Monday, July 30, 2012

JTA Puts Final Nail in FRN Coffin

"A culture jamming war would do no one any good.
 The information overload online is already
 overwhelming and confusing enough."


"Fnord 'em if they can't take a joke.  Or not."
--The Chao of Poo



Special to Tales of Radio Paranoia
by General Shun, DXing Professional
illustrations by Lauren Sheng

For reference by future generations of pirate radio fans and historians, the FRN died in July 2012.


The corpse may continue to show occasional spasms and zombie-like animations, between the annual domain lapses, but the FRN you once knew is defunct.  It has ceased to be.  It has shuffled off this mortal coil.  It ain't pinin' for the fjords.  It is an ex-parrot.  What you see now is an open grave, a cheap casket with few mourners, and a tombstone etched with a pitiable epitaph: "Herein Lies... lies."
 
The onetime "Free Radio Network" had been on life support since the late 2010-early 2011 mass exodus toward safer sanctuary on the HFU and FRC.  In April 2012 John T. Arthur took the FRN off life support but the brain-dead body clung to a vegetative state of meager existence until July 23, 2012 when JTA put a knife through its heart... from behind its back, of course.

Recently JTA, longtime Belfast, NY mail drop operator and erstwhile FRN cat herder, advocated exposing the identities and locations of shortwave pirate radio operators who'd been "dumb enough to be busted" by the FCC.

In so doing, JTA surprised some of us who, perhaps naively, had once regarded him as a somewhat uncommon voice of reason and sanity in an undeniably quirky hobby.  There was a time, on rare occasions, JTA dared to counter the increasingly insane abuses of Pat Murphy's numerous sockpuppets.  That time is no more.

Specifically he joined "Commander Bunny" of WBNY in repeatedly naming the operator of The Crystal Ship, and, by logical inference, advocating exposing the identities of other pirates who'd met with similar misfortune.  By this same logic, any op who'd gotten The Knock, a NOUO, warning or other FCC enforcement action can expect to see their names, addresses and personal information repeatedly posted on the FRN, the WBNY blog and Facebook pages and everywhere the Virginia Bunnyman pauses to munch a load of his own night poops. This should alarm not only every station operator who has been the subject of any FCC action, but also every active station operator who still uses the Belfast mail drop.

"Why are we still referring to him by his sock puppet name "John Poet"?  If he was dumb enough to get busted, he doesn't deserve to be called anything but Greg."
--John T. Arthur, operator of Belfast, NY, mail drop. "6925 AM Music and Crying" thread, FRN, July 23, 2012


Aside from willful ignorance of the difference between an alias or pseudonym and a sockpuppet, JTA also demonstrated to countless free/pirate radio operators and listeners, who have entrusted him with their names and addresses, that respect for personal privacy is subject to whim.  Those posts underscore the disease of hypocrisy and hubris that quickly decimated the FRN after the 2008 "pirate war" led to Pat Murphy (aka, Jerry Michael Graves) resigning his position as site administrator taking his toys and stomping off in a huff... or a minute and a huff.  Thence he donned full time the bunny garb of Lagomurph & His Sock Puppet Crew of Beans, Mosby, Thumper, Bouncer, et al.  This myxomatosis infection spread to full butthurt level by late 2009, by which time his delusional, paranoid hostility, slanderous accusations of enemies as pedophiles and generally questionable closeted aspirations had metamurphosed the FRN into his personal vanity site resulting in a mass exodus to friendlier radio hobbyist websites.

A few of the faithful cling to the corpse, like flies on shit pitiable mourners who can't bring themselves to face reality and bury the body.  They're misled pagans and wannabe druids worshiping at the ruins of a Stonehenge, not realizing the structure never was what they'd been led to believe.  They thought the FRN was a supportive community for pirate fans to exchange info and tips on neutral ground.  Instead it was a temple occupied by an increasingly paranoid, delusional cult leader, his sock drawer acolytes, a minuscule remnant of actual minions and his ever faithful homunculus goon bred from the Lagomurph's sperm and ample supply of bullshit.

