Do-it-yourself Pirate Cat Radio sends a shout to the world from a little café in the Mission

By Maria DeLorenzo

DJ “Monkey” has been broadcasting pirate radio since he was 15 years old. He started in his living room with a $10 do-it-yourself radio kit and ended up as the mastermind behind Pirate Cat Radio (PCR). Pirate Cat Radio broadcasts in San Francisco on the dial at 87.9FM at the corner of 21st and Florida streets. It also streams via the Internet (piratecatradio.com) to a pirate station in Los Angeles and one in Berlin. So you could say he’s got a worldwide empire. Or you could say that Pirate Cat Radio just opened up a quaint café in the Mission, and Monkey, along with about 30 plus DJs, is ready to take on the airwaves in a whole new way.
For one thing, PCR is broadcasting in the open, which is usually not the case for pirate radio. The café itself is in a corner storefront, with windows revealing the radio studio, which is rather spacious and quite visible from the street. Pirate radio is typically an illegal, mostly underground operation, due to the fact that those involved are essentially hijacking the airwaves with their own transmitters without the permission or regulation of the FCC. Pirate radio stations always face the challenge of being raided by the FCC, their equipment confiscated, and the individuals involved often face criminal charges or hefty fines. However, Monkey has found a loophole in the law that he believes gives him the ability to broadcast in the open.
According to U.S. Code of Federal Regulations title 47 section 73.3542, an application for a radio transmitter may be granted as an “emergency operation to serve the public interest. Such situations include: a national emergency proclaimed by the President or the Congress of the USA and; the continuance of any war in which the United States is engaged…”
Monkey—he nonetheless would not give his full real name—says this gives him the go ahead: “The loose liberal reading of it is that if the President declares war than it is our civic duty to keep up communications with each other.”
Monkey went so far as to fill out an informal application, of which there are only very loose guidelines, and he sent the FCC a check for $100, an amount he decided himself. The FCC cashed it, but still hasn’t responded to his application, “So I have this cashed check, and I actually applied for the permit, and they took my money. On top of that I applied for a full-on commercial FM license in San Francisco and never heard back from them about that. I never got denied from either of them, the applications are still in limbo” says Monkey.
So far, his approach is working. Monkey filed five years ago, and he hasn’t been raided. The new location, which has been up and running now since March 1, couldn’t be more obviously a radio station, and the DJs proudly spout off the location on the air telling people to “come on down.”
The café itself has tables and chairs inside, and they offer coffee, pastries, T-shirts and stickers behind the counter. Monkey hasn’t yet gotten his deli license so they offer these items with a suggested donation. But Monkey hopes to get the deli license eventually.
The idea behind the café is not only to raise money for the station, but to be a community meeting place and venue for art and music. DJ Shelley Weil who does a show called the Weil Hours says, “We’ve had a ton of locations. Mostly shoved in the back of a closet somewhere, above an auto body shop, in the basement of a residency hotel in the Tenderloin, out in Hunters Point. This is the most incredible location. It’s really about creating a space for the community and making it accessible and really varying it up as far as multimedia, arts, music and film screenings. And people have started making their shows more interactive, something that people can come to and watch.”
Both Monkey and Weil are hoping that the space will help to get the community more involved with the station and the content, “We are in the neighborhood and anyone who wants to come by and say something no matter who they are they can come in and talk on the radio, that is the whole purpose,” says Monkey. “My only rule is that you can’t be sexist, homophobic or racist on the air and not promote violence in any way. So as long as people are able to abide by that I have no problem.”
DJs at PCR pay monthly dues and go through a training process to learn the board. Diamond Dave Whitaker, a legendary San Francisco activist involved in radio since the 70s, recently joined PCR with a show from 4-6 p.m. on Fridays. Whitaker is impressed by what Monkey has been able to do with the new café, “I’m not sure how he does it, but he does it, and he’s good at what he does.”
“With more and more radio being taken over by Clear Channel there are just very few places where people can play music and practice their first amendment right of free speech unencumbered by the FCC rules. I think it’s an important thing. And it is just what I do, it’s what I’m good at, spontaneous conversation” says Whitaker.
Listening to the station one certainly gets that feeling, it is undeniably unlike licensed radio, there is a sort of spontaneity to the programming; a rambling informal interview with a punk band or a poet, a lawyer discussing renters rights in the case of a fire, a DJ called Lilly Cat talking about gender identity, or another named BunnyWhiskers who likes to play horror movie soundtracks.
Even in the age of the internet, Monkey is convinced that broadcast radio isn’t going anywhere, “I constantly get the question from people ‘Why is broadcast radio important when you have Internet radio and podcasts and everything?’ Well, not everyone can afford an Internet connection, and not everybody can afford a computer. And even if they could, they wouldn’t necessarily know how to go and find a radio station online. Broadcast is an old-fashioned medium and people still take to it rather easily. We are still years away from the end of analog broadcasting.”
Even if they never get an official license, Monkey and Pirate Cat Radio seemed determined to continue broadcasting. He has gone through the motions, anyway, of playing by the rules. And apparently, PCR does have some support from local police.
“Two weekends ago I come into the café and there are five cops sitting in here, all drinking coffee. They’d all bought t-shirts and stickers and they were just hanging out in the station. Next thing I know there are bike cops coming by with Pirate Cat Radio stickers on their bikes. There’s Pirate Cat Radio stickers on their squad cars. They are even writing an affidavit for me right now to send to the zoning commission to get my change of use permit, so I can get my deli license,” says Monkey.