Radio Newyork International
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Broadcast area | New York, New Jersey and adjacent US states Worldwide |
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Frequency | 190 kHz LW 1620 kHz MW 6.24 MHz SW 103.1 MHz FM |
Programming | |
Format | oldies |
History | |
First air date | July 1987 and October 1988. |
Technical information | |
Power | variable. Capable of 5kW (AM), 300w (Shortwave), & 10kW (FM) |
Radio Newyork International was the name of a pirate radio station which broadcast from a ship anchored in international waters off Jones Beach, New York, United States in 1987 and 1988. The history of Radio Newyork International (RNI) is linked with the Falling Star Network and other New York City area pirate radio stations. The owner of RNI, Allan Weiner, is currently the licensee of WBCQ shortwave in Monticello, Maine.
Brief history
John Ford and Allan Weiner
Allan Weiner of
Lichfield I
In 1987 Weiner and his associates came into possession of a vessel still legally registered as Lichfield I and owned by the Lichfield Shipping and Trading Company of
It was during the brief period when the fraudulent Honduran entry had been created that this Panamanian ship, which lacked a working engine, was transformed into the home of Radio Newyork International by Weiner and Hungerford. While the station was actually called Radio New York International, the name contraction gave Weiner the opportunity to use of the old Radio Northsea International jingles and thus call their station RNI. The ship station had several transmitters and a studio on board, and it was towed to its location off Long Island by Frank Ganter using his tugboat the M/V Munzer. It was Ganter who had obtained the vessel from the U.S. Government officials and then sold it to Weiner for $30,000.
When broadcasting began the RNI signals were picked up over half of the United States; the first song they aired, fittingly, was "
Sealand
A federal court case began with a promise by Weiner that he would not broadcast again until the case against him had been heard in court. Weiner then traveled to England to visit a
Second US action
In 1988 the Sarah was towed from Boston back to its original anchorage off Long Island and began broadcasting once more. Weiner did not stay aboard this time due to court restrictions. Capt. Josh Hayl and another crew member, Reggie Boles manned the vessel. It was again stopped within days under threat of a new boarding by US authorities. The Sarah remained at its mooring for another twelve weeks, Capt. Josh Hayl waiting for orders to resume broadcasting from Weiner, however shore side legal proceedings could not prevent intervention from the United States Coast Guard.
Court cases
Beginning in late 1988, Weiner attempted to get a shortwave broadcasting license for a station which eventually became WBCQ at Monticello, Maine. At about the same time Weiner also entered into a contract to sell the entire radio ship to other buyers. In 1990 Weiner attended FCC Administrative Court hearings concerning both his application for a license and his previous land based and offshore illegal activities.
In preparation for these extensive court hearings the United States asked the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), about the bogus registration of the Sarah with the entity that Roy Bates had called Sealand. At about the same time Weiner's federal court case for illegal broadcasting was also underway. As a part of his defense in that case his attorney cited Radio Caroline as an example of why offshore radio broadcasting was a legal enterprise. At the time of that hearing the new Radio Caroline ship was the host to three broadcasting services: one in the English language, another in the Dutch language and a third on a shortwave service started some time after Weiner's visit to the ship.
The shortwave service called World Mission Radio (WMR), advertised on air that its mailing address was in California, United States. On August 19, 1989, the Netherlands and British Radio Regulatory Authorities carried out a joint raid upon the Radio Caroline ship and destroyed or confiscated much of the broadcasting equipment. The authorities claimed that the unlicensed WMR shortwave service on 6215 kHz was causing interference to maritime communications.
During the 1990 Administrative Court hearings, all of these same matters were discussed once more and on the record. James Murphy, an
HavenCo and Ryan Lackey
Roy Bates never attempted to challenge the UK government over its findings for the United States court case and neither did he attempt to intervene in that case or file a brief of his own. Because the case was not known to the general public it was not known to US citizen Ryan Lackey when Roy Bates entered into a contract with him to establish the HavenCo internet project on Rough Tower which Bates called Sealand. However, it was because this case eventually came to his attention following his own discovery of the controversial claims made by Bates about the state that he claimed to have established, which then caused Ryan Lackey to leave the project.