Reviewing the old FRN threads chronologically reveals how the site began dying from Murphy's slow poison.  The illness progressed rapidly around 2005 when the toxic effect of his pet homunculus interjected itself.  The Lagomurph's sockpuppetry finally choked the spirit of a once lively and generally gregarious site.  JTA's comments this year merely nailed the coffin shut on a rotting corpse.  All that remains now is to bury or burn the thing.

Cryptically and somewhat ironically, a reply to JTA's April 2012 thread, seemed to hint - wittingly or not - at the rotten core of the bond between the mail drop operator and the Lagomurph:

"Want a list of a lot of the folk involved in pirate radio and their addresses? Put a station on the air and offer QSL's."

At this point it is difficult to tell whether JTA's recent comments were mere recklessness born of frustration over seeing the once proud FRN deteriorate to the level of a bad joke, or carefully contrived to reassert pirate radio as being only for a select group of bad boys.  Either way, he's pandering to the mentality of Murphy and Kracker in advocating an abrasive style that makes the FRN inhospitable to most people who prefer their personal privacy be respected - ops and listeners alike.

Perhaps most humiliating of all for the Lagomurph and his puny FRN coterie, nobody is intimidated any longer.  The Felching Rabbit Nuthuggers have become at best irrelevant and at worst a laughingstock.  Several new stations have emerged with solid signals that reach across the continent and even the world, unlike the WBNY signal that entertains only the varmints in his backyard hutch.  (I will confess to once having heard an authentic WBNY broadcast via my carradio while I was driving near his hutch.)  The hobby continues to draw new listeners.


The loss of trust in the Belfast mail drop is also a loss to traditional DXers who enjoyed receiving QSL cards.  But time marches on and somehow we manage to adapt, even without the Lagomurph's Trojan Bunny gifts festooned with increasingly bizarre symbols that seem to belie a latent obsession with nude men and suicide, even in preference to his former passion for monkey boys.

For what it's worth, many of us who received QSLs courtesy of JTA's mail drop are - or were - grateful for his efforts.  But everything has its limits.  A few postcards and postage stamps don't buy the right to slander fans of a niche hobby or abuse access to personal information.

A comment on Poet's TCS blog last year seems more appropriate now than ever:



"The fact is CB is only a part of a cancer that has existed in SW Free Radio for many years.


It's very telling seeing which individuals who like poor magicians attempt sleight of hand deception tricks with their words and deeds in an attempt to make excuses or suggest doubt about the events that are now known by the public. It's the same crap that certain career politicians in Washington use every day. Just say something over and over and maybe it will trump the actual facts. Maybe people will believe it if one repeats something enough times. Or maybe people will just forget in time what happen.


Until the remaining cancer is exposed to the public for what it is, the community will continue to suffer. The worst part of the cancer is JTA. And Zeller is no better. They will cover for each other and watch each other's backs regardless of the unethical behavior perpetrated by their core individuals. They smile to your face, but watch out what happens behind your back!


These individuals will continue to look the other way when wrongs are done by their friends just as they have countless times in the past.


Their lack of ethics bonds their members in common cause simply by association. The result is that no matter what the collective group does as a result of its aggregate ignorance, loyalty to one another will always and forever outweigh any evil actions that may be undertaken. Simply put, for these individuals, truth by association trumps morality.


Pirate operators should be wary! And be careful!

Snakes cannot be trained!"



See Poet's follow up and additional information on this topic.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Fink Noise Part 2: The "Bob Smith" email

From Profile Photos


by Guise Faux,
aka The *Real* Commander Bunny


As Pat Murphy plays another of his endless supply of ass-in-the-hole cards, we see he rewrote his act baleeted his self-incriminating shitpost this week. Now it's even unfunnier. Great success!

