Local radio station repeatedly hijacked to play song about masturbation [View all]

https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2017/07/mansfield-radio-hijack-winking-song/

Mansfield 103.2, a small radio station located between Sheffield and Nottingham, has been hijacked eight times over the past month. The hijacker talks, screams, sings, and then signs off with The Wanker's Song, a surprisingly catchy 1978 single by Ivor Biggun that explores the benefits of self love.

Ofcom is investigating the case, but so far hasn't managed to locate the culprit. Ofcom believes that the hijacker is using a mobile radio transmitter with a stronger signal than the radio station's own, essentially overriding its radio waves. The only way to track down the rogue transmitter is to triangulate its location—but to do that, Ofcom needs a number of special agents engineers dotted around Mansfield waiting for the next attempted hijack.

Domestic FM radio is notoriously easy to hijack—there's no authentication scheme as such, and it's relatively easy to buy the necessary transmission equipment. Local independent radio stations, which are required to use low-power transmitters that don't interfere with nearby stations that might be on the same frequency, are especially vulnerable. Even nationwide radio is susceptible to hijacking: I regularly stumble across hyper-local stations in London that override what I'm listening to.

Tony Delahunty, Mansfield 103.2's station manager, told BBC Radio 4 (around the 1-hour-20-minutes mark) that a number of concerned listeners have got in touch. Delahunty stressed that radio hijacking is very easy, and that the next hijacker might be inclined to broadcast something more harmful than a funny song about wanking.