January 31 2026:
The Federal Communications Commission is losing money in its efforts to crack down on pirate broadcasters on the AM and FM broadcast bands. Pirates are paying minimal fines, if any at all, after being prosecuted by the FCC.
https://natcommag.substack.com/p/am-fm-tv-dxing-fcc-efforts-against-pirates-fall-short
"This past week, the FCC released a Congressional report that indicated that while the agency continues to spend a lot of money chasing pirate broadcasters on the AM and FM bands, they are not recouping significant funds to cover their expenses. Not even close.
..Last week, the FCC released its fiscal year 2025 report ... As one can guess, hiring staff and buying FCC enforcement vehicles equipped with electronic direction-finding equipment doesn’t come cheap, ... In the agency’s 2024 report to Congress, the FCC reported it had ordered six vehicles ... adding that the vehicles would be outfitted in the 2024 and 2025 calendar years and include specialized hardware, software and equipment to detect pirate broadcasts. ...
However ... You see that this is a huge money loss for the FCC, ... In the FCC’s 2025 report issued last week, a very quick summary shows that while a number of very large fines were levied against those accused of pirate broadcasting — there is minimal evidence of money flowing into the FCC’s coffers. The highest fine issued in the past year was $2.39 million. You won’t believe this, however. The amount of funds the FCC collected from pirates in 2025 amounted to only $26,000. That barely supports a fraction of the salary of one FCC field agent, let alone the cost of a vehicle or the tracking equipment installed to sniff out pirates. ...
The FCC continues to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year (on salaries alone), yet finds itself able to collect only tens of thousands of dollars in a year from compliant pirates. In the meantime, the big pirate violators continue to escape making any payments on their fines, simply ignoring the long arm of the law. The FCC finds itself in a conundrum, being able to set fines, but unable to collect them to help fund its crackdown...
Not terribly surprising, considering that unlike licensed stations, most pirates are not corporations that you can go after legally, but individuals with limited ability to pay. Short of throwing them in jail, there's not much you can do to make them pay if they don't have the money.
Just 6 cars? That isn't enough for one state let alone the whole country(USA).
I keep hearing how radio is dying but if there's so many pirates there must be an interest, just not doing it legally as can be seen by the sales of the Chinese transmitters on Amazon and Ebay. If they did it legally Procaster wouldn't be able to keep up with the orders for AM and FM ones.
I agree with Artisan. They can scare you with saying $10,000 a day or whatever it is but you can't get what someone doesn't have, and is jail if you can't pay unreasonable punishment for this offence? Are you going to tell some teenagers using a 15 watt transmitter the got on Amazon to pay a $100,000.00 fine or go to jail for a month? Making the fines way higher than most have the money to pay isn't working so a short jail term on weekends for a month or two is an option but is that overkill when someone just uses what is for sale legally on Amazon next day delivery?
Yeah it's crazy, comical even. I tried to find a picture of what those 6 new vehicles look like inside and out but found nothing. But it's said that they are usually non-descript white vans, perhaps a small unnoticeable device on the roof, but nothing really to indicate it as an FCC vehicle - or so that's what unconfirmed comments online say.
I agree, it seems combatting pirates would be a lot more effective and easier to just go after the manufactures who are saturating the market with such transmitters.
@richpowers I wonder what the ISED Canada vehicles look like? Never seen one.
