American Notes BROADCASTING

The call letters were RNI, for Radio NewYork International. The studio was a rusted 150-foot fishing ship, rechristened Sarah, anchored off Long Island just outside the U.S. three-mile territorial limit. The idea was to get beyond the Federal Communications Commission's reach to protest the "stale" sounds offered by licensed New York stations. The pirate broadcasts stopped last week, after four days, when Coast Guardsmen and FCC agents, citing an . international treaty prohibiting broadcasts aboard ships outside national territories, boarded the Sarah and arrested Chief Engineer Alan Weiner and Disk Jockey Ivan Rothstein. The two were released pending a hearing on charges of conspiring to impede the FCC. In the meantime, station WNYG-AM on Long Island is giving the rock-'n'-roll pirates some time on terra firma and allowing them a test 16-hour broadcast this week.