Saturday, October 31, 2015

Halloween Weekend Loggings: 10/30-11/1/15

I was away on Thursday night (made it back in time for all of the activity to be gone), then last night, I committed radio-listening sacrilege and went to the local football rivalry football game and missed almost everything. Again, I came home to almost nothing left on. But despite my extreme negligence, I did hear a couple of things:

The Ghost SW: 6873, 10/30, ca. 2200-2300 Excellent signal with Halloween music.

unid: 6925U, 10/31, 0215+

Radio Ronin SW: 6924, 10/31, 0255 ID per HFU. Just the carrier here for a few min.

unid: 6925U, 10/31, 1240 Heard some older cartoony music for less than a minute before being wiped out by dishwasher noise. Good signal

Wolverine Radio: 6955U, 11/1, 0005+ Huge signal. We had company, so I recorded the show & plan to listen to it later on. A couple of nice-quality SSTV images at the end.

X-FM: 6975, 11/1, ca. 0130-0305 Redhat with fantastic signal here. I listened on both the R8 and the Philco 44, depending on where I was in the house. Taking requests and reports both via e-mail and by telephone, which reminds me of the old call-in shows from the pirates of the early '80s. Doors "Riders on the Storm," Marilyn Manson "Tainted Love," Black Sabbath "War Pigs" and much, much more. I think Redhat said that he received 83 e-mails and 44 postings on HF Underground for the broadcast!

Radio True North: 6955, 11/1, 0305+ Was listening here for a bit & heard a clear ID. Signal decent, but not nearly as strong as X-FM and Pee Wee, so I've been bouncing around across a few stations

Pee Wee Radio: 6950U, 11/1, 0325-0330* Jim Croce "Operator" excellent signal, no voice IDs, but Morse code at end. IDs by HFU

Classic Pirate Radio Relay Service: 6955U, 11/1, 1332-1334* Caught CPRRS theme music, IDs, and e-mail address. Excellent signal and audio. According to HFU, the station had just relayed an old show from the Voice of Laryngitis.

unid: 6924.9, 11/1, 2146+ Off and on the air with AC/DC "Hells Bells" The Who "Baba O'Reilly" "My Generation" Excellent signal & audio when all's working properly

Rave on Radio: 6925U,  11/1, 2313+ Radio broadcast segments from "Night of the Living Dead." Pretty good signal, some QRM from pescadors, but not too bad. IDs, announcing Halloween 2015 show. Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil" Talking Heads "Psycho Killer." Around 2330, someone testing & asking "How copy?" overtop. Testing station had a VG signal, but the pescador QRM started getting really bad. I gave up on the signal & stopped recording, but then had really nice copy on the signoff announcement, with shoutouts to me (thanks!), Chris Smolinski, RAFman, & a few other people that I missed  




Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Mid-week, Pre-Halloween Pirate Loggings: 10/27/15



WREC: 6873, 10/27, 2253+ Halloween show with PJ Sparx. Excellent signal. Offering special QSL, “AC/DC “Hells Bells,” Ozzy Osbourne, standup comedy (maybe Cheech Marin?) about why there aren’t any black or Hispanic ghosts, etc. “You’re listening to the Halloween special from Radio Free East Coast” over Munsters theme, Ramones “Pet Cemetery” live, The Titanics “Stayin’ on the Right Side of Satan,” Misfits “Ghouls Night Out” “It’s me Beelzebub on the radio” Ad for “A Nightmare on Sesame Street,” CCR “Bad Moon Rising” Ad  for “The Texas Chainletter Massacre” from RNCI, Story: “do you ever think of the undead?”

The Crystal Ship: 6850.5, 10/28, ca. 0005-0050* Another excellent signal.  “let the darkness take you away” ID; quotes from Mr. Grady (from The Shining), The Decemberists “The Rake Song,” clip from what might be “An American Werewolf in London,” Bob Seger “Werewolves of London,” radio emergency clip from “Night of the Living Dead,” BOC “Joan Crawford,” “The Raven” reading—kind of hard to copy with the echo, Arthur Brown “Fire” Juliana Montana with the gmail address, EBS announcement into educational bit from the ‘50s about nuclear fallout, nuclear attack messages, nuclear attack sirens, & gone.

unid: 6945L, 10/28, 0105+ Weak. Piano music: some jazzy, some sounding like at a recital. Now an EZL song with lots of flute solos. Some of the posters on HFU think this might be a pescador who's been inspired to pirate, and that definitely seems like a possibility here.

