Another setback: The MV Fury V

W5YI Report 01-08-1993

PIRATE TO BROADCAST FROM THE HIGH SEAS

Do you remember Radio New York International, a pirate radio station that was operated some years ago by Alan Weiner from international waters outside the U.S. three mile limit. They were eventually busted by the FCC. Now there are rumors that another ship. the “Fury V” (a rusty 165 ft. x 30 ft. former North Seas fishing trawler) is being outfitted in East Boston harbor with radio broadcast equipment for another try at international pirate ocean broadcasting. This time it will be a rather novel satellite-to-radio lashup!

Reportedly the ‘chief engineer” putting the sta tion together is none other than RNI’s Alan Weiner. We understand he is even using parts scrounged from the M/V Sarah (the former home of RNI) and other radio stations. His status is that of an employee. Weiner was supposedly hired by the ship’s owner, a satellite time broker and LPTV station owner/operator.

This “owner” also leases satellite time to “Brother R. G. Stair, a rather freewheeling 24 hour-a-day shortwave evangelist who broadcasts on WWCR (World Wide Christian Radio 7435 kHz) and WRNO (Radio New Orleans 7355 kHz). Reportedly, Brother Stair is a major investor in the short wave radio ship venture. And it is possible that RNI could also return to the air via this shipboard station.

There are many legal questions about broadcasting from a ship at sea. For the most part it is illegal. However, there are certain questionable ITU regulations about a country’s ability to issue a permit to someone to legally broadcast from a seagoing vessel. Many facts are being kept secret until the ship is on the air…including the country approving the broadcasting (which is also the country of registry).

We heard that the ship is authorized by a Caribbean country, and that it will eventually be stationed in the western Mediterranean. The country issuing the permit supposedly did so in exchange for broadcast time. Another source told us that the ship would broadcast from the Caribbean which certainly makes more sense. Actually much of what we are being fed is conflicting and some reports may be purposely incorrect to throw the authorities off guard.

Supposedly the ship’s transmitting location was determined by the footprint of the satellite that delivers Brother Stairs’ radio service, GTE Spacenet 2. His programming is to be received on a $48,000 satellite receiver that is designed for seagoing reception and broadcast 24-hours worldwide over one of the two 40kw shortwave transmitters on board. Also on board are two 10kw shortwave transmitters.

The 40kw and the 10kw’s will be available to anyone wanting to buy broadcast time. Brother Stair even originated his programs a couple of weekends ago from the studio on the boat as part of a progress report on its construction.

Also on board is a 20kw, self-contained, UHF TV station for the exclusive use of the country authorizing the ship. In addition there are AM and FM broadcast band transmitters that can also be used exclusively by the country if they so decide.

The ship itself is powered by a single 1200 HP, 12 cyl. engine, top speed is 16 knots. Ship power is provided by an 80 KVA generator and a 75 KVA gene. rator. 250 KVA and 60 KVA generators have been installed to provide power to the broadcast equipment, an auxiliary generator is on order. The first of 3 towers has been installed, the remainder of the antenna system will be completed in a few weeks. Right now the wiring is being completed between the transmitters and the studio.

They expect to set sail on September 15 and begin broadcasting in late October. Although the frequencies have not been announced, they plan to make test transmissions on 7415 kHz while enroute, after they are outside of US waters. It will be interesting to see if all of this actually comes to pass!

W5YI Report 15-02-1994

FCC RAIDS RADIO SHIP OWNED BY HAM OPERATOR!

Every once in a while we come across a radio story that is unusually bizarre and intriguing. Such is the case of Allan Weiner and the broadcast radio ship, the motor vessel (MV) FURY V. We really can’t call it a pirate radio station because it was licensed – although not in the United States. But there were apparently unauthorized transmissions made from the vessel.

On page 8 of the August 1, 1993, issue of the W5YI Report, we reported on a fishing trawler known as the FURY V that was being outfitted as a seagoing shortwave radio ship in Boston harbor. The engineering honcho of this effort supposedly was well known radio pirate broadcaster Allan Weiner of “Radio New York International” fame. RNI operated some six years ago from international waters outside the U.S. three mile limit from the MV SARAH. (See Sept. 1, 1987, W5YI Report, page 10.)

