Tuesday, December 31, 2013

My New Year's Eve/New Year's Day Loggings 12/31/13-1/2/13

Radio GaGa: 6925U, 2254 Playing Barnes & Barnes "Fishheads" ELP "Lucky Man" etc. "Live from Zipper Lake" ID

Unidentified: 6955, 2309+ All percussion, no IDs heard yet. Nice signal here with deep fading

I made the mistake of eating supper and a bunch of stations were on the air, according to logs on the HFU: CCC Radio, NSDAP Radio, and WBOG + an unidentified station or two. My guess is that NSDAP Radio was either some programming aired by CCC Radio or was a different show aired by the same pirate. CCC Radio was KKK-related station that made a couple of broadcasts in the '90s, long after the Voice of Tomorrow had stopped. I never heard the station, but The ACE printed one of their QSLs.

Wolverine Radio: 6950U, 1/1,  0030+ Beautiful signal. Was listening while digging through '90s ACEs, trying to find any logs of CCC Radio (still no luck).

Radio Free Whatever: 6925, 1/1, 0130 Playing "Indians" by Anthrax.

Radio Celestial: 1710, 1/1, 0200 Driving around in the car for a while and heard zilch for a few min. Then got to one spot and could hear Spanish-language contemporary Christian music, so I assume it was them. This immediately faded into what I assume was the NJ TIS, with a promo on getting flu shots. Typical telephonic audio. Best I've ever heard the TIS. Could hear co-channel splatter here, so I assumed it was from 1700 kHz. But then I got home & saw that Undercover Radio was on 1720, so maybe that's where the splatter's coming from. Unfortunately, the MW band is really buzzy here, so I can't really hear anything...and my car stereo only goes up to 1710 kHz.

Fake Numbers Station: 6925, 1/1, 0205+ English numbers

Unid: 6925U, 1/1, 0645+ Tuned in to some music & hit Record

X-FM: 6960, 1/1, 0645+ Still on the air. Fair signal

Radio Plate Current: 6925U, 1/1, 0700+ A lot of electronic dance music with two DJs. Long periods of talking & announced an e-mail address a few times and with phonetics. Announced the e-mail "because we're in the 21st century." Just sent an e-mail to see if I copied the address correctly. If I get it, I'll list it here, but I don't want to post incorrect info if I can possibly avoid it.

Auds 'n' Ends 12/31/13

Happy New Year's Eve!

In some ways, it seems kinda dumb to write that because when I peck away on this blog, I'm essentially just writing to myself. It's kinda like a journal that's left out by the sidewalk in front of the house. I know that some people check it out, but I don't know people open it up, think "??" and walk away or if some people come back from time to time and really read it.

It doesn't really matter to me either way; I'll keep writing here, in part because it's going to make creating the PRAs easier. Also, it is kinda nice to have a radio journal to refer to.

So, "Happy New Year's Eve to me...and to the spammers in Malaysia, who might take time to read this"

* I see that Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke are going to be on the CBS NYE show. Will I be watching to see if they do something "scandalous?" No. I could care less what new attention-getting scheme they shoot for this time (unless it's them running a pirate radio station).

When it comes to NYE programs, one thing comes to mind (and it's not Dick Clark). It's WGUT/WHOT, who made NYE special every year for about a decade. Here's a link to their 1986/87 NYE show. And here's a five-minute video of them as WGUT ringing in the new year in 1983. I'm wondering how long it be until someone relays one of these NYE shows on NYE?

* A great but little-known comic strip ends today, Cow & Boy. You can check out their archives here.

* Interesting how little pirate activity there's been in North America the past few days. I guess everyone's either gearing up for tonight, tired from all of the Christmas broadcasting, or planning parties.

* Frank Sinatra on the radio on New Year's Eve 1943 is a bit of a diversion from typical posts here

Saturday, December 28, 2013

NA Activity last week: 12/23 to 12/30/2013

12/23 Monday UTC (Sunday night into Mon.)

