On October 28th, 1989 I logged an old Halloween favorite, pirate radio station “WBST” on 6210 kHz at 0412 UTC. Here’s a scratchy off-air recording of that reception including a nice ID: WBST Pirate 6210 Khz 0412-0421 UTC 28OC89.mp3 “Free Radio One” was a very active shortwave pirate during the late 1980s. Classic shortwave anti-government ramblings using an interview format was the norm for this “Christian Patriot” station: Free Radio One 7415 KHz 0244-0305 UTC 26JN89.mp3 Another 80s pirate gem in the form of “Radio Angeline” as heard here with their chilling Send In The Clowns music box interval signal, poetry readings...
I got up an hour before sunrise this morning to do some MW DXing. Conditions were relatively poor, but low powered 740 KVOR Colorado Springs was blasting in – unusual – and only heard one time before. Otherwise, a dud as far as catching any South Pacific signals. 738 kHz Tahiti was only showing a faint carrier this morning, while faint audio could be heard a few mornings ago at sunrise. The strong 1017.008 Tonga carrier that was present a few mornings ago was non-existent this morning. A check of the tropical bands also showed poor signals in the 120...
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....
It was bound to happen at some point with pirates now pushing the technological envelope. First, Red Hat from X-FM Shortwave experimenting with C-QUAM AM Stereo broadcasts on shortwave, and now with Undercover Radio dabbling with Digital Radio Mondiale. Obviously this isn’t practical for a number of reasons as demonstrated in the video below, but it’s great to see pirates experimenting with new modes and proves that DRM isn’t just reserved for the big 100kw broadcasters. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpQtiLEHiWM]
I was tipped off to this experimental station via one of the radio lists that I subscribe to. WG2XFQ was on the air Christmas Eve to commemorate Fessenden’s first wireless transmission of speech and music on the longwave frequency of 486 KHz using Heising AM modulation. The station was on the air again New Year’s Eve with a repeat of the special broadcast. It was during this time that I received the station from my listening location in West Michigan using the Microtelecom Perseus SDR with phased BOG antennas. Using the SDR, it can be seen that the modulation favors...
I’ve started messing around with Navtex decoding again after giving up a couple of years ago. This time around I’m using YaND combined with the Perseus SDR and have been achieving nice results during overnight decoding sessions. Some of the more distant “regulars” are NMQ Cambria (California), NMC San Francisco (Point Reyes), NMW Astoria (Oregon), ZBM Bermuda & NMR San Juan. I received a DXer’s Christmas present on December 24th with the captures shown below of station NMO from Honolulu, HI. at a distance of 4,321 miles – a new distance record for me. Times shown below are UTC. 2012-12-24...
Many thanks to The Big Q for the kind shout-out and “audio QSL” during your broadcast last night on 1710 KHz. Happy Holidays 😀
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!