Europirate Loggings via Twente: 10/27/15

These were heard via the University of Twente webreceiver today:

Unid: 1620, 10/27, 1812-1817* Johnny Cash "I Walk the Line" & more old country music. Off without any talk

1630, 10/27, 1822- Very weak with some music and talk. Lots of reverb on the male announcer


1650, 10/27, 1835+ Very weak, not sure if any audio is here or if someone was testing an antenna or transmitter. Same thing on 1655 at the same time

1670, 10/27, 1830 Very weak with a male announcer. Gone in a few min

Unid: 6285, 10/27, 1440-1445* Dutch country music, polkas, schlager. Off with no talk of any type

6309.8, 10/27, 1400+ Light instrumental jazz, much like what would be played in a dentist’s office or on the telephone when you’re put on hold. Weak; heard as early as 1300, but audio was hard to detect at that time. Signed off by 1430

Monday, October 26, 2015

Europirate loggings via the Twente web receiver: 10/26/15

1620, 10/26, 1700+ Polkas. Fair/poor with complete fadeouts

1630, 10/26, 1730+ Signed on around 1730

1635, 10/26, 1700+ Male announcer in Dutch, but I couldn’t understand any IDs. A Hawaiian song (!), then a few old (‘50s or  ‘60s) country songs, and schlager. Fair signal. At about 1718, “Aloha `Oe” (possibly in Dutch?)

Radio Digital: 1650, 10/26, *1733-1830* Strong carrier on around 1730. About a second of music at 1733. Instrumental song on at 1735, with modulation level slowly rising. A bunch of instrumental guitar songs that sound like they could be from a ‘60s spaghetti western--Maybe a Ventures album? At least 40 min. with no IDs. Talk in Dutch at 1813. ID per Iann’s chat. Aside from those instrumentals, station played one song that sounded like a Dutch version of Slade, then signed off at 1830.

1680, 10/26, 1830+ Weak signal, sometimes fading up above the noise. Deep-voiced male announcer with some reverb and folk music. Evidently, this is a Greek pirate because it seems like the only stations that use this frequency are from Greece, and they are commonly heard in Western Europe. I guess not many European DXers know Greek because, when searching around the Internet, it seems like no one knows the name of the station(s) that use 1680; it’s always just “unid Greek pirate.”

6295-> 6290, 10/26, 1615+ Op talking over instrumental organ schlager. Sounded like he said “Hollandia” for the station ID, but I’m not sure

Radio Enterhaken: 6303, 10/26, 1615-1626+ Lots of talk in German. Comedy segment with laughter in background at 1624 UTC with phone caller.

Radio Odynn: 6321, 10/26, 1700+ Bowie “Let’s Dance”

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 10/23-10/26/15

Just getting warmed up for next weekend. . . .

CKUT Shortwave: 6925.2, 10/23, 2247+ Unlicensed relay of the International Radio Report which is aired on CKUT, Montreal. Signal was good, but there's a lot of QRM from various pescadors on and around 6925. FCC looking for input on their website, US AM stations in decline, weather report, but locally and internationally, guy (Steve McCoy) from a station in Atlanta who, I think, rebroadcast an old interview with Donald Trump and claimed it was his. In the UK, BBC refuses to fund switchover to digital, which would cost 40-45 million pounds/year (!). In Burkina Faso, the state radio stations were taken over in a coup. Activists took over and broadcast a pirate/clandestine called “Radio Resistance.” At the end of the show, e-mail address, etc., for CKUT Shortwave.

unid: 6930U, 10/25, 0220-0400+ Heard some music, sound effects, etc., mixing in with pescadors and other (?) talk. Kind of a mess.