On July 28, 1987, federal authorities armed with hacksaws and wire cutters, boarded the rusting 200 foot former Japanese refrigeration vessel and dismantled RNI which broadcasted “free form rock’n’roll” programming on 1620 AM, 103.1 FM, 6200 kHz shortwave and low frequency: 190 kHz.

The MV SARAH, registered under the flag of Honduras, was anchored in international waters some four miles out in Long Island sound – one mile beyond the U.S. claimed territorial limit. The vessel supposedly was boarded with permission from Honduras.

Weiner said at the time that he had been trying to get a broadcast license for 16 years but couldn’t afford the $50 million it costs. It wasn’t his first incident as a pirate. As a teenager, he operated a backroom 100-watter in Yonkers, N.Y. that lasted three weeks.

The RNI fiasco resulted with the federal court for the U.S. District of Massachusetts permanently restraining Weiner and his RNI buddies from (1) operating a radio broadcast station aboard a ship or aircraft outside national territories, (2) operating a radio broadcast station within the territorial boundaries of the United States and (3) participating in any act, whether direct or indirect, to cause broadcasts of the types described in (1) and (2) above, or to enable such broadcasts to occur. The purpose of this injunction was to keep Weiner from becoming involved in future pirate broadcasts.

The MV SARAH came to a fascinating end! After a lurid career as a fish trawler, a smuggler’s ship and finally a radio boat, Allan Weiner’s MV SARAH became a Movie Star for one fleeting moment. He had purchased this old rust bucket in 1987 from the US Government. The ship’s prior assignment had been to smuggle narcotics under a false deck and it had be taken in a seagoing raid by the DEA and US Coast Guard.

It was renamed the Sarah in honor of some rock hero’s wife, and was rebuilt by Weiner as the Radio New York International radio ship to broadcast music from international waters off Long Island sound. It had to be towed out to sea since its engines would not work.

While working on his latest venture last summer, the MV FURY, Weiner was approached by MGM. They were looking for an old trawler to use in a motion picture to be released this year. Weiner quickly sold the MV SARAH to MGM. The movie company also provided Weiner with funds to deliver and clean out the ship. He immediately began stripping out all the left over radio gear and the generator to be used aboard the FURY V. The movie people then replaced the ship’s towers and wheel house with wooden facsimiles.

On Saturday, September 25, 1993, Boston Harbor was cleared and windows were boarded up for a mile. With the cameras in position and rolling, the director yelled “Action!” In a brilliant display of pyrotechnics, the listing ship was blown up in a sequence of 5 explosions that included the Hollywood mandated fireball and white hot shrapnel fragments spewing out from its inferno engulfed hulk.

According to Weiner, who was with one of the camera crews across the bay, “…the concussion and display was nothing short of spectacular. It lit up the harbor in broad daylight. It was a fitting end to the ship.“ The sensational end to the SARAH was even featured on the syndicated TV show, ‘Entertainment Tonight‘.

The most recent escapade

The MV FURY V originally came from Canada and was bought by a group of Boston business people. We have never been able to find out who they were and what their real interest in the vessel was. But it was probably to sell advertising time on broadcasts aimed back to the United States. The group turned the project over to one Scott Becker last Spring who became its legal owner. The ship needed quite a bit of work. We understand the money paid for the ship was used to liquidate its debt.

The beneficiary of all this was going to be Brother Ralph G. Stair, a gravel-voiced shortwave radio evangelist. Stair’s unique brand of feisty fundamentalism, predictions of the imminent end of the world, and the dangers of the new-world-order conspiracy, can be heard daily live and on tape 24 hours a day over WWCR (World Wide Christian Radio) and other shortwave powerhouses plus via satellite on Spacenet 2, and even on some local AM broadcast stations.

According to the Jan. 20th Charleston Post and Courier newspaper, in 1987, Brother Stair predicted the United States would be annihilated before 1989 and that Ronald Reagan would not finish his term not the sort of stuff that the U.S. government likes to hear. In

1988, 40 people in Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley said Stair induced their children to sell their belongings, abandon their families, sign over their funds and join what they said was a cult.