UNID: 6925U 0047
UNID 6925U 0156-0204+
Pirate Radio Boston 1720 0055-0149*
Radio Free Whatever/Pirate Radio Boston: 1720 *0229-0425* audio
Captain Morgan SW: 6925 0233
Captain Morgan SW: 6950.2 0243
Pirate Radio Boston 6925 1200-1226*
Channel Z 6925 *2214-2256*
Radio Free Whatever 6925 2300-0004*
Radio Totse (Relay) 6940U 2330-0006 

12/24 Tuesday UTC (Monday night into Tues.)
Pirate Radio Boston 6925 *0005-0051*
Black Cat Radio 6925U *0102-0130*
Radio Totse: 6920L 0110-0121
Radio Gallifrey Intergalactic 6925U *0139-0225*
Radio Free Whatever 1720 *0214-0316* audio
Radio Totse 6940U 0237-0253*
Pirate Radio Boston 1720 0400-0427*
UNID 6924.9U 2200-2235*
Radio Jingle Bells 6924.67 2249-2340
Radio Marlene 6930.06U 2253-2300

12/25 Wednesday UTC (Tuesday night into Wed.)
Wolverine Radio 6945U 0200-0424*
Channel Z 6925 1305-1336
WBNY 6950 1350-1450*
Boombox Radio 6924.6 1525-1634
Radio Dr, Tim 6949 1637-1654*
Radio Dr. Tim 6924.65 1845-1941*
Pirate Radio Boston 6925 2035-2056*
Boom Box Radio 6950 2100-2209*
Crystal Ship: 6925.56 2214-2340*


12/26 Thursday UTC (Wednesday night into Thurs.)

Pirate Radio Boston 6930 0012-0116 
Boom Box Radio 6925 1554-1634*
Radio True North 6924.75-> 6940 2300-0132
Pirate Radio Boston 1720 *2352-0038
XLR8 6930U 2355-0045*

12/27 Friday UTC (Thursday night into Fri.) 
Captain Morgan SW 6925 *0142-0212*

Pirate Radio Boston 1720 0208-0233 
Radio Totse (relay) 6930U 0227-0246
Red Mercury Labs 6925U 0401-0443 
Radio Dr. Tim 6925 1300-1350*
WTPR 6930.6 1435-1450 
Undercover Radio (incl. PR Boston relay) 13960 1743-1830
CHKN 6913.3 2003-2031
SHARON Radio 6925U 2318-2327*
SHARON Radio 6935U 2338-2359*

12/28 Saturday UTC (Friday night into Sat.)
Undercover Radio 1720 0300-0406* 
Radio Free Whatever 6949.2 1721- 
Pirate Radio Boston 13960U 1620-1719*
Radio Free Whatever 6924.6 2223-2325* 

12/29 Sunday UTC (Saturday night into Sun.)
Radio Gallifrey Intergalactic 6945U 0125-0207* audio
Rattlesnake Radio 6950U SSTV 0200
Pirate Radio Boston: 1710 0215-0410
Pirate Radio Boston 6925 0445-0543*
UNID 1710 0603-0605*

Friday, December 27, 2013

Post-Christmas Weekend Loggings: 12/27-12/29/13

Radio Dr. Tim (NA relay): 6925, 12/27, 1335+ Weak here with occasional bits popping up clearly. Heard mention of the station being a member of Pirates for Peace. Not sure when the last time was that I heard R. Dr. Tim, but it's been a long time...nice to hear again. SSTV at end of show:

Radio Dr. Tim SSTV


WTPR: 6930, 12/27, 1445+ Tire Pressure Radio. Chain-letter type broadcast about listening to the show will cause low tire pressure. Mentioning different DXers who now have flat tires. Beerus Maximus reported this 12/27 broadcast first on HFU and just heard him mentioned in the program. He's apparently risking low tire pressure. "You are the next victim of tire pressure radio...even when warned, you kept listening...your tires have been deflating while listening..." Stories about listeners who tuned in around 1910-1920 and discovered that their tires were flat after the broadcast, etc. Lots of effects: reverb, delay, slowing down audio, etc.

Pirate Radio Boston: 13960, 12/28, 1640+ Nice to log a North American pirate on a high frequency again. Good sig here with Charlie Loudenboomer and Mr. X playing Joe Walsh. Some multipath echo on the signal. Not only being heard in the US, but also by several DXers in Germany & Finland. Possibly elsewhere, too!

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas Loggings: 12/24-12/26/13

Captain Morgan SW: 6951, 12/24, 2250+ Nice signal, clear IDs, Beach Boys Christmas song.

