There is one thing I'm happy about now Christmas is over, though. Several of our neighbours had flashing lights around their windows. They looked attractive, but my outdoor loop antenna liked them a little too much and was receiving noise from their power supplies. I was counting down the minutes until they were switched off each evening and my reception of the Dutch pirates became much clearer once again without a constant rumble in the background.
All the decorations in the neighbourhood are now down and reception on MW is free from additional noise. Now there are just the atmospheric conditions to deal with!
Propagation has actually been kind this evening with some super reception. Just listen to this from Radio Pioneer in Rotterdam, who was busy qsoing on 1629 kHz at around 1830 UTC:
The band was pretty busy at around that time - perhaps pirates were warming themselves up from the freezing outside temperatures with the glow of their transmitter valves!
Another station coming in really well was Radio Batavier. He was using just 50 watts of power on 1615 kHz but he was peaking with a great signal:
Yes, I share your feelings about the end of the Christmas period, but also, now that we're into January, we have the long nights of good reception conditions (hopefully!). Here in Bristol, it's been a bumper Christmas for AM pirate radio. I have a small Sony receiver that goes up to 1700 kHz, and my mum's old portable domestic radio, which manages up to 1640 kHz.... I was amazed at the number of Dutch free radio stations to be heard over the holiday season. More or less every night, I had strong signals from stations between around 4pm and the small hours local time. Radio Barones and Radio Vrolijke-Minewerker were putting in great signals with English language IDs, but there were many others that I did not positively ID as I am not a Dutch speaker. A great Christmas and I hope that activity goes on through the winter months.
ReplyDeleteTerry