant known as The Linkage based at 78 East 3^rd Street. The radio station was known as Linkage Radio. In March 2009, Dexter was issued with an official ‘Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture’. Dexter was deemed as ‘apparently, wilfully and repeatedly violated Section 301 of the Broadcasting Act 1934.’

Dexter was born in Jamaica before immigrating to the United States. He made the headlines in 2017, when it was reported that when Dexter attempted to bring his two young children from the Caribbean Island to join him in the Big Apple, part of the visa process that a DNA test was required from both children and to his shock and horror it turned out that he was not the father to either child. According to reporter Claude Mills,

‘A popular Jamaican radio disc jockey is devastated this afternoon after he got a letter from a DNA agency informing him that the two kids he had fathered with two Jamaican women were not his biological children. He said that he had spent close to US$300,000 on both his kids since their birth.

DNA tests are required by the US Embassy in Kingston as a vital part of its immigrant visa process over the years has confirmed that a number of women are assigning paternity of their children to the wrong man, a term called ‘jackets’ in the Jamaican vernacular. The number of ‘jackets’ was contained in a diplomatic cable captioned ‘fraud summary’ and covered the period March 2009 to August 2009. According to the leaked diplomatic cable, the US Embassy in Kingston “often requests applicants to undergo DNA testing because their fathers’ name is either not on the birth certificate at all, or was added many years after their birth”.

However, one in every 10 men who turns up at the US Embassy is told the DNA test proves that he is not the biological father of the child he is filing for.’

According to the Radio World newsletter in July 2010

‘The Federal Communications Commission has confirmed a $10,000 fine in the case of a radio pirate in New York. The Enforcement Bureau said Dexter Blake didn’t respond to a notice of apparent liability it issued in March of last year for an unlicensed transmitter on 101.5 MHz in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., northeast of Manhattan.

In the summer of 2008, agents out of the New York Enforcement Bureau office traced transmissions to the Linkage Caribbean Restaurant and spotted an FM antenna on the roof. Taken up by the building super, they saw coaxial cable going through a duct to the first floor where Linkage Caribbean Restaurant operated.

The agents said they talked to restaurant workers, who called Blake; one of the agents spoke to Blake, who admitted to operating the station, according to the commission. The commission staff also reported it had done an Internet search and found a website called “Linkage Radio,” which identified Dexter Blake, “DJ Linkage,” as the owner of the station and restaurant.

 

The FCC remained on his trail and in May 2010 transmissions on 101.5mhz was traced to 238 3^Rd Street, Mount Vernon. The building owner, NWO Properties Corporation received a NUO a Notice of Unlicensed Operation’.

Dexter Blake championed Caribbean artistes in New York giving them an outlet on the air and even created an annual awards ceremony to celebrate the music. In May 2016 in a report published by the New York State Broadcasters Association, ‘Field Measurements of Unauthorized FM Band Radio Signals In New York, NY Metropolitan Area’, they identified 2874 Grand Concourse Bronx, NY as the location of pirate transmissions on 104.5 which was a second frequency now being used by Linkage Radio. They described the signals as a ‘very strong pirate signal’.

On the left is a photo taken for the New York Broadcasters association highlighting the FM aerial on the roof in 2016. On the right is a Google Map image from 2023, the aerial has gone.

The Notice of Forfeiture did not put him off the air and his next brush with the law was in 2017 when the landlord of the restaurant he was now located in received a NUO, the owner of the 53 Sea Lounge, Bar and Restaurant, George Brown received the notice to his business at 53 Mount Vernon Avenue. The station was now broadcasting on 104.5mhz FM. The station was described in an article in The Radio World as not only the HQ for Linkage Radio but also as ‘a cosy spot to play checkers and chow down on curry shrimp’

His most recent brush with the FCC was when transmissions on 104.5 were traced to Michelle Hepburn building at 159 South 13^th Avenue, Mount Vernon. As the landlord, Ms. Hepburn received the notification and was threatened with fines in excess of $2million if the broadcasts continued from her building. 

The building on South 13th Avenue with the FM aerial on the roof. (2022 Google Map)

The station continues today playing their cat and mouse game with the FCC. A check on MapQuest shows the location of the station at 5 Fulton Avenue, Mount Vernon. We hope that Dexter and Linkage Radio has many more years of out running the law and entertaining his loyal listeners. His station can be found on Tune-In

Radio in Thurles, Co. Tipperary

 

An hour and a three quarters from Dublin is the Tipperary town of Thurles. Although more famous for its Feile in the past and Semple Stadium today, the population of just over 8,000 has since the Seventies had a flirtation with radio broadcasting in their town. The first Radio Thurles[1] was set up for the Suirside Festival in the town in 1977. The festival was held from August 21^st – 28^th 1977.  The station was operated from a caravan in Liberty Square in the town.

According to the Tipperary Star

‘Radio Thurles has had thousands of-, requests, played for people "deeply in love", lost fans of the late Elvis Presley, tourists returned exiles etc.’

The paper also reported that those ‘spinning the discs’ included Mary Grace, Jim Kearns, Kendall and Michael O'Brien, Johnny Kearns, Jackie O'Brien, Mary Gleeson and Tim Corbett.

