It's been a long wait for the sort of weather that means we can spend an evening outdoors in the garden, but it came on Saturday night and we spent several hours with candles, fire, alcohol and some Dutch pirates on the radio.
Radio Barones on 1611 kHz was our station of choice for most of the evening, but I had a few turns of the dial at various intervals. Duranza is a name I've seen in chatrooms but have never heard myself, so it was good to catch this station tonight on 1620 kHz from the north of the Netherlands with a good signal. Moby Dick was busy with his weekly programme on 1648, while there were other stations dotted around, with Snowman doing well as usual with low power on 1667.
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| The SW antenna mast |
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| The fire going strong out in the garden |
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| The summer vibe - at last |
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| The loop with some summer foliage! |
Towards the end of the evening Dinkelland popped up on 1629, testing his equipment and having a qso with Spakenburg. I shot a little video of the reception of Dinkelland in the garden, which you can see here. The radio in use tonight was the Lowe HF225, connected to the loop antenna pictured above:
And here are tonight's logs along with some from earlier in the week:
Saturday, August 6, 2016
1611 2100 Barones 44444 music programme
1648 2100 Moby Dick 45444 music programme
1636 2130 Keizer en Keizerin 34333 music programme
1655 2143 Pioneer 45434
1667 2145 Snowman 25222-35333 music programme
1620 2145 Duranza 45434 music programme
1629 2216 Dinkelland 55434 asking for report
1629 2222 Spakenburg 44434 report for Dinkelland
1625 2230 Jeneverstoker 32432 reporting
1625 2323 Pandora 55444 qsoing
Friday, August 5, 2016
1615 2140 Uniek 35333 music programme
1631 2141 Turftrekker 44444 music programme
1638 2142 Bluebird 54444 music programme
1668 2145 Armada 45434 music programme
1633 2200 Barcelona 43443
1668 2200 Monte Carlo 55444 report for Armada
1620 2210 Monte Carlo 44444 report for Barcelona
Thursday, August 4, 2016
1640 2130 Veronica 35333 music programme
1640 2140 Monte Carlo 45434 report for Veronica
1655 2150 Wilskracht 35333 report for Veronica
1625 2211 Monte Carlo 45444 qsoing
Monday, August 1, 2016
1632 2330 Barones 54444 testing
1638 2330 Bluebird 54444 music programme
Thursday, August 4, 2016
1640 2130 Veronica 35333 music programme
1640 2140 Monte Carlo 45434 report for Veronica
1655 2150 Wilskracht 35333 report for Veronica
1625 2211 Monte Carlo 45444 qsoing
Monday, August 1, 2016
1632 2330 Barones 54444 testing
1638 2330 Bluebird 54444 music programme
Interesting stuff ...can normaly hear the Dutch stations during the day from here on the east coast of Essex ..antenna 150ft inverted l ...50ft vertical ......never hear any uk mw stations ...do they still exist ...
ReplyDeleteHi Steve. Thanks for looking at the blog, much appreciated. The east coast is great for hearing Dutch pirates. Nice antenna you're using there... a lot of the stations over the water are using the inverted L to transmit with. There are still a few pirates on MW in the UK although they can be tricky to catch.... Blackbeard has been busy on 1494 recently and Merseyland Alternative Radio is still regular, using 1404 most recently. Phaser pops up on 1512 every now and again and gets a good signal across Essex I believe. Less frequent is Dinosaur who dusts off the tx usually on a bank holiday on 819 kHz. So the stations are there but of course nothing like the amount and regularity of 20 years ago. Anyway Steve, keep popping in at the blog. Cheers
DeleteWell I started listening around 1975 ..about 15 years old ...me and my mate built 100mw am tx for mw upto about 2.4mhz ..there were loads of mw and up pirates in those days ...suprising how far 100mw used to go ....most of us went on to get our amatuer radio licences ...but feel I never re captured those mw days ...still listen mw and 48 m bands ..shame not so much uk activities these days ....only 500m to North Sea here so the Dutch guys come in here anytime of day they are on
DeleteI hope you have a big garden and understanding neighbours!
ReplyDeleteI too was hoping the neighbours were enjoying the Baro and his music! I'm sure they were!
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