Wed, May 10, 2006
Pirate Radio Stations A Problem In Ireland, Too
Earlier this year,
Aero-News reported on how broadcasts from "Da Streetz" -- a
pirate radio station brodcasting to Cuban immigrants -- were wrecking havoc with transmissions from ATC
and planes landing at Miami International Airport. The
FAA eventually shut that station down... but Irish broadcasting
regulators now face a similar problem, from an unlikely source: Da
Priestz.
More accurately, pirate radio stations run by Roman Catholic
priests -- to broadcast sermons to housebound parishoners -- are
suspected of creating a potential safety hazard for jets traversing
the Atlantic.
Reuters reports that flight crews on trans-Atlantic routes have
complained for more than a year that the word of God has been piped
into their cockpits over approach frequencies as they cross the
Emerald Isle... often making controller transmissions difficult to
hear or plain unreadable.
"We believe that (the Mass broadcasts) are possibly the source
of the interference. I understand that [Irish communications
regulator] ComReg are closing down the priests for want of a better
term," Irish Aviation Authority spokeswoman Lilian Cassin said.
So far, ComReg has visited three churches in central Ireland
suspected of sending the illegal radio signals... to warn them
their seemingly-innocuous transmissions could be creating problems
for airplanes.
"I knew it was sort of a gray area but I didn’t know we
were breaking the law," said one of the priests, Father Brendan
Quinlan, told the Irish Independent.
In any case, it appears the priests will need to find another
way to reach shut-ins... because at 35,000 feet, some shut-ins just
don't want to be reached.
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