The next Radio Thurles began broadcasting on 230mMW. A small low powered station that broadcast to the County Tipperary town that opened in 1978. The studios were in an abandoned building attached to a castle ruins in the town. The station hijacked the station title Community Radio Thurles when they heard that RTE’s mobile service would be in the town in October 1979 forcing the state broadcaster RTE to title itself Thurles Community Radio.

Independent Radio Thurles on 222m MW was a short lived station that began broadcasting on St Patrick’s Day 1979. Then came the RTE’s mobile radio station now known as Thurles Community Radio or Raidio Phobail Dhurlas.

 

Another version of  Community Radio Thurles appeared on 100mhz FM. Following a number of various incarnations, this version of CRT began test transmissions on November 9^th 1981. The following December, the Southern Star newspaper reported,

‘Community Radio Thurles has just completed a very successful week of test transmissions. From the enormous response received it has been decided that the station, will commence broadcasting on a permanent basis from Monday, 14th of December.

The station will be broadcasting from a new and eminently more suitable premises. At present a varied schedule of programmes is being prepared and will include a variety of programmes to suit all sections of the community, both young and old. A strong element of community involvement in the station is hoped for and many local bodies are being contacted with a view to forming a programme management committee.

Broadcasting will be between the hours of 6—11 p.m. from Monday to Friday and between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Why not tune in to Community Radio Thurles on 100 Megahertz F.M. It will be worth your while.’

In January 1982, the station moved to a new studio and began broadcasting on a permanent basis to the Tipperary town. The station changed its title slightly to Thurles Local Community Radio.

 

Today apart from the independent franchise Mid-West Radio and the community station Tipperary Community Radio, you will find Thurles parish church radio on FM 106.4.

Sources

Radiowaves.fm

Pirate.ie

The DX Archive

The Irish Newspaper Archives

The Tipperary Star.

 

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[1] Originally known as Radio Suirside

When Pirate Radio Nova Stole RTE's Treasure

 

For a generation a bad from Derry with a unique sound and a remarkable lead singer, the Undertones and Fergal Sharkey cut a swathe through the charts and hearts of music aficionados.

But their reign at the top would come to a premature halt in 1983, when they decided to split and play one last gig, pencilled in for the Punchestown racecourse on July 17th. It would become headline news at home and abroad and it would generate many column inches in newspapers and music magazine including Hot Press, the NME and Rolling Stone. But strangely the Irish national broadcaster almost completely ignored the event thanks to one of the gigs main promoters, the illegal pirate station Radio Nova. This scandal came just months after the authorities had raided Nova in May and briefly closed them. The only show to give any serious coverage was Dave Fanning’s RTE Radio 2’s rock show, of course Mr. Fanning was a former pirate broadcaster in his own right. The band were playing support to the top of the bill, Dire Straits.

(c) The RTE Guide

The top selling RTE Guide in advance of the gig advertised that ‘the promoter has offered our readers six double tickets for this rock festival’. They failed to mention who the promoter was, Radio Nova in associations with Paul Charles’s Asgard Promotions.

The Evening Herald Monday September 6th 1982

A year earlier in 1982, feathered had been ruffled at RTE HQ, when the Evening Herald ran a ‘Mystery Voice’ competition on the radio. They would offer clues in their newspaper and allow contestants to post in their answers. When the competition began on September 6^th 1982, the advert in the evening edition pointed listeners to listen to the ‘Mystery Voice’ on RTE Radio and Radio Nova, the state broadcasters illegal competition. No advertisement appeared in the next days edition as RTE executives made their feelings clear to the editorial board at the national newspaper. The following day the new clue pointer appeared by rather than naming the stations on which the promotion was running, it was simply referred to ‘on the radio’. Within eighteen months of going on the air, Radio Nova was leading the rating despite their illegal status.

Evening Herald, Wednesday September 8th 1982

The Original 2RN in 1924

The history books tell us that the forerunner of RTE Radio One, 2RN began broadcasting on January 1^st 1926. The callsign 2RN had been assigned to the new Irish broadcasting station by the British post office but 2RN was not the first applied for callsign and the Little Denmark Street based station was not the first application of the 2RN callsign.

In 1924[1] when negotiations were taking place as to whether a new Irish Free State radio station should be a commercial enterprise or a state run monopoly, a Dail wireless committee heard that a group of five companies led by Andrew Belton’s Industrial Developments Limited had coalesced into the Irish Broadcasting Company. The IBC was to apply for the licence as a commercial station but a political scandal involving Belton and a committee member Darrell Figgis led to the decision to be taken that the Irish station would be state run. In anticipation of obtaining a licence, Belton applied to the British Post Office for the callsign 4RN[2] as in ‘For Erin’ but at the time there was no callsigns with the number 4 designation. Instead, the British Post Office allocated the callsign 2RN as in ‘come back TO Erin’ instead.

The issue initially was that there was already a wireless operator with the callsign 2RN. It had been assigned to David Daniel Richards, a resident at ‘Mametz House,’ 36 Bontnewydd Terrace in Trelewis, Glamorgan, Wales. Richards was a demobbed British soldier after the First World War who had acquired wireless operator knowledge at the front. To allow for the Irish station to use his callsign, in 1924 his callsign slightly changed to 2 ARN.

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[1] Maurice Gorham’s ’40 Years of Irish Radio’.

[2] The 4RN callsign would later be used by a Queensland radio station.