1. Don’t talk unnecessarily, its tempting, but if people don’t need to know about your operation, don’t tell them about it.
2. DO NOT broadcast your location or phone number! broadcasting a false location is not really that effective and won’t really confuse the fcc if they are trying to find you either.
3. Do not use your own address for mail, use a mail drop, or better in this day of the internet, use a web based email address from someone other than your provider.
4. If you can, seperate your transmitter from your studio site(s).
5. Keep drugs away from your studio. You are doing enough already, you don’t need to attract more attention to yourself or have more charges piled on. If you have that much of a habit that you can’t do this, then consider doing something else or conisder yourself warned. Keep the underage drinkers and prositutes away as well, yes i know its tempting and all. Your only real ace up your sleeve in breaking this rule is that the cops will probably get you before the fcc comes and with any luck they will be so overwhelmed with the illegal activity they won’t reconize the transmitter for what it is and leave it alone...don’t count on it though, its evidence as they say.
6. If broadcasting from a fixed location have your transmitter hidden, or at least be able to break it down and get it hidden quickly. The same goes for your antenna, try to hide it as much as you can hide a big metal pole 40+ feet in the air. In a tree, or amoung alot of other antennas can make for good places. Try to make sure your set up, minus the antenna, can be broken down and hidden in a couple minutes.
Ok, so if you get caught, you can count on loosing the transmitter for sure if they can find it. What you are really hoping for here is that they just figure they came to wrong place since they can’t find anything. Second best is they catch you but can’t take your stuff away.
So you can play this another way, and figure you will get caught and they will be sure its you. In this case you could always not hide the transmitter but instead have it mounted inside something like a block of cement, a big block, that is staked into the ground. In other words, they can’t take what they can’t move. The downside is that frustrating an fcc agent isn’t really the way to get off lightly.
7. If you are using “liberated” equipment, get those darn numbers off it however you have to, you know which ones, they usually start with some letters such as, “serial number.”
8. Being mobile has some advantages to not getting caught, but is harder to do and you loose some listeners as you move in and out of their range.
9. Someone paying attention to the outside area is a good idea. If you are willing to break rule 5 and you are dumb enough like we were to broadcast from your house then a person drinking on the front porch can serve as a decent look-out, at least until they pass out.
10. It is easier to be caught if you broadcast on a regular schedule. But its harder for your listeners if you don’t, so this one is a toss up depending on what your overall plan is for the station. You can also operate in short bursts, but again this is hard on the listener. Figure that once the Fcc is searching in your area they can get a decent lock in about ten minutes.
11. Pre-recorded broadcasts aren’t as fun, but safer since you can set up your rig, plug in a tape, or cd, or mp3 player with your pre-recorded show and then leave the area and return when its done playing.
12. This one is perhaps my favorate method, though it won’t help you not get busted so much as maybe, just maybe keep you going. Get the community involved! The more people that listen the more of an asset you are to your area, you are providing them with a service that is lacking for the your area. Remember there is safety and power in numbers. They don’t need to know who or where you are, but if you get in trouble and you have served them well you be able to get their support when its most needed.