Northwoods Radio: 6935U, 11/25, 1139+ Beatles "Ticket to Ride," Wilson Picket "Mustang Sally" Foghat "Slow Ride." Nice signal & audio

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Back to the Future Day: 10/21/15

By now, if you've been following online news sites or social media, you've seen that today's Back to the Future Day. If you don't follow either and you only hang out on radio web pages or if you are located outside of North America and don't watch many American movie, here's a short explanation:

Back to the Future was a popular series of three movies that were produced between 1985 and 1989. Because of an accident involving terrorists, the main character winds up traveling back in time from 1985 to 1955. Problem is that he affects the events in his neighborhood, altering the future; one of the drastic effects is that he causes his parents to never meet, which results in him never being born. The rest of the movies in the series all involve time travel and fixing events in the future.

In Back to the Future II, Marty and Doc Brown travel from 1989 to fix the events on October 21, 2015. Today. A number of sites have discussed the events of the movie, what aspects of the "future" have come true, and the culture of the day. Even 26 years ago, there was plenty of talk about the failure of the Chicago Cubs to win a World Series since 1908 . . . and that's still true. In the movie, the Cubs win the World Series on 10/21/15. The Cubs actually made the playoffs this year and, after beating the Cardinals in the second round, were the hands-down favorites to win the National League. Now, having lost three straight to the New York Mets, ironically, the team might get eliminated on the same day that they were projected to win the World Series in Back to the Future II.

On the real October 21, 2015, a great pirate radio way to go back in time is via the unidentified station on 6770 kHz. Although not many of the programs are from 1955, the programming does range from about 1947 to 1954.

Maybe it's a stretch, but one station that really makes me think of Back to the Future (the first movie) is the brand new station Classic Pirate Radio Relay Service, which has made three broadcasts in the past week. During these broadcasts, CPRRS has relayed Radio Dead Man, The Crooked Man, and Radio Morania. I haven't dug too far into the archives, but all three of these stations were reported in 1985.

Radio Dead Man, a spliced-up program of punk, metal, and new wave music, and stories, all involving death, was first reported in August 1985. The station had an interesting photo QSL that was a clip-and-paste parody of a Red Man tobacco package.

The Crooked Man was a single program that was occasionally aired, starting in 1985. From the sound of it, someone recorded a paranoid-schizophrenic ham, saved the most interesting parts, and added in their own songs and IDs. The Crooked Man never responded to reception reports or anything else, making it one of the more mysterious stations.

Radio Morania was a parody of the communist shortwave broadcasters of the Cold War era. It was recorded in the late '60s and sold in cassette form in electronics magazines around 1972. Someone discovered (or rediscovered) the program in 1982 and it was occasionally aired without relay station IDs between 1982 and 1985, although it is still re-aired from time to time.

So, CPRRS might not be on the air tonight, but it was on last night with the Radio Morania relay; almost on October 21, 2015



Friday, October 16, 2015

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 10/16-10/18/15

unid: 6925U, 10/17, ca. 0030 Initially tuned back and forth between this station and RFW a few times, but went back to 6925 kHz and this one was gone. Good signal with rock. I didn't see anyone else logging this, so I don't know who it was.


Radio Free Whatever: 6950U, 10/17, 0036- Dick Weed is looking for a new sidekick because Stavin doesn't show up very often: "We're an equal opportunity offender." Throughout most of the show, the signal was fair. Lots of pescador QRM in there and another station was on the frequency for a few min around 0055.

KIPM: 6950U, 10/17, 0120+ Could hear Allen Maxwell's voice, but signal was under pescadors and someone sending CW for a few min.

Burn It Down Radio: 6962U, 10/17, 0238+ Faint signal, but I can hear music down under the noise and occasional static crashes. ID per HFU

unid: 6930L, 10/17, 0324+ On and off with Latin dance music. QRM from other pescadors. Assuming that this is just a pescador playing around, but maybe one day one will be inspired by the pirates and actually broadcast with IDs

Classic Pirate Radio Relay Service: 6925U, 10/17, 2234+ Nice signal. I missed the station's first show, with a relay of Radio Dead Man from about '85-'87, but I tuned in in time to catch station IDs, a song, more station IDs, and then a relay of the Crooked Man. To the best of my knowledge, only one Crooked Man show was ever produced and it was aired for the first time in 1983 . . . and rarely through about 1987 or 1988. I think it's been relayed by a few others since.

