Alan Fried

Fried’s case began in 1996 when he found a vacant space on the broadcast spectrum and started broadcasting an extremely popular, but unlicensed, Minneapolis dance music station called The BEAT. It broadcast at approximately 20 watts and spanned about six miles in radius. The BEAT’s low-power signal created no interference with any other station. But in August 1996, the FCC sent a letter to Fried demanding that he stop broadcasting because he did not have a license.