The guessing game

There were some interesting fun on Monday evening concerning a station on 1624 kHz. I noticed a carrier at around 2100 and was hooked straight away by a strong signal and then powerful modulation. After a while it became obvious that no identification was going to come as different records and different types of music were played, presumably to test the modulation. Observing the reactions of listeners in the pirate radio chatroom, some thought it might be Relmus, while others thought it might have been the powerhouse that is Calipso. Personally, I think it was Vuurvogel testing everything out before a programme in the coming days. Time will tell if I am right . . .

Monday, March 25, 2013
1650       1747       Zwarte Boekanier 24432-35433 music programme
1624       2106       Unidentified station 55434 non-stop music
1640       2109       Caldera 34433-44444 testing modulation
1633       2110       Vrijevogel 23432 music programme
1647       2209       Armada 45434-55434 music programme
1655       2245       Wilksracht 34433 report for Armada
1644       2250       Monte Carlo 24422-34433 qsoing
1648       2257       Casablanca 54434 qsoing
1636       2300       Pandora 55434 qsoing
1657       2339       Jeneverstoker 23322 qsoing

Saturday, March 23, 2013
1656       2130       Calipso 55544-55555 music programme
1612       2131       Tower 34433-44444 music programme
1641       2131       Wadloper 44434 music programme
1648       2132       Moby Dick 44444-55444 music programme
1668       2235       Bravo Sierra weak signal music programme
1625       2245       Batavier 33433-44444 report for Wadloper and programme
1640       2245       Relmus 33433-45544 report for Wadloper
1656       2325       Romax 33433 music programme
1636       2357       Spakenburg 33433-44444 qsoing              
1640       0001       Monte Carlo 24322 qsoing
1647       0034       Jeneverstoker 24222 qsoing

Observations

• It seems to have been quiet on the band for the last few days. Whether this coincides with a drop in the sunspot count I'm not too sure. It could also be something to do with strong winds in the Netherlands and stations not wanting to raise their antenna masts too high
• On Monday evening it was nearly 1800 before the first station came through. When I came back to the radio a few hours later, Caldera was doing well with 300 watts on 1640, testing his modulation. The voice sounded particularly good. Armada was putting in a power-packed signal on 1647 and when he closed down both Casablanca and Pandora were very strong. 
• I have a couple of old Sony tuners here and I thought I would try one of them out on MW tonight. I had made no adjustments so I did not even know if it would be possible to receive signals above 1611 khz. So, I connected up the MW coil antenna, currently standing at around ten metres high, and then had a tune to see what I could hear. Straightaway there were Dutch pirates coming out of the speakers and in very nice quality. Pandora sounded particularly good and was lighting up several of the five green LEDs on the receiver. Have a look here . . .