On a leafy street in a Boston suburb that’s become a hub for multicultural families and has historical links to New England’s largest African American community lies a blue, two-story home with a rather large antenna affixed to its right side.
It’s not used to receive broadcast signals. Rather, someone has been using it for an unauthorized FM radio station. Now, the FCC has sent a notice to the property owner alerting them to the situation, ordering them to do something or risk a fine.
The unlicensed station is at 87.9 MHz, and was detected by agents from the Boston Office of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau on both December 7, 2023 and on January 12, 2024.
According to publicly available records, the property is owned by Maridane Aunaxe and Marie Y. Aunaxe, who no longer reside there. Still, the “PIRATE Act” allows the Commission to go after property owners as part of legislation designed to give the agency more firepower in its fight against pirate radio broadcasters.
In some cases, however, that still isn’t enough. In North Miami, Fla., unauthorized use of the 90.1 MHz frequency — even after the maximum penalty under federal law was handed to “Radio Touche Douce” under Polynice Fabrice — was still seen as recently as November 2024, as monitored by RBR+TVBR.
The notice handed to the Aunaxes is dated December 27, and it gives them 10 business days from that day to respond or risk a fine of up to $2,391,097 in value.
