Qsoing Baro style

Sunday night was interesting at the top of the MW band. Radio Barones was busy with a music programme on 1620 kHz and when Witte Tornado closed down from their weekly show on 1647, various stations came on to give them a report. 

While he was on air, Barones was listening to this qso on the Twente web receiver and started to join in, chatting to the stations in the round while also continuing with his music programme - a unique way to qso!

I made some recordings, and here you can listen to Zender Johan late on Sunday night during that qso, followed by Barones into the early hours of Monday morning - he eventually closed down just before 0330 local Dutch time after carrying out various modulation tests.

And here are my logs for the last few days:

Tuesday, August 9. 2016

1615          2124         Mustang 55444 testing

1625          2126         Yogi Bear en Einstein 35443 music programme

1629          2144         Jack Sparrow 45444 testing
1643          2237         Bluebird 55444 music programme

Monday, August 8, 2016

1640          2000         Veronica 35333 music programme

1620          2008         Nova 4 45434 qsoing

1634          2009         Blauwe Koe 35333 music programme

1650          2014         Vrijevogel 25222 music programme

Sunday, August 7, 2016

1620          0406         Zonnester 45333 music programme 

1620          2158         Barones 45433-55444 music programme

1638          2200         Bluebird 55444-55555 music programme

1611          2203         Zender Johan 54444 report for Witte Tornado

1610          2208         Monte Carlo 33433 qsoing

1647          2211         Witte Tornado 45333-45444 qsoing

1647          2252         Monte Carlo 34433 qsoing

1642          2326         Casablanca 42432

Observations

• The band has been pretty quiet over the last few days. Now is generally holiday time in the Netherlands, so many pirates are probably spending time with their families rather than switching on their transmitters
• Mustang and Jack Sparrow are good friends and were both testing on Tuesday night, although Jack was on air for only a few minutes. Both were very good here with Mustang packing his usual mighty punch
• I caught only the last few minutes of Yogi Bear and Einstein on Tuesday but the signal was very good over here. Einstein is the technical guy in his area who helps out behind the scenes with various stations... names like Relmus, Wadloper and Batavier all call on his services from time to time
• Monday night continues to be the regular slot for Veronica on 1640 kHz and his programme seems popular with the many Twente pirates who call in or message the studio
• Blauwe Koe was doing well on Monday evening. His signal was fading around but sometimes coming up very well indeed
• As you will see from the logs, Vrijevogel was also active on Monday. 1650 has been his regular frequency for a few months now, but this was the first time I've heard him on the channel. Conditions were a little strange... sometimes his signal was coming right up and was very listenable, but it would then dip right down into the noise. When autumn arrives propagation should stabalise
• Bluebird remains consistently one of the strongest Dutch pirates active on MW. His self-built equipment is certainly working very well and is regularly audible here in the UK on nothing but a portable radio with only the internal ferrite antenna. With a communications receiver and the outdoor loop, he regularly hits the magic sinpo of 55555