Merry Christmas!

WBNY: 6950, 12/25, 1415+ Nice signal, announcing the Belfast maildrop. Said that they only mail out QSLs 2x/year, so be patient. Into long montage of "monkey" audio clips interspersed with WBNY IDs.

I just received a Christmas present from the staff of WPOD:


Thanks!

Radio Dr. Tim (tent.): 6925, 12/25, 1856+ Weak signal. Light pop with a woman singing. I just tuned in, ID per HFU.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Holiday test broadcasts and schedules, 2013

We're officially into the season and I've started to receive e-mails about upcoming tests. If you want to announce a schedule in advance (remember, be safe about it), e-mail it to me and I'll list it here. With any luck, maybe a few stations will be heard by more people and in other continents.



With band crowding in Europe this time of year, expect more stations to operate outside of the typical 6200-6400 area. Here are some of out-of-band transmissions, just from the past week (thanks to Dr. Tim's Pirate News):

6450 Readymix 2300
6746.9 Radio Pioneer 0920
6795.7 Pink Panther 0840
6807.8 Sundown Radio 1115
6909.9L Baltic Sea Radio 0912
6910 Premier Radio 1945-2100
6930 Transeurope Radio 1324
6949.9 Coax Amateur 0830
6974.6 Ronalisa Amateur 1308

Pink Panther Radio marathon schedule
12/28 update: PPR e-mailed to say that he moved to 6798.5 kHz 
Pink Panther Radio from Holland is planning to broadcast for approximately five straight days, from Dec. 26-31 on 6798.5 kHz. The station has been heard by a few DXers in North America, so this should be a good opportunity for new listeners to tune in.
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EMR Transmissions 27/28 December 2013



27th December: EMR  19.00 to 19.45 UTC via IRRS on 7290 KHz  Tom & Mike Taylor

28th December: EMR  09.00 to 09.45 UTC via IRRS on 9510 KHz  Tom & Mike Taylor


Please send all E.M.R. reports to:  studio@emr.org.uk  Thank you!




EMR Internet repeats on Saturday and Sunday:     

Programme repeats are at the following times: 09:00, 13:00, 17:00, 20:00 UTC



Please visit www.emr.org.uk and click on the “EMR internet radio” button

which you will find throughout the website (see the menu on the left).

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Fessenden Tribute Broadcast on 12/31 and 1/1
Brian Justin, WG2XFQ, will be broadcasting a tribute to to honor Reginald Fessenden’s Christmas Eve 1906 AM voice transmission. The tribute was also aired on 12/24 and 12/25, but I forgot to mention it here. Kilokat7 logged the station in Michigan on HFU, so there are possibilities for listeners in the Northeast to hear it. The schedule is 486 kHz (longwave) from 0001-2359 UTC. This was advertised by the ARRL, so I'm sure everything's legal, but I guess I need to take a look at the rules that allow someone to broadcast music on this frequency with 500 watts. Interesting possibilities! Much more info is available on the ARRL site.
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Radio Geronimo Test on 12/22
Dear friends of shortwave radio, something is happening on 6070 kHz.
Last Sunday the tests of our new stand-by transmitter between 9 and 10 UTC were
successful. This weekend we will try to run the transmitter for the first time
with regular programming.
We hope, during nighttime, too; this should make reception possible in the U.S.
For this transmission we would be glad to get detailed reception reports, esp.
concerning modulation.
Furthermore we would like to draw your attention to a program of Radio Geronimo
Shortwave, that will be aired on Sunday 22nd, from 10 to 12 UTC.

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Radio Marabu Christmas schedule
(using Google Translate) This year, we spotlight our Christmas program on 24, 25 and 26 December 2013 through 24 hours of on the frequency 6305 kHz.

In addition, we are on 25 and 26 December 2013 from 20.00 to 24.00 clock to listen to 6070 kHz.


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Free Radio Service Holland Christmas Show
December 29th FRSH will be on 7600//5800 kHz & 6070 kHz for at least 5 hours Pxs will be presented by Jan van Dijk doing the German show.
Roger Davis
-celebrating his first year on the station- will be presenting another classic FRS Golden Show with great (and rare!) 60s/ 70s stuff as well as a

feature on offshore radio. Peter Verbruggen will be looking  back to what happened in the past (Day Calendar) playing a mix of 80s/90s/00s records in FRS Magazine.
He will also host FRS Goes DXMas with the latest news from the wonderful world of wireless. Last but not least: Paul Graham will be doing an 80s show. Within the programmes 
October mail and Season’s Greetings will be read out. There also is the Phrase that Pays. FRS will most likely commence at  08.00 UTC/ 09.00 CET.