Wolverine Radio: 6945U, 10/17, 2312+ Excellent signal and audio, with a animal theme: Elvis "Hound Dog," "Rockin' Robin," etc.

Liquid R (tent.): 6925.2, 10/18, 0115+ I saw a log of this on HFU and listened to its carrier for about 45 minutes or so. Every now and then, some dance music would fade up for about four or five min.

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 10/18, ca. 1600 Nice signal with an episode of Richard Diamond, detective

Loggings via the Twente receiver

Unid: 1611, 10/17, 1305+ HUGE signal, off and on with apparent technical problems. Schlager and older Dutch pop. Haven't heard any talk at all.

Unid: 1628, 10/17, 1305+ Another huge signal, spreading from about 1620 to 1643 kHz. Schlager, older Dutch pop, and The Carpenters "Sweet, Sweet Smile." No talk here, either, so far

Radio Spaceshuttle International: 6304, 10/17, 1320+ Fair/good signal. IDs. I think Dick said this song was by The Rebels

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Europirate Logs via Twente Online Receiver: 10/15/15

unid: 1620, 10/15, 1442-1444* Dutch music that sounds like '50s or early '60s American country music. Male announcer came on with feedback. Some talk in Dutch & I could hear a few IDs: "Radio ----," but my Dutch is nonexistent, so I couldn't figure it out.

unid: 1625, 10/15, 1554+ What sounds like older Dutch music. Pretty good signal

unid: 1639, 10/15, 1741-1744* Very strong with Schlager. I was listening to 1671 and I saw this one sign off within about 10 seconds of the 1671 station.

unid: 1671, 10/15, 1741-1744* Country & polka. "Roll Out the Barrels." Dutch announcement at end. I thought it sounded like he said "Radio Madonna," but I searched & didn't find a station with that name.

Radio Spaceshuttle International: 6304, 10/15, 1408+ Fair with a lot of band hiss. Computerized IDs, male announcer with mailing address, 31m frequency, etc. IDs in a number of different languages. RSI announced its last show a few weeks ago, so maybe this is a relay from a friend or fan of the station? spaceshuttleradio/@/yahoo.com, pirate radio song, Lots of '60s rock: "Do the Locomotion" Troggs "Wild Thing" Kinks "Sunny Afternoon""The Lion Sleeps Tonight" Dick Spaceshuttle said this is a '60s music show.

Radio Goofy: 6325, 10/15, 1710+ Pop song in either German or Dutch. Fair signal. IDs about station causing orgasms, with a gasp in the background

unid: 6360, 10/15, 1447-1503* Instrumental organ Schlager that sounds like old rollerskating music. Techno with a theremin. Nice signal. Off without ID.

Radio Supersound: 6383, 10/15, 1425+ ID per Iann's chatroom. '80s pop: Duran Duran "Wild Boys," Michael Jackson, etc. Male announcer just started to talk when the Twente receiver glitched out for about 10 seconds or so. When the audio came back, the station was back to music

Pioneer AM: 6390-->6393, 11/15, 1520+ Instrumental synthesizer music--in more of a Kraftwerk way than a techno style. Into lots of Schlager, mostly instrumental. Barry Mann "Who Put the Bomp?" ID per Iann's pirate chat, but I haven't heard any announcements here

Mike Radio: 6955, 10/15, 1715+ Bits and pieces of audio coming through. ID per Iann's chat, but I didn't hear one




Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Pirate Radio Loggings: 10/15/15

I heard Pirate BBC Radio a few weeks ago, but I didn't log it on here . . . and then Windows crashed on my computer and knocked out my recording. So, I thought I should log it here before anything happens (regardless of whether I hear any other pirates tonight)

Pirate BBC Radio: 6850.2, 10/15, 0022+ Unlicensed relay of the BBC World Service. Business Matters program. Programming is coverage of the debate between Hillary Clinton & Bernie Sanders. Great signal. One commentator said that Hillary is stuck in the '90s, talking about pushing for women's equality when colleges are graduating only 40% males. BBC news headlines: Israeli troops fighting Palestinians, ebola can linger 7-9 months, 14-year-old forced to kill someone in Mexico, Benin (I think?) leader dies. Interview with Vicki, who spent the last three months in North Korea.

