Saturday, February 02, 2013

Incredible video

On Thursday evening I was looking at an old, small transistor portable radio that has been lying around the studio here for some time. In fact, I could not remember the last time I switched it on. You can see from the dial that it has not had much use recently



I got thinking how it be an achievement to hear some Dutch pirates on the old receiver. So, I opened it up, made a few adjustments and the radio was soon able to tune right up to around 1700 kHz. And a few minutes ago in the early hours of Saturday morning I placed it inside my small indoor loop antenna to see what I could hear. Take a look at the results . . .



I was really amazed to hear Casablanca so well on this old radio. I was also able to hear Radio Uniek, who was running less than 100 watts. And all this when conditions were long skip and far from ideal for listening to Dutch pirates here in the UK.

2 comments:

  1. Absolutely fantastic video! Sunday night I heard Casablanca: the first time I have positively ID's this legendary station. Tonight (Monday 4th Feb), two strong signals coming in here in Bristol - Radio Calypso, who have been on all evening with a varied music programme, and Radio Vrolijke Minewerker. Both picked up on an old Sharp portable radio with no external antenna!

    Terry

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  2. Cheers Terry - glad you liked this video. I was stunned to get such reception, to be honest. Just shows that expensive radios aren't always necessary. Tremendous that you were able to hear Miner and Calipso with no external antenna - just shows what is possible. A friend of mine has talked before about when he was at university and listening to Radio Orion on shortwave on a Sunday morning on an old ghetto blaster. Great days!

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