Reportedly, Brother Stair, who operates the socalled “Overcomer Ministry” from a farm in rural South Carolina, provided the thick bankroll for the shortwave radio ship venture. The cash was no doubt raised through contributions from his loyal listeners, who were persuaded that the good Brother needed his own personal transmitter site for shortwave and satel lite broadcasting. Brother Stair disputed this. “I didn’t put any money into it. It was God’s money,” he told us in a phone call. Maybe so, but God funneled it through his ministry.

Scott Becker, a satellite time broker and entrepreneur, also holds the ham call sign: KB5MDH – Technician Class. When Brother Stair’s Overcomer Ministries wanted some satellite time, Becker sold it to them. The transponder subcarrier used by Brother Stair is actually a sublease from Becker. It was because of Stair’s involvement with Becker, that they got him to bankroll the radio ship. Scott telephoned and hired Weiner to handle the construction and conversion of the 140 foot MV FURY V former North Seas fishing trawler to a broadcast radio ship.

Radio ship registered and licensed

Getting a radio ship legalized by another country apparently is not a problem if you know the right people. It had been done before. Remember, Weiner’s former radio ship, the MV SARAH had been registered in Honduras.

Belize, a small tropical country on the Caribbean side of Central America, used to be called British Honduras. People with ties to the Belize maritime authorities and their government were approached by a middle man about registering the ship. They simply were told that they wanted to take a ship down to the Caribbean and broadcast from it. “We need a license for the transmitters and we need registry for the ship.” Money was paid and the ship was legally registered and its radio stations provisionally licensed last fall.

In May of last year, a captain and a crew were hired to sail the MV FURY V down from Boston Harbor to the Halsey & Cannon Boat Yard on the Wando River near Charleston, SC…

Even though Allan Weiner is under a restraining order, he accepted the outfitting and engineering job on the belief that the injunction against RNI and himself existed to prevent him from broadcasting illegally without a license. Since there was no question that the ship was properly registered in Belize and its transmitting stations licensed to Becker, Weiner felt he was free to accept the project. His status would be that of an employee. Becker set up an organization called Voyager Broadcast Services to handle the FURY’s business affairs with offices on board the ship. Equipment was purchased from all over and added to the stuff Weiner had stripped from the MV SARAH before its demise. Most of it was used gear or government (Voice of America) surplus. Weiner found the radio equipment, Brother Stair paid for it.

FCC raids the FURY V

Unfortunately for the project, the FCC had other plans for the vessel. On Wednesday, January 19, agents from the FCC, Coast Guard and U.S. Marshal’s Service raided the MV FURY V still anchored in Charleston harbor.

FCC Field Operations Bureau Chief Richard M. Smith said the station which had operated intermittently from on board the MV FURY was unlicensed and therefore illegal. A week earlier, Commission engineers had conducted close-in radio direction finding efforts in that area and traced the source of an illegal radio signal on 7415 to the motor vessel, FURY.

Armed with an arrest warrant from the U.S. Court for the District of South Carolina, federal officials seized the radio station equipment on board the vessel. Strangely, the arrest warrant was not against a person or people! The defendant was the radio equipment itself. Somehow, through some legal hocus-pocus known only to the judiciary it was determined that it was the equipment that was violating the law and it would be the transmitters that would be arrested and hauled off to jail!

According to U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Griffith, the raid was conducted subject to a law which authorizes civil seizure of radio station equipment operating without a license within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. He said “…it was the government’s intention to seize the property not to pursue criminal charges against anyone.” (We still don’t understand how the “gun” is responsible and not the “triggerman.”)

The ship’s broadcast transmitters were then unceremoniously cut from the hull of the ship by a legion of blowtorch-wielding dock workers under the direction of the feds! The Charleston Post and Courier published a photograph of FCC senior engineer, James T. Crowell, surrounded by several high powered 1980’s vintage transmitters taken from the FURY. “…reported. ly valued at up to $500,000,” the newspaper said.

The illegal transmissions monitored by the FCC were apparently RNI program tapes already on board the ship which were broadcast over 7415 on Christmas night. It wasn’t until QSL requests came in to RNI’s

Hyde Park address that anyone connected with the venture knew about it. It thus appears that the RNI transmissions did in fact take place.

