(Taken directly from a website that has taken it directly from Usenet, someone may find this interesting. We do not endorse or promote pirate radio or any illegal activities.)

If you are operating somewhere where the pigs actually have arrest authority for pirate radio(like Florida), you need to think about defense. It goes without saying that the rig needs to be somewhere that the authorities cannot connect with anyone involveed in the project!

An abandoned building is an excellent choice if you can find one on a hilltop. An approach that can be extraordinarily effective if you can get to it is the roof of a high-rise office building whose roof sees no foot or mantainance traffic. This is best for an Internet fed(UPS and Linux mandatory to avoid reboot visits), solar or AC powered setup where you deliver it once only and then feed it onliine until it quits, is stolen, or is confiscated. It will have to go in a totally waterproof, yet well ventilated container for this so as to avoid both rain and overheating damage. If you need to be able to make regular service visits, a vacant building is probably better unless you can get into a poorly-secured apartment building with multiple vacant units and NO SNITCHES.

There are two basic considerations in site selection: height and security.Security comes down essentially to privacy, and comprises two components. One is visual privacy, meaning you can work without being seen or seen as out-of-place. Make absolutely certain that you can get to and from your chosen site without anyone thinking your presence is unusual.

The other half of security is RF privacy, meaning there must be nothing nearby that will receive your signal out-of-channel due to overloading a shitty receiver or any spurs from your rig. Transmitters used in occupied buildings must be very clean, and antennas at least 1 wave above a metal roof or with very little downward lobe in the pattern. The more the power, the greater the problem.

At WSQT, we had great sucess in Washington DC broadcasting for for about half a year out af a fire-damaged building on a block with little indoor activity except burglars who seemd to be put off by a "danger 400 volts" sign referring to the tube-type rig's power supply. The only hazard(other than stepping through the hole in the floor, that is!) was being mistaken for a burglar by someone and the cops called. In DC, haivng a key would have probably been enough to prevent arrest if this happend, but FL woudl be another story if you don't have a good cover story.

As there is always the possibility in this Homeland Security- infested culture of curious witnesses(nommatter how careful you are), make sure you have a cover story that holds up as to why you are in the area. It is not likely to work with cops, but the most likely recipient would be a curious bystander or neighbor for whom this could mean the difference berween forgetting the encounter or calling the cops.

Ideally you would feed programming to the rig by Internet, with an expendable "client" computer on the far end fed by a wi-fi connection to an open network. The client computer will need to run a stable operating system like Linux and be powered through a UPS if AC power is used. If you are using solar/battery power or humping precharged batteries, you don't need the UPS of course.

You will need to set it up for remote administration and remote control, so you can take control of it from places like public libraries or Internet cafe's. Do NOT use your home computer to run this in any jurisdiction where you can be arrested. The FCC has never bothered to dig this far, but cops do and if they have jurisdiction you need to take this precaution.

If this is not possible, you will have to hand deliver MP3 players or tapes(primitive but effective). If you can turn on the AC power(to a squat) as well, you save yourself the effort of humping in heavy, pre- charged car batteries(and/or the espense and concealment problems of solar panels) as well. You will have to blend in every time, of course.

Make certain your chosen spot is NOT already used by anyone for anything else! Otherwise, you risk both those people being harassed and your equipment being just plain stolen. In a building where only part of the structure(roof, perhaps) qualifies, you must observe the area to determine that your chosen spot does not get visits from anyone else.

Make sure you have multiple ways in and out of the area, and preferably that it is close to cover-places you can disappear into if hard-pressed. A rabbit knows every hole in his territory he can disappear into, and so should you.

To access your chosen site, you will need to blend in unless the area gets NO foot or motor traffic at all, like some semi-abandoned industrial areas. If you are using the roof of some office building as a site, either suit-and-tie or the uniforms of the building mantainance staff will work. In a gentrification neighborhood, you have two choices: dress as a yuppie, or dress as one of thsoe the yuppies are forcing out. Which system you use depends on what you can pass for-and who you deem the greatest threat to snitch or steal your gear. You need to look like you belong there, but not like someone the cops would harass or espeically seach just for being in the area.

Installing the antenna is going to be the most visually obvious part, and should be done while not in posession of anything else as a precaution. Do this work at night unless only day access is possible, and then clear out. The one exception is this: On large roofs, quick- setup masts and military style quick-setup antennas tuned for your frequency might allow rotating between multiple sites with each site totally clean while not in use. Make sure you cannt be seen from the ground in this case.

You can rig "traps" to indicate unauthorized access to the area. One simple way is a tripline rigged up to an ordinary car alarm of the "silent paging" type. Use fine fishing line or dental floss painted up to match the area as the tripwire and conceal the alarm and its battery where they will not be noticed. If someone is poking around while you are in the area, you will be paged and know to say away. A protracted surveillance can be discovered by using tiny "telltales" like a single hair glued acress a door to indicate entry. When you are on-site, a tripwire between two tin cans with rocks inside will give you an audible warning of any approach-it's an old moonshiner's warning device.

Another security approach works if you have a computer on-site and wi- fi connection. This is to simply set up a surveillance camera just like the bosses do and set it up as a webcam on a site whose URL is not known to anyone else-and whose video does not identify the site. Check the camera online before any approach to see if anything is amiss. Of course, in this system, you need only approach at all if something has gone wrong with the equipment.

One other precaution: In arrestable jurisdictions,NEVER, EVER drive a car so close to your site that the same person can see you attach something to the building and then get in your car! People have been arrested in things like urban scavenger hunts due to failure to observe this rule.

Lastly, you need to decide for yourself in advance how you want to go in reacting to any arrest attempt. During a WSQT portable show in the runup to the 2005 Bush Inaugural, I had to fend off a cop in SWAT looking gear who came in talking tough. He made an excuse about thinking my soda was a beer when he saw how far I was prepared to go. I was worried about going to Gitmo for targetting the Presidential Inauguration with the broadcast, and had decided not to be taken no matter what(same rules as in Iraq). He made that "what's in your OTHER HAND" face-saving excuse about the soda and then both he and I cleared out. At least he had the good sense to find an honorable way out and avoid a very nasty fight.

As a result, the next time the FCC harassed WSQT, they waited until five minutes after I cleared the scene(at a fixed location) and then harassed others there. I found it damned interesting that two weeks after Katrina, after one week of Mad Max beyond Superdome, that the FCC shows up five minutes after I left from a mantainance session over an hour long!

BTW, in Miami cops carry Tasers. You can short out Tasers with aluminum window screen under your clothing(foil will also work but holds heat and tears easily). Cop fires Taser, darts penetrate screen and clothing but touch the metal and short out. Taser does nothing, you take of running-and the cops needs a few extra seconds to react.

At WSQT, we take the "guerrilla" in guerrilla radio seriously so I thought "Radio Insurgents" in places like Florida would appreciate these thoughts.