On Wednesday he posted a WBNY blarg aimed at Doc John of Northern Relay Service, in which the Lagomurph again attempted to expose the identity and location of a "rival" free radio operator.  Friday, apparently in a panic, he disappeared the incriminating post.*

Murphy has suffered from dumped girlfriend syndrome ever since late 2010 when several programmers sensibly opted for Northern Relay Service in addition to - or instead of - the mighty 8 watt WBNY "International Relay Service."  Since the two stations had entirely different coverage areas there was no overlap and no reason to consider it competition.  But that's in the real world.  In the Lagomurph's paranoid delusional bunniverse, everything revolves around him.  (Hint: Those are just cecotropes revolving around you, bunnyman.  NOM-NOM-NOM!!!)

Throughout 2009-2010, Murphy morphed the FRN into the For Rabbit Nuthuggers site through relentless pimping of the WBNY relay service, with many hilarious jealous tantrums and self-loggings when other stations were logged more often than his own.  Even Andrew Yoder's log of Northern Relay Service on the FRN was disappeared in early 2011.  Since then the jilted hare-terror has indulged in a relentless stalking campaign, apparently inspired by Glenn Close's performance in Fatal Attraction, and Sean Young In Real Life.

Coincidentally on Wednesday this week, we learned of the existence of an email confirming Murphy snitched out the Canadian shortwave pirate radio station last year.  (See: Fink Noise: Connection Confirmed Between Pat Murphy and Snitching on "Rival" Pirate Radio Operator)  The email echoes some of the same information repeated in Wednesday's WBNY blog rant, strengthening the connection between "bobsmith6955@yahoo.com" and Murphy.  In his frenzy of endless vendettas, Murphy apparently forgot he'd used the same email address numerous times under various aliases online - including Usenet and a genealogy site - leaving a trace of IP headers tracing back to the same Newport News, VA, IP connected with his ebay vendor, as well as a listing of her Newport News address in connection with Murphy's regional political activity in Virginia.

Here is the "Bob Smith" email complaint about Northern Relay Service, to Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society, dated February 8, 2011 (redacted for privacy).  Note that the next day "Bob Smith" emailed Doc John in a faux-friendly gesture, urging him to go on-air (See: "House of Games: 'Bob Smith' con's-piracy").

(7/21/12, 2325 UTC update note: Minor format revisions to clarify separations between emails from YARS and Bob Smith.  Unfortunately the Blogger platform doesn't easily accommodate multiple nested indents, so horizontal rules have been inserted to clarify separations.  Note that Bob Smith appears to be quoting to YARS an email he had *already* sent to the Industry Canada office in Saskatoon, implying that Murphy had indeed already complained about Northern Relay Service to both YARS - an amateur radio club - and to Industry Canada, the Canadian regulatory enforcement agency.  Recall that last year Doc John also said he got a call about this from a CBC reporter, indicating that Murphy had also complained to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.  When further documentation is available it will be published here. --GF)


From: Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society (email address redacted)
To: (redacted)
Sent: Wed, Jul 18, 2012 5:16 pm
Subject: Re: Fwd: Pirate Radio Yellowknife inquiry

Hi (name redacted),

Yes, we got a complaint from “Bob Smith” – see below:


From: Bob Smith (mailto:bobsmith6955@yahoo.com)
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2011 5:07 PM
To: (Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society)
Subject: Need help catching pirate radio operator


I have sent this to the Saskatoon office but you should be aware of this violator in Ft. Smith. He is disrupting Radio, TV and computers in the Ft. Smith area. Please, PLEASE take action to stop this outlaw.


(Note: Here, "Bob Smith" appears to be quoting a copy of the email he'd already sent to Industry Canada. --GF)

I wish to report a Pirate radio station in Ft. Smith in the Northwest Territory. It is located near (address redacted) street, right by the Aurora College Campus. He is identifying himself as "Radio Yellowknife" and "Northern Relay Service" and coming in on TV's Radios and computer speakers at the college campus and nearby houses. He is transmitting on 6930 and 6940khz in the shortwave band. He is, I am told by a Ham Radio friend, "running some big power" to be coming in on tv's, Radio's and computer speakers many blocks away.

My weekends are a nightmare as this "pirate" is running his big powerful transmitter non-stop for many, many hours.