Brother Stair told us that he was no longer involv ed with the radio ship at all. “The story has been told a thousand times. The project is over. Everybody is speculating like they lost something. It is none of their business. The ship has been turned back to the people who owned it. The transmitters have been taken off the ship by the FCC. I may have a claim for the equipment to get it back. The government will then decide whether to give it back or to sell it. That is the status of the ship.”

Just who is Scott Becker?

Scott Becker operated ham radio from his cabin aboard the FURY V. In addition to the U.S. KBSMDH, he also held another ham station license issued to him. from somewhere in the Caribbean.

Local South Carolina amateurs whom Becker invited on board the ship describe him as an opportunist. One of those amateurs is Cyrus ‘Ed” Frank, KC400Z of nearby Summersville, SC. Ed conducts amateur and commercial radio testing for us in the Charleston area. He also holds a commercial radio license,

Ed said he saw both Becker’s ham station as well as the Voice of America transmitters just before Christmas. “They were never on the air or hooked up where they could be on the air. The gear was not set up to where it could run or have been operated. It would have taken him considerably longer than to this point in time to have gotten everything hooked up There is no way, shape or form that those transmitters could have been operated. I had a couple of engineers go out there with me and they will tell you the same thing.” If that is the case, then who was broadcasting RNI tapes on 7415 and from where?

Ed said “Becker’s ham station was upstairs in the pilot house…just a little transceiver. He had a fairly modern HF transceiver sitting there. I never saw or heard him operating HF I talked to him on 2 meters and 440. I believe he told me he was a Technician but also licensed in the Cayman Islands with full privileges.

“Scott Becker is not a religious person. I don’t particularly like the guy… He is a little bit on the shady side. If he can find a loop hole in the law and make some money, he will do it. I remember him saying he would never operate illegally because he knew the FCC was watching him. My opinion is – and it is only my opinion, is that outside interests did not want him setting up a radio station that could be heard here in the United States. Interesting…and confusing.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to contact Scott Becker. Rumors were that he was in Kansas or Arizona. Captain Robbie Cannon (owner of the Halsey & Cannon Boat Yard where Becker’s ship is still docked) said he did not want to get further involved and declined an interview with us or to give us Becker’s phone number. Certainly he would know how to reach him since he still has Becker’s 140-ft. ship docked in his boat yard.

Brother Stair apparently also has but would not give us – Becker’s phone number. “I won’t give it to you. I am out of this picture,” he said, ” ..and I would appreciate it if you would let me stay out of it. You can speculate all you want to and I will just do my job,” he said angrily. “Put anything you want to in your paper.”

It was reported over the Genie computer network that Becker was also operating HF packet from the ship, so the possibility exists that he could have used his HF ham gear on 7415 kHz. Jim Crowell, the FCC engineer (also KØJC) from Powder Spring, GA who handled the seizure confirmed to us the existence a Yaesu HF packet setup.

Larry Clance, FCC Assistant Bureau Chief for Law in Washington, DC told us that their engineers concluded that the transmissions on 7415 were made by the high powered broadcast transmitters based on measurements by their engineers. “We believe that the radio equipment that was being used was the broadcast equipment that we seized. We have tapes of the RNI broadcasts from the ship by a ‘Johnny Lightning’ or something like that. I believe they were made between Christmas and New Year’s. The close in radio direction finding on January 14th concerned the transmission of a tone signal for about 2 hours from the vessel The morning of the seizure, there was a test broadcast for about 10 minutes on 6240.”

Engineer Crowell told us their long range monitoring network picked up a transmission from the general vicinity of the ship on Dec. 29th. “Based on that information, we did direction finding in the area. When we went on board, one of the high powered transmitter oscillators was sitting was 3120. The transmitter was hot…fired up.”

Sources tell us that the plan called for Brother Stair to broadcast on one transmitter, and sell time on the other. Weiner’s rejuvenated Radio New York International programming was supposedly going to be allocated some broadcast time each night under this

arrangement as an additional payment for his services. The letters “RNI” had been painted on the bridge of the radio ship. Weiner was aboard the FURY when U.S. Marshals executed the arrest warrant but quickly left.

