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...
I made the effort this year to spend some time at the dials during the Halloween weekend to judge the current state of pirate activity on the shortwave bands. This is the first Halloween weekend in many years that I’ve done this, and there was no disappointment in the amount of activity taking place! Below are some of the stations that I noted. I had the Perseus recording the whole 6.9 mhz band during various times of high activity and will be reviewing these files for some time to come. After reading reports from others, this is only a fraction...
Pirate Radio Saint Helena heard well enough here on October 16th to earn this nice e-QSL verification. Thanks to the station for verifying and providing the broadcast! A recording of the broadcast, as heard from my location, can be heard here: 11092 Khz Pirate Radio Saint Helena 16OC10 2305 UTC.mp3
Here are some recordings of various shortwave broadcasters, most of which are no longer present on the dials, as heard from West Michigan during the late 1980s. The receiver used was a GE World Monitor #7-2990A. Enjoy! BFBS British Forces Broadcasting Service – 17.695 Mhz – August 29th, 1990 A 31 minute clip of BFBS with a nice strong signal featuring music and messages for British troops serving in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf for Operation Granby. KUSW – 17.715 Mhz – 2118 UTC – December 26th, 1987 Another very clean recording from the upper end of the shortwave...