You would be doing the good people of Ft. Smith a great service to stop this illegal operation and abuse of the broadcast spectrum.

Any help you can provide in helping to stop this pirate broadcaster would be appreciated. He is transmitting anti-Canadian programs and making fun of people in the Northwest Territories.

He is on the air Friday nights, Saturdays, Saturday nights and Sundays and Sunday nights. he's on like clockwork.

He comes on usually around 6PM local time and goes off sometimes after midnight, local time. He plays rock and roll music, talks about his love of "pot" and has many anti- Canada statements. He one program, called "Radio Yellowknife" comes on weekly, and then he also has what he calls, "Northern Relay Service" whatever that is.

many thanks, hope you catch this scalliwag.

Bob Smith
Ft. Smith

Here is additional information so you can "google earth" this pirates location.
IP address:(redacted)
country: Canada
IP Address state:Northwest Territories
IP Address city:Fort Smith
IP latitude:(redacted) longitude:(redacted)
:NorthwestelOrganization
:NorthwestelHost: (redacted)



Other than that, I don’t have much information on this.  His name didn’t come up much,  and personally I never heard him on the air.

Regards,

(YARS, name redacted)

The Lagomurph testifies about unsavory radio practices.

Did the phrase "the good people of Ft. Smith" ring any bells?  If you've read enough of Murphy's rants under his various aliases and sockpuppets, you'll recognize one of his "tells": the dualistic thinking of expressing everything as good vs nasty.  In Murphy's cosmology, you're either with him or you're with the terrorists.  Pretty much like George W. Bush, only Bush never nom-nom-nom'd his own night poops.  While he's not alone in using the term, phrases such as "good pirates" are most often associated with his rants on the FRN.
"IRC the destruction of Pirate Radio"
"Mother of Mercy! is this the End of Kracker et al?"

Another classic Murphy "tell": psychological projection or foisting off his offenses onto others.  It was actually Murphy, under his "Bob Smith" pseudonym, who introduced the topic of dope humor in his Feb. 9, 2011 emails to NRS, when "Bob" wrote "I may have to take a huge bong hit, and go over to the Mormon Temple and zone out!"  It was also Murphy who introduced any "anti-Canadian" issues with his sarcasm toward Mormons in Lethbridge, Industry Canada, etc.  Doc John didn't take the bait and, instead, set the bait for Murphy to trap himself by sneaking in a few jabs at Commander Bunny.


*NOTE: That WBNY shitpost was deleted on Friday.  Apparently the Lagomurph realized it echoed too closely the details of his email last year.  So in typical rabbit fashion, he ate his own poop.  Here's a screencap of that blog entry.  Note the specific location references between the February 8, 2011 email and July 18, 2012 WBNY blarg.  Murphy has a history of abusing access to IPs of FRN posters to harass his many enemies.  And as he does here, he also has a history of being hilariously WRONG in identifying the names and locations of perceived enemies.  Well, maybe not so hilarious if you're among the many people he's misidentified and slandered.  Fortunately for his lawyers, liability insurance company and psychiatrist, he can always fall back on the myxomatosis-influenced brain damage defense.

Mind the cecotropes, kids - wash your paws after reading:



Thursday, July 19, 2012

Fink Noise: Connection Confirmed Between Pat Murphy and Snitching on "Rival" Pirate Radio Operator

From Profile Photos


by Graves Anonymous Voices of Greaves-us Dissent


Karma is a funny thing.  And it's one of the Lagomurph's favorite and most often abused words - which the poor addled feller conflates with revenge and vendetta driven by his own delusional paranoia.  Understandable given his genetic Virginny hillbilly predisposition toward fussin' and a' feudin'. Combine those inbred vulnerabilities with a knock on his noggin from falling off his two-wheeler about 10 years ago and, as Hank Hill often lamented of son Bobby, that boy ain't right.

But karma is the closest thing we humans get to hipster cosmic irony.  It's the inevitable but wholly natural restoration of balance through events that seem spookily coincidental and fuck your shit up just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.

