Andrea Langlois et al - Islands of Resistance - Pirate Radio in Canada

118 • islands of resistance
Once again, we were taking over the airwaves with pirate radio that
was diverse, accessible and free!
TAR began in 2003 as a 2-watt FM radio station that covered a range
of about three blocks (when the battery power and weather were good)
in Montréal. I had ordered a kit online 1 for $20, and spent a couple
of days soldering components onto the circuit board and tuning the
coils in order to get onto the FM band. Tuning was a two-person job
because the antenna (scavenged from an old television) needed to be
positioned in the optimal way, and somebody needed to listen to a
radio. The radio needed to be close enough to hear what was happening
beside the transmitter, but not so close that it created interference.
My friend, who later became known as Pirate Emma P, came to the
rescue, helping me out while I bounded from one end of the apartment
to the other with the antenna, trying to find the optimal placement on
either the front or back balcony. We started to hear faint strains of
music coming through the FM dial, fine-tuned a little more, and voila!
TAR was on-air for the first time.
I’ve since grown TAR into a 12-watt 2 station, having caught the bug
for unlicensed radio, and wanting a solid signal that would consistently
cover a city. The stability of my new transmitter has allowed me to
put my time into the organization of the station, the events themselves
and all of the elements around it. These include promotion, bringing
new folks onboard, mixing, hosting, networking, setting-up, striking
(dismantling the equipment) and providing a consistently solid narrowcast,
assuming that the antenna is set up correctly. (I use the term
narrowcast because we rarely reach beyond a city in terms of range.)
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was inspired to name the station Temporary Autonomous Radio
because I was reading Hakim Bey at the time and delving into his
concept of temporary autonomous zones (TAZ). 3 Bey defines TAZs in
three primary ways. First, they are freely chosen. Rather than a family
based on genetic membership, a TAZ includes a band of individuals,
or an intentional affinity group. Second, a TAZ involves the element
of festival. Fun and celebration are valued. More than this, a festival
cannot happen everyday so it creates special meaning. It is an intense
moment, a shift in consciousness. Finally, Bey borrows the term “psychic
nomadism” from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to speak
about a state of mind and being. It includes travelers who are curious
and adventurous and who are not tied down. The element of psychic