Al Muick

It could be said that Al Muick pretty much single-handedly started the shortwave pirate radio scene in the USA when he began publishing The Wavelength for the Free Radio Campaign-USA in early 1979* from his home in Wescosville, PA. At the time, some of the major listener clubs printed pirate logs but others refused to do so on the assumption that printing the logs could be seen as approving unlicensed broadcasting. Fortunately, the few stations operating back then gave Al something to report on, and a brief mention in a major magazine provided a boost in subscribers. As FRC-USA grew they added several well-known column editors, including Greg Bares, Scott McClellan, and jta.

The FRC-USA continued when Al enlisted in the US Army, even after he shipped out to Germany and wound up stationed at the Augsburg ASA (Army Security Agency) monitoring station, a posting any DXer would love to have! Continued, that is, until a General “suggested” that he cease publishing the newsletter. When you’re a low ranking enlisted man, a Generals’ “suggestion” is usually taken as an order and, since he liked the posting at the monitoring station (certainly better than infantry!), Al stopped the presses. Unfortunately, he didn’t inform the staff or membership of that decision, which caused a good deal of bad feeling at the time.

The last known issue was April of 1981. In it, Al announced that The Wavelength would move to an alternate month publication schedule since there really wasn't enough information to stay monthly.

After leaving the Army he edited the Free Radio Forum in Popular Communications magazine for about a year, and then seemed to drop out of sight. He does appear to still be DXing since there are some reports from him on Hard Core DX, but nobody else has had any contact with him.

[*- My first issue was Vol 1 #3, dated May, 1979. jta]

As a postscript, I emailed Al for additional information before writing this bio but never got a reply. jta