So imagine our surprise to find the existence of - mere hours after a Wednesday WBNY blog blurt purporting to expose the identity and location of yet another pirate op on the bunnyman's extensive enemies list - written confirmation that former broadcast radio personality and FRN administrator Pat Murphy (aka "Commander Bunny", aka "The Lagomurph", aka a dozen aliases and sockpuppets documented here before) had, indeed, snitched out Doc John of Northern Relay Service and Radio Yellowknife to Canadian authorities.

This, via the infamouse "bobsmith6955@yahoo.com" persona documented at tedious length in our very own RP yellow journal last year.  (See: "House of Games: 'Bob Smith' con's-piracy")  Copies of those emails were reproduced here, along with definitive IP links tracing back to the Lagomurph's home turf of Hampton Roads, Virginny, as well as to his replies on a genealogy site (known to be one of Murphy's hobbies) and his "Bouncer" alias on Usenet when he posted arrest records for a DXer several years ago during one of Murphy's many vendettas.

Now, friends, that "Bob Smith ratted out Doc John" rumor had circulated 'round the nether parts of the ether for nigh unto a year plus a blue moon plus a coupla fortnights.  And RP has documented before the pathetically inept attempts by the bunnyman to con Doc John, which the crafty Canuck flipped around into one of the internet's all time most hilarious counter-trolls ever.

"We have learned through the high frequency underground that email evidence is in hand linking Pat Murphy to snitching out a pirate radio station operator."

What we lacked was a copy of the actual email proving "bobsmith6955@yahoo.com" did indeed file a complaint against Northern Relay Service in an attempt to silence a rival pirate radio operator.  Well, dear readers, we have learned through the HF underground that email evidence is in hand which incontrovertibly links Pat Murphy to snitching out a pirate radio station operator, an action generally regarded as an unpardonable sin amongst the community - according to Murphy himself in many online rants under his own name and his various radio aliases and online sockpuppets.

Reliable sources tell us the email will be published soon, with a Wikipedia entry cross-linking the evidence.  When that becomes available we'll reproduce it here.  But we've seen the email and it confirms not only the rumors circulated last year, but is even worse in terms of the Lagomurph's desperation to silence a free radio operator whose only offense was to dare to offer an alternative to the WBNY 8 watt "International Relay Service", and to broadcast a clever parody of the bunnyman's paranoia, the "Paranoia News North".

In retaliation for this unpardonable offense to the Lagomurph's delicate ego and withered huevos, Murphy abused his access to the FRN via numerous sockpuppets, his WBNY programs and WBNY blog (hosted on Ragnar Daneskjold's domain), and Facebook page to publicly slander another free radio operator as a "pedophile".  (Recall that this is not the first time the Lagomurph has resorted to this tactic.  Apparently he sees pedophiles under the straw in his hutch in the same way Jerry Sandusky saw them in the mirror.)

Nevertheless, the former administrator of the FRN (one-time Free Radio Network, later the For Rabbit Nuthuggers only site, now the Forgotten Radio Nothing tumbleweeds and dust bunnies site) remains as an occasional poster - usually logging his own WBNY broadcasts.  He also heads the board of the North American Shortwave Pirate Radio Hall of Fame, where he can exert some spin on whatever remains of the rotting remains of his legacy.

Pat Murphy. Respected broadcast radio professional. Creative free radio programmer.
Lavish gifter of elaborate QSL packages.
Blog blurting bunnyman.
Leader of the Rat Fink Revolution & Host of Fink Noise on WBNY.
Petty, vindictive, paranoid multiple-fursonality myxomatosis-infected snitch.
Everything that makes pirate radio the most fun you can have with your
pants around your ankles and your brain on the floor.


Funniest of all, he continues using his WBNY platform and Commander Bunny persona to hawk his "real" QSL packages.  No doubt, those QSL packages are lavish and enticing pogey bait (you ex-Marines like Murphy will recognize the significance of that term**).  Just keep in mind he uses those QSL packages to harvest personal information about you - your names, addresses - and history shows he will not hesitate to abuse that information in his on-air and cyberbullying vendettas.

