SPAM, 1934-style
p2pnet news | Cool Stuff:- There’s nothing new under the sun, someone once said, and bitrex confirms that in an intriguing Slashdot post which makes the same point about junk emails.
"Modern Mechanix recently ran a reprint of a 1934 article describing the problem of offshore pirate radio stations broadcasting advertisements and drowning out local, licensed radio programs," it says.
The MM headline trumpets, OUTLAWS MAY USE SUPER-STATIONS at Sea (Mar, 1934)," going on >>>
Radio circles on the Pacific Coast were turned topsy turvy not long ago by the; continued presence of a radio pirate ship which had taken unto itself a very popular spot on the dial and started broadcasting without regard for the land stations with which it interfered.
The primary purpose of the unlicensed broadcast station was to advertise the gambling, liquor, and other dubious pleasure activities of the ship upon which it was built—all these activities beyond the 12-mile limit, of course. Thousands responded to the advertising and the owners waxed rich. They found other sundry rackets, such as a fortune telling program, which brought in additional money and finally assumed such an extensive program that one Los Angeles station was threatened with; a complete loss of audience and business because the ship’s radio signal was the more powerful of the two.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts of a local nature, the floating broadcasting establishment was silenced, but only after the state department at Washington, D. C, had made diplomatic representations which forced a Central American country to cancel the ship’s registry.
However, this ship had paved the way and now, with the United States making headway in its light to muzzle stations just south of the Rio Grande river, within the shelter of Mexico, it appears that soon floating broadcast palaces may be dotted here and there outside the 12 mile limit, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico.
Click here to read the rest of spam in the 30s 
Also See:
Slashdot – How Spam Was Done 70 Years Ago, February 14, 2008
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February 15th, 2008 at 8:25 am
those scoundrels! broadcasting their balderdash by means of etheric vibrations into my teleradiogrammaphone!