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New World Music program from Artem
Dear friends and collegues in hobby !Merry Christmas to all of you !Please, find enclosed two links for the Special Christmas and New Year Artem 's World Music. Thanks to all who Took part in this show . Hope all of you like result . And let this one be N15 (some of you Noted my fault with numeration of my previous show, sorry) . All the best and hope to see you all in 2014. Yours truly , Incredible Artem http://www.sendspace.com/file/nyt7ff
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My pre-Christmas weekend loggings: 12/21-12/23/13

Pirate Radio Boston: 6925, 12/21, ca1300. I heard Christmas music on 6925 kHz, hit record, then had to leave to run some errands. Guess I'll update this after I check the recording.

Snowball Radio: 6930, 12/21 Christmas music, including Ramones "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)." Part of the time the signal was good & sometimes it was really watery.

UNid: 1720, 12/21, 2345+ I have horrible grinding noise here on MW. I'm guessing that it's a powerline transformer problem somewhere. After seeing a logging on HFU, I checked here and have heard audio fade up above the grinding noise a few times, but that's about all.

Liquid Radio (tent.): 6925.2, 12/22, 0003+ I saw that Liquid Radio was on. The carrier is here and I'm occasionally getting brief fade-ins on the fast techno dance beat, but it's barely there and only occasionally.

Friday, December 20, 2013

"All I Want for Christmas" 12/20/13



All I want for Christmas…

The nondefinitive guide to gift purchasing and receiving for shortwave listeners, pirates, and other hobby broadcasters.

"The Hopalong Cassidy Playset sure is swell, but I'm hoping the Harris HT20HS is in the garage." 


OK, it’s only five days until Christmas, so this doesn’t leave much time for shipping, let alone shopping or handing out lists to the ones you love. If you try submitting lists now, you might wind up with fruitcake, which could be a good thing if you’re the pirate who runs the Fruitcake station.

But, with that in mind, I looked up some interesting items for sale on eBay for SWLs & pirate listeners:

Disclaimer: I don’t in any way endorse any of the products in this article; they are simply items I thought looked interesting while searching around on eBay.

* Sony CDX-GT270MP car stereo shortwave head unit. $149.99. This head unit contains two shortwave bands: 2,940–7,735 kHz and 9,500–18,135 kHz (except for 10,140–11,575 kHz) in 5-kHz steps. It’s not easy to find shortwave head units.


·   * LPB AM-30 carrier-current transmitter. $99. Your own legal AM station, signal controlled only by the power lines and its power transformer. Of course, without the coupling unit, it possible to output the AM-30 into an antenna for significantly less-than-legal operation.

* E. H. Scott receiver in the cabinet. What’s cooler than a huge, heavy boatanchor? A huge, heavy boatanchor covered in chrome. Unfortunately, this one is missing the speaker, so the seller doesn’t know if it works.

* Sanyo RP-8880. $89.99. Lots of knobs. How often do you ever see a Sanyo shortwave radio? 

* Harris HT20HS 20-kW analog TV transmitter for Channel 9. $21,000 + an awful lot of shipping. Not sure what the choices of applications are here. Maybe take it to the Florida Keys and beam the signal to Cuba? Check the WRTH and take it to a country that still has analog TV?


* Wild Planet Radio DJ. $35. This toy is a part-15 AM transmitter with a built-in cassette deck, EQ, and sound effects. Although there are dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Of low-power FM transmitters on eBay, you won’t find many AM transmitters. The Wild Planet Radio DJ might be a toy, but it’s a great price for an LPAM transmitter.

 * Delco 1102 1935 tombstone radio. $59.99. Here’s a good price on a fairly uncommon radio that needs a lot of restoration, both physically and electronically. The shipping is about as expensive as the BIN price, though.

 * Guy Guden Space Pirate Radio LP still sealed. $99.95. Who wouldn’t want a copy of this? Of course, the price is a bit more than that of the typical CD.