And while we once were inclined to give John T. Arthur - operator of the longtime Belfast, NY, mail drop - the benefit of the doubt, JTA's comments in April this year defending Murphy's reprehensible actions show, unfortunately, that it's probably unwise to trust the Belfast mail drop (see: "Analysis of an FCC Visit" from April 14, 2012).  Also, frankly, JTA's comments read like they were scripted by the bunnyman himself - doesn't really sound like anything the normally levelheaded JTA has said before.  We're hoping he was held hostage at carrot-point and forced to write that to offset another of the Lagomurph's bouts of myxomatosis rage.  BE WARNED.  ALL UR DOX R BELONG TO CRAZY OLD COOT.

If you have any doubts about respect for privacy, just peruse his WBNY blog blurts (hosted on the domain owned by pirate radio observer Ragnar Daneskjold, who might oughta reconsider providing safe hutch-haven for the loose-lipped lunatic Lagomurph - why not kick the critter to the curb and tell him to get his own domain rather than stinking up your house?).  Over the past year, hiding behind his bunnyman mask of sooper sekrit invisibility, Murphy has repeatedly slandered and exposed names and locations of at least a dozen different pirate radio operators, listeners and even some innocent bystanders who had absolutely zippo, nada, bupkis, to do with any pirate radio fracas - notably respected radio journalist Gayle Van Horn, to whom Murphy owes a sincere and very public apology.  And we're confident that will happen... as soon as Murphy grows a pair.  And we don't mean Easter eggs.

On the other hand, if you're a veteran of the U.S. shortwave pirate radio scene and friendly with these folks, by all means, take advantage of those extravagant WBNY QSL packages.  Guise Faux tells me he received his this year, courtesy of an intermediary mail relay, and treasures it in the same way he treasures his reliquary that features Hitler's missing testicle, a braid of Blackbeard's chin whiskers tangled with a bit of slow match, Sarah Palin's ventriloquist dummy (curiously nicknamed "Kracker"), the late Jay Smilkstein's homunculus (also curiously named Kracker),  and the desiccated husk of Murphy's integrity.  However, Guise reports he's puzzled by the appearance of a saliva encrusted oxycontin and anti-dementia medication stuck to the WBNY t-shirt.  Presumably the Lagomurph drooled a bit while packaging up the pogey bait.

Related background info for new readers:




**We received a couple of questions about the term "pogey bait". Brown Nose the Pirate chipped in this clarification, courtesy of SSgt M., whom Brownie described as "the sole survivor of an ambush that wiped out his squad. During PT he'd yell 'Pain is beautiful, bud!' He was hard as gravel, twitchy from PTSD and had a big heart. Last time I saw him he was in psych eval after going zombie during night exercises when some blanks and firecrackers were set off to scare the recruits."

     "According to SSgt M., whom I trained with in '75 just after he got back from his final tour in Vietnam, it's not geedunk - sweets or treats used to create goodwill with the locals. It's more than mere geedunk. Back then, pogey bait had an underlying implication of something seamy, unsavory, even sexual in nature. It may be contraband, black market goods, booze or drugs used to curry favor with prostitutes or sex with minors and boys - specifically, pogues. Pogue was one of those words with multiple nuanced meanings. Nowadays it mostly refers to the admin and support guys away from the fighting. The original connotations have been lost. It meant trash fish to fishermen. Pogue was fresh girly-boy meat to older guys cruising for a BJ. It was bait to lure the pogues.
     "And sometimes the pogues were used as pogey bait to lure the Marines. And sometimes the naive young Marines on guard duty fell for the pogey bait, got sloppy, let their guard down... and people got hurt. They got caught in embarrassing situations and coerced into relaxing security or revealing confidential information.
     "So, take my advice," said SSgt M., "be wary of older men pretending to be your friend and trying to soften you up with pogey bait. They're gonna want something in return, and it probably involves a reach around."