RADIO REVIEW/Harry Browne: Begging your pardon if the following sounds like a mixed metaphor: when you're a pirate, you know the lie of the land. When I spoke this week to a couple of unlicensed broadcasters with, between them, 13 years of experience of running radio stations, they were already philosophical about having the plug suddenly pulled just hours earlier.
Jazz FM and Phantom FM have never been raided in, respectively, eight and five years of technically careful, just about commercially viable transmission to small, discerning audiences for "black" and "indie" music.
That changed on Tuesday and Wednesday, when the lads from the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg, or the artist formerly known as the ODTR) arrived bearing warrants at high-elevation south Co Dublin sites, in Killinarden and around Three Rock.
There's no need to raid studio doors at the backs of shops, in suburban bedrooms or in garden sheds when you can just remove the transmitters from the mountainsides.
Phantom and Jazz are now off the air, along with perhaps another dozen Dublin pirates. "I've had a good run," said Jazz man Ollie Dowling, who'd just lost several thousand euro worth of transmission equipment that was, quite simply and unambiguously, being operated without a licence. In all probability, Jazz will run again; Phantom is even more likely to, having rescued its Three Rock transmitter after the first raid further east.
"If we'd lost 91.6 we'd have been in an awful lot of trouble," Phantom's Simon Maher said. With all transmission gone and even Phantom's impressive website streaming white noise, he'd have been forgiven for thinking they were there already.
These two stations are of particular interest because of their efforts to go straight. "We've been in ongoing discussions with the BCI," says Maher, referring to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, which issues radio licences, though never to Phantom. Phantom's questions have boiled down to "why not?", while, according to Maher, BCI replies have stressed the absence of available frequencies. Maher wonders if, now that ComReg "have cleared off 15 frequencies" by smashing the pirates, this reply will change. He's not holding his breath.
Why this attack, and why now? ComReg will always look at you like you're an eejit for even asking the questions.
The fact that the law is flouted for years on end doesn't mean the regulator shouldn't keep trying to amass sufficient technical and legal resources to have a go at the law-breakers, right?
Dowling suspects that the recent trigger might have been a pirate (not Phantom or Jazz) "over-modulating", thus perhaps interfering with two-way radio transmissions. Certainly regulators will speak darkly of "emergency services" being disrupted by pirates.
"They'll say 'blah blah aircraft', but the reality is that those communications are all digital now anyway," says Maher dismissively. He has Darwinian hopes that the raids "might permanently take off some of the less serious operators" and convince ComReg and the BCI to license more frequencies.
Further evidence, if any more could be needed, that authorities are congenitally incapable of leaving well alone could be heard on the consumer programme, You and Yours (BBC Radio 4, Monday to Friday).
This time, the bureaucrats are ever so cautiously rationing out licences to buskers on the London Underground. The sub-street musicians told reporter Alison Davies they were none too pleased at the prospect of auditions and timesheets, which do seem rather to violate the spirit of busking.
The most depressing aspect of the report was the vox-pop with commuters, several of whom seemed blind to the Blairite idiocy of the licensing project.
"I like it," said one sweet-sounding lady. "It might stop your average beggar from tapping on a shoe or something."
And who said liberal humanism was dead? If this is going to be the go of things, then I propose the Irish Times Radio Review (ITRR) as the licensing authority for the pronunciation of Italian words on the wireless.
I'm gathering a team of inspectors (from the chipper) and all necessary documentation (pasted from the Internet) for a legal challenge against that chef in the advertisement who can't even pronounce "Agnesi", the name of the pasta he's being paid to promote.
We will seek evidence against any ad agency that may have conspired to "simplify" the word to boost consumer comfort with the product. We are confident of EU support.
My (slightly older) colleague in the Office of the ITRR wishes to expand our regulatory brief to include the alleged 50-year-old in a vitamin advert who sounds like he should be swapping yarns with Oul' Mister Brennan.