The ship itself was not permanently seized — only its high power transmitters. Even the ham station was not touched. We decided to talk to Allan Weiner to get his side of the story.

Interview with Allan H. Weiner

We hooked up with Allan Weiner the last weekend in January. He told us the FCC raid “…hit us like a sledge hammer. I built the station for the Overcomer Ministries. The ship was going to anchor off a small island off Belize. They were working on buying a small atoll close to the shoreline to anchor the ship.

“My main profession is that I am a radio engineer. I build radio stations. I have built them all my life. I once held the First Radiotelephone license, but the FCC would not convert it to a General Radiotele phone Operator License like they did for everyone else. The FCC does not like me personally.”

“They just came on board and seized the ship. Even the country of Belize was not asked permission. for them to board. Before anyone even knew what was going on, they [the FCC] hired a crane barge at a $1,000 an hour and had a crew of 20 guys come on that boat and stripped it down in a day!

“The government is alleging that the ship was broadcasting which is an impossibility. I installed those transmitters. There were four shortwave transmitters that were on board the FURY. Two of them were not even hooked up. One had a gassy final which you couldn’t turn on without blowing up the power supply. Another had an intermittent problem in the exciter and could not go on the air.

“And there is more on top of that. The transmitters had two generators. There was a main generator and a backup. The main generator was down for repairs because it was leaking diesel oil. The other generator had a burned out voltage regulator. Everyone at the shipyard knew this. We have witnesses that broadcasting could not have happened! I don’t know what broadcasts the FCC was picking up on 7415 but they weren’t coming from that ship.

“The government simply wanted to destroy the radio station. Whether it was because they did not like Brother Stair…whether it is because they hate me. so much…I don’t know what it was. All I know is the basis of what they say does not make any sense because that ship just was not capable of broadcasting.

“What I assume happened was that the FCC was looking for any excuse they can. They trumped up some charges. The proof of that is the ferocity in which they dismantled the station. They hired one of the biggest ship yards in Charleston to wreck that station.

“Brother Stair has now decided that the project is over. The ship is in good condition and is now up for sale. It is still in Scott Becker’s name. And I am waiting to get paid.”

I asked Weiner why the RNI name was painted on the ship. He said, “RNI was going to lease time from Brother Stair for about an hour or so a day on one of the transmitters to broadcast RNI programming on tape. That was kind of like part of the payment. The RNI details were never worked out. The Overcomer Ministries were going to be up on the air 24 hours a day.

“The Ministry was agreeable to giving us a little bit of satellite time and air time. Brother Stair painted names on the boat of all the people that were going to be leasing air time. The RNI painting is just a little tiny plaque about 8 inches in diameter on the front of the ship. He did that as a courtesy. The main sign painting was for the Overcomer Ministry because they were the ones that would be on the air 24 hours a day broadcasting out of Belize.”

“Brother Stair is now suing the government for the equipment. That will plow through the courts. I know they don’t like Brother Stair because he is a very controversial preacher. I have been to his church and to his farm is in Walterboro, South Carolina. Brother Stair is very thrifty and frugal and lives a very modest life. His home is an old converted trailer and he drives an old 1983 Chrysler.

“My attorney has already notified the court that I will cooperate in any way, shape or form. Whatever they want to know, I will tell them. I will be completely candid with them. The crew on the ship will back me up on it because they saw the frustrations I was going through just to try and get the generators to run.”

“This whole thing is a tragedy…and a travesty. The dismantling was ordered by Washington. Whether it was the FCC, the State Department or the FBI, I don’t know. I did everything I could to make sure that station was licensed, legal and proper. What I saw being done to that ship is a horror. Every ham, every broadcaster, anyone that has anything to do with communications should be very, very nervous. Because if this act goes unpunished, or unresolved or uninvestigated, I feel bad for anyone that has a radio transmitter. The next thing they are going to do is knock down a door, clean out his station…and confiscate his house.”

Unanswered questions…

(1) Who are the Boston businessmen who finance radio broadcast ships? It isn’t the first time. (2) Who actually did the testing and/or broadcasting on 7415? And what equipment was used?

(3) Were there other reasons that the radio ship was gutted of its transmitters?

(4) Is there more to this story? Apparently so. Stay tuned.