Sunday, August 07, 2016

Al fresco pirate listening

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.

The SW antenna mast

The fire going strong out in the garden

The summer vibe - at last

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

5 comments:

  1. 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 ...

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    1. Hi 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

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    2. Well 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

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  2. I hope you have a big garden and understanding neighbours!

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    Replies
    1. I too was hoping the neighbours were enjoying the Baro and his music! I'm sure they were!

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