The Florida airwaves have been one of the hotspots for FM spectrum piracy, and the FCC has put the collar on two more of them. One is at the notice of apparently liability stage, and the other has been hit with a forfeiture order. Both were involved with stations operating in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale market.
The NAL is going to Mercius Dorvilus of Pompano Beach, just north of Fort Lauderdale, and it is for the standard $10K. He was caught operating on 92.7 MHz without a license on 5/12/11 and 6/15/11.
On the second occasion, agents traced the signal to a rented room, and eventually interviewed Dorvilus. The FCC described the encounter, saying, “During the interview, Mr. Dorvilus stated that he purchased and installed all of the radio station equipment and was responsible for operating and transmitting on 92.7 MHz from the rented room. According to Florida Department of State Division of Corporations records, Mr. Dorvilus is doing business as “Radio VisionFM 927, Inc.” Mr. Dorvilus also registered the domain name, www.visionfm.org.
Dorvilus has the opportunity to either pay up or appeal.
The other station was in Miami proper, on 95.9 MHz. In this case, Durrant Clarke was the one charged with piracy. He allowed another party to install radio equipment on his property, and helped out in small ways with the station for religious reasons, according to the FCC description of the case, but felt he had no responsibility ultimately because it was not his station and he had little involvement in its operation.
That of course is not how the FCC saw it. Durrant had more than enough involvement in the station to warrant a $10K fine. However, Durrant also pleaded inability to pay, and provided proper documentation of his finances. On that basis, the FCC reduced his final liability to only $1K.
