Origin of the term 'pirate radio'

Some believe that the term "pirate radio" originated with the stations off Scandinavia, Holland and England in the 1960s – not so!
The Oxford English Dictionary [OED] cites the first recorded use of the term as in "Marconigraph" issue 2 1913... but there is an even earlier reference

In May 1907 reports appeared in "Electronic World" of an amateur enthusiast interfering with wireless telegraphy from the US Navy station at Newport, Rhode Island, New York. This generated a letter, published in "Electronic World" on 22 June 1907, from Lee De Forest of the De Forest Radio Telegraphy Co, which had installed radio-telephone equipment in US ships. Part of De Forest`s letter, criticising "damped" spark transmitter and promoting use of continuous wave transmitters, read:

 "The damped half-tuned wave is an etheric pirate and should be prohibited the world over"

De Forest also commented:

 "Radio chaos will certainly be the result until such stringent legislation is enforced" and "a `wireless detective` with small portable receiver can readily spot the source of annoyance by a brief scouting expedition..."

As to the OED reference, this is, in fact, reference to a reprint of an article which first appeared in "Chambers Journal" on 23 December 1911, with an account by an un-named wireless telegraphy operator on board an un-named ship. According to his story, he was about to send a message in Morse to another ship in 1910.when the teleprinter began printing. The operator reported

 "There you are", said the captain, "unless we have been picked up again by some experimenting pirate; that ought to be the liner."

 But, as the operator recorded, the printer issued "a queer sort of message – nothing but a disconnected jumble of signs and letters". On investigating the cause of this, the operator discovered "that a big beetle was crawling bout the relay of the receiver and the dots and dashes were nothing more than a recording of his wanderings in a place where he had no right to be."

Steve Beddard.