Baskir and government raid
While his US court cases were ongoing, Weiner proceeded to try to sell the bogus Sarah to a consortium led by Genie Baskir of Virginia. The reason for the sale and attempted purchase was that Weiner had assured the US courts that he would not attempt to use the ship for offshore broadcasting, while Baskir had plans of her own. The first of these was to use the vessel as the home of Radio Tiananmen to be operated by Chinese students in the United States, and then as the base of ship board studios linked to WWCR in Tennessee for a British company registered in England by Paul Byford as World Wide Community Radio (London), Ltd., and Radlon (Sales), Ltd.
Although Baskir paid Weiner several thousand dollars for the ship and she paid additional funds to the private harbor in Boston where the vessel was berthed, Weiner could not produce a valid paper trail to show that he was the lawful owner of a ship called Sarah. Baskir and her associates then became engaged in a costly process of discovery involving authorities in the UK, USA and Panama, in an attempt to discover who legally owned the vessel. Although Panama eventually confirmed that the vessel was still legally registered by that government as Lichfield I for the ship's true original owners and
It was during this period of expensive investigation that Weiner entered into a sidebar arrangement with a subsidiary company of
Further attempts
Although Weiner made further attempts to use ships to restart Radio Newyork International, these plans did not succeed. For a time he contracted with licensed US shortwave station WWCR in Tennessee to carry Radio Newyork International as a paid program. In 1990 and 1991, there were also RNI programs carried on WRNO and Radio for Peace International.
WBCQ
Eventually Allan Weiner did secure a shortwave broadcasting license of his own and today Radio Newyork International is one of many programs heard on Sunday evenings over WBCQ located in Monticello, Maine, USA. [citation needed]
References
- United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. USA vs. Allan H. Weiner, Joseph Paul Ferraro, Randall Ripley a/k/a Randi Steele, Hank Hayes, Richard Hertz, John Hungerford and John Doe, all d/b/a Radio New York International ("RNI"). Case Number 89-1211. Appellant Brief, page 21:
Appellants respectfully submit that this ruling creates a dangerous precedent in that it allows the government potentially to reach out and control broadcasters anywhere in the world as long as their broadcasts are able to be picked up somewhere within the borders of the United States. Does the FCC thus have power to shut down all broadcasts from the Caroline, a broadcast vessel moored in the North Sea, based upon a claim that signals from that vessel's radio broadcasts were picked up, however briefly and even if creating no interference, somewhere in this country?
- The broadcasts from World Mission Radio (WMR) on shortwave that came from the same home as Radio Caroline on board the MV Ross Revenge in the North Sea, were audible as far in land as Texas in the USA. WMR maintained a US mailing address in California and portrayed itself as a US broadcasting station in its rate card literature. When the USA requested assistance from the UK to answer this question posed on behalf of Allan Weiner, et al., it was James Murphy who personally went out in his own vessel to supervise the joint Anglo-Dutch raid on the MV Ross Revenge. In return, this same James Murphy then issued a sworn statement on behalf of the UK for use by the USA in its case against Weiner concerning the matter of Sealand. The Four Freedoms Federationengaged in contact with the FCC, DTI and James Murphy personally about these matters and as a result the Four Freedoms Federation developed a large library of material concerning all of this entire subject.
- Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC. - MM Docket No 90-243, Weiner Broadcasting Company, File BPIB 840904MZ, FCC 91D-37. Initial decision of Administrative Law Judge Joseph Chachkin issued July 9, 1991 and released July 16, 1991.
- Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC. - MM Docket No 90-243, Weiner Broadcasting Company, File BPIB 840904MZ, FCC 92R-8. Decision by the Review Board: Blumenthal, Esbensen and Green. Board Member Blumenthal. Adopted: January 17, 1992 and released: January 29, 1992.
- Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA, by Gilder, Eric. - "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu Press, Romania. 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6
External links
- Hank Hayes' photos of the 1987 launching of the MV Sarah Archived 2019-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
- Radio Newyork International
- The Wonderful Radio London International story