The activity level on 1710 from non-ethnic pirate radio stations seems to be gaining some momentum. Undercover Radio conducted several tests last November during Thanksgiving and into the beginning of 2012 focussing on 1710 and 1720 khz. According to Dr. Benway, these transmissions were a success based on the number of reports that came in. Monitoring of the various medium wave DX lists would seem to confirm this as well. One DXer heard Benway at a distance of 2,000 miles while using the 1720 khz frequency! During the months that Undercover Radio was utilizing the top of the MW band, an old standby...
More pirate history, preserved for future generations! Here goes: KBFA – 7415 Khz – March 10th, 1990 – 0002 UTC A rough reception, but also my last off-air recording of KBFA from 1990. Radio Free Willy – 7415 Khz – October 30th, 1988 – 0121 UTC 50 minutes of RFW with political humor and music with a nice signal. The Crooked Man – 7416 Khz – October 16th, 1988 – 1947 UTC Crazy rants by the Crooked Man himself in this clip with a good selection of music to balance the program out. The Voice of Free Long Island –...
February 9th, 2011 saw nice conditions on the 49 & 41 meter shortwave broadcast bands, so I captured the moment. This recording covers 6000-7600 khz for a duration of about 5 minutes centered at 0300 TOH: Tromp_Michigan_0300_UTC_09FE11_41_Meter_SW_Band.rar
0700 UTC January 2nd, 2010: The oldies pirate calling itself “The Big Q” made another appearance early this morning on 1710 khz. The signal here suffered from some fading, but was generally strong and enjoyable to listen to. A mixture of 60s & 70s music rounded out the playlist with the usual oddball GE Superadio Ebay ads, Dick Orkin’s Chickenman episodes, New Years wishes, vintage Coca-Cola ads, etc. Another very polished show and a fun throwback to the classic days of AM radio. Sign off was at 0901 UTC. Selected audio clips recorded between 0700-0900 UTC: 1710 Khz Big Q...
There’s an odd signal coming in here during the evenings audible on 1640 khz, a series of “dashes” at approximately 72 per second. The signal is centered at 1639.7 khz and best heard on 1640 lower sideband when phasing out WKSH. Since the signal fades in and out, I assume that it’s some distance away from me. Here’s what it looks like on the waterfall display: Here’s an audio clip tuned to 1640 khz AM mode: 1640 Khz UNID Dasher 17DE10 0045 UTC.mp3 The “dasher” first came to my attention...
There’s been a buzz going around regarding the mystery oldies station on 1710 calling itself “The Big Q”. See this post for more details. More DXers are reporting reception and it was heard in Oregon as recently as last week on 1710 khz. With all of this recent talk, it has reminded me of some old pirate stations that I remember hearing back in the 80s at the upper end of the dial. I also remember that catching any pirate on medium wave was a big deal back then (to me anyway). Snagging a pirate reception on shortwave was difficult...
Either my antenna is doing a superb job of pulling in European longwave broadcasters, or conditions are real good right now below 530 khz, or maybe a little of both 🙂 For the past few weeks, just about every night, clear reception can be had on most of the Euro channels beginning around 6pm EST or 2200 UTC. New logs this season include hearing Poland on 225 khz and Germany on 153 khz. 162 France, 171 Morocco, 183 Germany, 189 Iceland, 198 BBC, 234 Luxembourg, 252 Ireland & Algeria have been regulars. I still hold out hope for hearing Russia...
I’ve added a new page that makes available several Perseus SDR spectrum recordings from my West Michigan QTH. I will upload more Perseus WAV files in the near future if there’s any interest. In order to “play back” these recordings, you will need the Perseus SDR or equivalent program. A free demonstration version of the Perseus software can be downloaded here (Perseus hardware not required) and this can be used to play back these recordings. WAV files have been compressed using WinRAR to help speed up the downloads.
I was cruising the MW band early this morning and came across something new and interesting on 1710. Instead of the usual Boston pirate, I was hearing a strong signal from a station playing oldies music – Beach Boys, The Temptations, The Big Bopper, etc. I listened for over an hour to this station and heard frequent announcements between songs. This station was calling itself “The Big Q” (or maybe Big Cube?) and had slick liners between songs – all very professional sounding. Was this a pirate broadcaster? The most unusual part of the broadcast were several slightly different ads...
It seems there is always interesting and mysterious stuff taking place in the range of frequencies from 6-7 mhz. Aside from the pirate broadcasts that took place this last weekend, I heard some other interesting things: 6953 khz USB – UTC 0200 – Conversation between two fisherman, both with heavy New England accents. The talk was about fishing, weather conditions, etc. Both were heard very well here. Very informal conversation with much colorful language, and of course no legal IDs! 6835 khz USB – UTC 0300 – Two shrimpers “Candyman” and “Bubba” conversing tonight, both strong signals with southern accents...