Liquid Radio: 6925.2: 10/15, 0045+ Fair, but a better signal than I often get from LR. The Animals "Paint It Black" Pretty bad QRM from pescadores. Peter Gabriel "Big Time," Asia "Only Time Will Tell"

Auds'n'Ends 10/14/15: Kmart audio

I finished the oscillator for my Corsette project last night. It won't oscillate. I consider that a problem. Time for some troubleshooting . . . I've evidently done enough trouble causing.

Lately, I've seen a few articles around the Internet about a guy who worked at the service desk of a Kmart in the '80s and '90s. He handled the in-store audio, but unlike most service desk workers, he saved all of the cassettes that were produced for the "in-store radio station." He has since digitized them and posted the recordings. The early recordings are really Muzak-y. And as I mentioned back when the Old-Time Radio unid station was playing Muzak in the mornings, the Muzak phenomenon has totally disappeared and people in their 20s can't relate.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Project Updates: 10/11/15

With autumn setting in, I've started doing more radio-related activities again. A month or two ago, I strung up a decent random longwire for my Philco 44, so it's nice to listen to old-time radio shows on a '30s-era cathedral.

I also started listening more to the radio again. I logged a few broadcasts last night (and also posted the logs here). And over the past few days, I picked up some radio projects again. Here are the updates:

Philco 87: Today, I pulled it back onto the porch sanded, retaped some areas, and stained some parts of it. A couple of new photos and some text is up.

Corsette: I don't have a thread up for it, but I soldered a bit more yesterday and I almost have the oscillator portion finished.

Goldentone: Still sitting out in the garage. Pretty radio, but it's the closet thing you'll find to a disposable radio from the '30s.

I have a few other projects that I've done just a little bit with, but haven't written about on the blog. We'll see if they're worth writing about in the upcoming months.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Some Pirate Loggings: 10/11/15

Unid(s): 6925U, 10/11, 0043 Heard what sounded like a loop of the opening call of SCTV's "Great White North." Another station came on with a deep-voiced announcer that reminded me of the announcer from Satan Radio, then the song "Things that Go Bump in the Night" by Allstars (per PghScanner on HFU). Still later, I heard B-52s "Private Idaho" before Liquid Radio came on.

Liquid Radio: 6925, 10/11, 0115+ Techno with a weak signal (but better than I've heard in a while). Just checked their web stream and it's definitely Liquid Radio (same song on the radio & on the stream). BTW, the song I'm hearing right now is E-Zee Possee "Everything Starts With An E" Now, he's playing Ecstacy Club "Jesus Loves The Acid" and I could hear "How ya doin' Andrew?" over the stream, but I couldn't pull that out over the air (I was listening to both at the same time to try to hear how much of a time delay there is between the two). BTW, I think the web stream is delayed by 10-15 seconds

Sunday, October 4, 2015

PARI DXpedition

If you follow SWLing.com very closely, you know about the 1st annual (?) DXpedition that's planned for the upcoming weekend at the the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI), "a 200-acre radio astronomy observatory and former NASA tracking station located deep in the mountains of western North Carolina." How deep in the mountains? Well, it's not far from either Tennessee or Georgia, and it's about 30 minutes from any towns of appreciable size. It's not a total radio blackout area, like Greenbelt, WV, but it's definitely radio limited. And for fans of radio and DXing, that's great news.

I'm not sure if there's still time to sign up, but it's worth looking in to if you have a chance. It's definitely worth checking out if you have a can attend. It's not looking good for me this year, but I'm hoping that I can next time.

As electronic noise has dramatically increased all over the bands, DXpeditions to a less noisy area are increasingly useful, whether for DXing or just more comfortable listening. And when those DXpeditions are organized events, it's a great way to forge relationships with other listeners while learning more about this fascinating hobby of ours.

Even if you can't make it to the PARI DXpedition this week, it could be a great time to consider organizing your own DXpedition with a few local or somewhat local listeners to a quiet location.