Aside from certainly having the rotund body of an amateur radio license holder, the only tunes 14-year-old Jayhaed Saadé will be spinning will be on his daddy’s ipod.
After months of ignoring orders from Industry Canada to shut down his 2000 watt transmitter illegally broadcasting his MP3 collection on 91.9 FM, officers from the RCMP and IC raided his father’s Ottawa, Canada strip club on early on January 15th to confiscate the $80,000 worth of broadcasting equipment. After Jayhaed refused to disclose the location of his transmitter, the RCMP cut power to the hotel and technicians climbed his radio tower and clipped his transmission lines before dismantling and removing the antenna. Through statements on his website, he claimed to have obtained a ‘class b2 license’ for his radio station. Unfortunately, IC has not issued any license to him, nor does any ‘B2’ broadcasting license exist in Canada. His signal was interfering with local broadcasters and emergency radio transmissions (his EIRP is close to 3000 watts from his dipole antenna).
“Why has this broadcast gone on so long when we are so heavily regulated, and a 14-year-old kid can put a stick up on his dad’s building and broadcast?” said Al Smith, operations manager at a local radio station.
In another move remarkably similar to those of amateur radio operators, Jayhaed reportedly started to cry when technicians dismantled his equipment and surrendered it to the police.
According to reports at the Cornwall Free News,/, he is now broadcasting live at http://www.mixfmottawa.com/ – where the bleach-blonde fat kid is swearing and is spouting racist comments against ‘Canadians’ (I have no idea what nationality he is, possibly Lebanese). He also is claiming to have ordered a new transmitter twice as powerful as the one confiscated, and vows to go back on the air.
After his first two ignored cease-and-desist orders, he claimed to be in the process of applying a proper broadcasting license. Unfortunately, having your illegal transmitter raided and confiscated via court-ordered search warrant by federal police, as well as making Industry Canada a laughing stock in the Canadian broadcasting industry will most likely make all license applications end up in the circular filing cabinet.
In addition to facing hefty fines and possible jail time, the portly pirate also faces possible lawsuits regarding his on-air content. Dismissing the fact that his entire playlist consists of MP3s downloaded from the internet with no licensing to broadcast them, he also uses voiceovers and voice talent illegally obtained from voice talent agencies, who are considering taking Jayhaed to court. Jayhaed also rebroadcasts voicetracks, production elements and stings from various MIX-FM branded radio stations across North America and the Middle East. He also rebroadcasts radio programs from the BBC without permission.
The drama continues.
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I don’t buy that his transmitter was 2000w; you can buy commercial rigs that put out that power, but they cost anywhere from 4000-10,000 bucks, and that’s not counting the heavy-duty antenna. I could buy that he had a 50-100w transmitter, and then later bought an amplifier to jack that to 200-300w, but not 2000w out of the box. Why? Because I pay attention to the radio pirates, and most of their FM gear runs from 1w to 300w (and the 300 is a 20w transmitter running a 250w amp.) And I also know that news reporters know NOTHING about radio; miliwatts become kilowatts and somehow a 1500w FM commercial station can be “jammed” by some guy running 20w in AM.