Some unexpected activity has been taking place on 1710 kHz during the week of July 17th. Casual “drive by” checking of the frequency during the early evening hours revealed a new signal this week, something different from the usual suspects of distant TIS stations and the occasional W807 which is sometimes heard here. An open carrier has been noted on most evenings, often accompanied by a 400 Hz test tone. The carrier, always becoming stronger as the sunset approaches, has reached S8 levels here. Music has also been heard, beginning on UTC 7/16/2017 during the 0100 UTC hour. This has...
Scanning no man’s land between 1710-1800 kHz and I find a weak carrier on 1760. Noting a number of trans-atlantic carriers on the 9 kHz spaced frequenices, I surmise that propagation is decent towards Europe on medium wave. I stick with the 1760 carrier a bit longer and begin to notice some very weak muffled modulation. On signal peaks I can tell it’s dance music, with a fast thumping beat, but nothing else can be made out. Audio is threshold at best. Could this finally be my first Euro pirate log on medium wave? I immediately connected to a remote...
Many thanks to Redhat from pirate station X-FM Shortwave for QSL’ing my reception of their low powered MW test on July 8th, 2015 on 1720 kHz. Redhat adds “Congrats on our first confirmed MW report!”
Pirate activity has continued to be slow at the top of the AM dial for most of this DX season, especially with the void left by the absence of The Big Q on 1710. Some new life has been discovered on 1720 kHz though, perhaps the new MW pirate “clear channel”. There have been a number of shortwave pirate radio shows being relayed on 1720 kHz during the last few weeks including Radio Free Whatever, Pirate Radio Boston and Partial India Radio. DXers from Montana to Florida and the Midwest have reported hearing these broadcasts. I’ve caught a few of...
A much unexpected announcement was heard over the airwaves from 1710’s favorite oldies pirate, The Big Q, on April 14th: It’s a sad loss for 1710 kHz and medium wave DXers across the country who were always eager to catch The Big Q. It’s unclear right now if the April 14th broadcast was indeed the final show. My thanks and congrats go out to the people behind The Big Q for always providing a very unique broadcast with a top notch signal and sound. 1710 will not be the same during those late nights. 73 my friend and best wishes...
A big thanks to Simon at SDRradio.com for his release and continual tweaking of a useful tool that comes bundled with the SDR-Radio.com V2 suite known as the SDR File Analyzer (for 64 bit Windows machines only). Here’s a spectrogram showing a variety of AM signals present over a course of 6-1/2 hours on 1710 kHz New Year’s Eve 2012 generated by feeding my Perseus .wav files into the File Analyzer tool. The strong AM carrier in the center belongs to The Big Q which signed off between 1030-1100 UTC. The moment of sign-off is quite obvious on the image....
Many thanks to The Big Q for the kind shout-out and “audio QSL” during your broadcast last night on 1710 KHz. Happy Holidays 😀
After rambling on about 1710 in my last post, and complaining that I haven’t had a decent reception of “The Big Q” in a long time, the station made a strong showing early this morning fulfilling its usual early morning time slot. Captured on the overnight SDR recordings, here’s The Big Q on 1710 KHz at 0525 UTC., but only lasting about 5 minutes: Thanks to SDR recording technology, I captured this reception several hours later, but up on 1720 KHz. This is the first I’ve heard the station use 1720, free and clear of any interference from Radio Celestial...
As readers may already know, I tend to obsess a bit over hearing pirates on 1710 KHz. For me, it’s a nostalgic reminder of earlier days when pirates were occasionally heard just above the MW band before the X-Band existed. It’s been coined the phrase “pirate clear channel 1710” by another DXer. Indeed 1710 KHz was a fairly clear channel from my vantage point but 2012 has brought some new full-time residents to the channel, for better or worse, along with the absence of another. The Hudson County, New Jersey TIS station continues to be heard throughout the night in these parts while...
15 watts heard on 1710 Khz AM from Undercover Radio on Thanksgiving, 2011 earned this QSL from Doctor Benway. Thanks Doc!
