Quick Facts
Biography
Daniel Roberts, also known as Monkey Man, is the founder and owner of Pirate Cat Radio in San Francisco and Los Angeles California. In May 2010 he re-launched KPDO, a community radio station in Pescadero, CA, and served as the station's director.
Daniel "Monkey Man" Roberts started broadcasting Pirate Cat Radio out of his bedroom in Los Gatos, California (a suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area) at the age of 15, before studying communications at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He broadcast from Santa Cruz while in university.
Roberts was the first unlicensed broadcaster to use Title 47 Section 73.3542 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, which made Pirate Cat Radio technically legal to operate a radio transmitter without a formal license.
Roberts has hosted several radio shows: "Post-X" and "Monkey and Friends" on Pirate Cat Radio and "The News Mongers" and "Plane Crash Play List" on KPDO.
Monkey orchestrated Pirate Cat radio's rebroadcast of The Howard Stern Show in 2006 in its uncensored form from Sirius Satellite Radio in the San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Roberts experimented with the launch of Pirate Cat Radio TV, broadcasting in San Francisco on UHF 13 television using the same transmitters used to broadcast radio. Unlicensed radio operators like Monkey also assist others interested in starting their own low power television or radio broadcasts in locating and setting up equipment.
In March 2009, Anthony Bourdain brought his show "No Reservations" to San Francisco and visited Pirate Cat Radio to try a drink invented by station founder Daniel "Monkey Man" Roberts: the Bacon Maple Latte. An account of his visit aired on the Travel Channel in early August 2009. That same month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recognised Monkey and Pirate Cat Radio for the station's "...trailblazing efforts towards freeing the airwaves from corporate control, providing the community with training in radio broadcast skills, empowering voices ignored by traditional media outlets; and contributing to the advancement of the City's coffee culture through the unique creations of baristas of the Pirate Cat Radio Cafe...".
Non-profit organisation Common Frequency tapped Roberts to help recover the FM broadcast license for KXCF in Point Reyes, California. Within two weeks Roberts quickly rallied local support in Tomales Bay from local ship yard, The Marshall Boatworks and Richard Dillman of KWMR. Although the license was successfully secured the station has only had intermittent broadcast.