Party Vibe

all of these have been done (well apart from minecraft – that would be worth doing especially as I don’t understand it, probably too old). TBH there are few band II pirates outside London and big cities. Its way too much hassle otherwise due to Internet broadcasting being popular and even mobile reception becoming feasible, the UK being used as a giant aerodrome and that band II is literally just below the frequencies used by aircraft. In most European countries you now get community FM stations but they have to be careful of their signal for this reason.

Making a short documentary isn’t so difficult and unless you are pitching something to a major broadcaster you do not need full “broadcast quality” kit. Many shorter docs especially those made for environment groups are done on digicams and phone cams and look no worse than todays normal telly. A computer which will play todays modern games should be perfectly capable of dealing with HD 1080p/25 video. Even when stuff gets on “proper telly”. because of the economic depression and new methods, by the time the telephone companies and arqiva have all had a go at your content to get it to the transmitter site, cost cutting and multiple codecs means it looks like shit anyway. To be fair the engineers what work at these places don’t like the practice but their customers demand more channels but don’t want to pay extra for circuits. That video you put here was already wrecked before it got uploaded to youtube.

The Japanese sell full HD camcorders for surprisingly cheap prices, smaller than many stills cameras and with recording to a solid state card (no tape to snag up or hard drives to be corrupted by knocks and bumps). smaller than a carton of 200 cigarettes – and not much more expensive nowadays. But make sure yours does 25fps, we are not Americans. Many of the documentary producers use these cheaper/smaller cameras, especially in sensitive situations.

that said it does take time and because film isn’t used any more its easy to get loads of footage what takes ages to go through.

In 2009, i made a video of 5 cats in high summer (they lived at my friends house). There was 40 minutes on the tape (was still on SD DVcam) of which only 3 minutes were the best. Eventually the cats cottoned on to what I was up to and the females especially would just sit there and glare at me (the opposite to humans :wink:), but to be fair this is the nearest you can get to “proper” nature stuff staying in Blighty (tigers can eat you if they feel like it) and not having to go to the arse end of nowhere where its cold, muddy and the North Sea wind blows at you. Folk what do this round here often grow impressive beards, I think it is to keep the wind out :laugh_at:

I have made films about parties but had to wait 5 years before they got shown outside close friends to stop both myself and the folk involved landing in the shit

as for films on pirate stations, the last ones in the 90s / 2000s showed them to be a bunch of gutter scum what were basically destroying the infrastructure of council housing and intimidating residents to stop both Ofcom and other rivals removing equipment. Ofcom were going in with armed metpol units to raid studios and it wasn’t a overreaction.

Originally pirate TX engineers were traditionally slightly older chaps what had legit jobs in mobile companies and thus access to places like water towers etc, but a rebellious streak or were being laid off or treated badly by employers. these places are or were secured with padlocks in a chain so anyone with a key can break the chain and get in, and few people know exactly how many should be there especially with mergers, subcontracting etc. so its not difficult to add a extra one. The pirate transmitters were simply put up with everything else (including the blue light services repeaters!) Of course this only works if everyone in there does not take the piss and create harmful interference, or Ofcom and the Fire Brigade turn up with bolt croppers.

However a decline in radio and engineering skills amongst English youth and understandable distaste with some aspects of the urban music scene meant that these chaps increasingly get legit work so won’t take the risks. but some fools still buy a TX from the Netherlands, set it up without proper checking and then pilots get grime/dubstep blasting into their headsets and NATS are on the blower to Ofcom, although its easier to get the right kit and not do this nowadays But todays urban pirates make videos anyway, them wannabe gangster grime ones. What both Ofcom and the feds are way more concerned about is that unregulated stations are used to launder drugs money and draw a lot more young people into crime by doing so. TBH as a former pirate myself I can’t deny this can be the case, especially in city areas. What I do think should happen is more community stations should be allowed and that the BBC should not have a entire chunk of band II to themselves – no other EU nation lets their national broadcaster hog frequencies in this manner.

you might want to watch the films about the old skool stations from before I was born. These are interesting for the comedy value if anything and the naievety of some folk involved. The TX engineer of Caroline became a family friend (after a foolish escapade where me and my mate knocked out comms to most of our towns buses, not realising that outside London a whole chunk of the broadcast band was still on allocation to public services) and told me in the 80s the real story about the place.

He’s still around today (though he looked way older as the radiation ages you) and I’m glad he lived to see the introduction of legal FM stationa.