Monday, July 02, 2018

World Cup fever

Good evening from a very hot UK. It seems to have been 30 degrees here for weeks now, and we're set for more good weather. I can't complain after the winter we had, but the soaring temperatures, perhaps coupled with the World Cup, have seen the pirate bands a bit on the quiet side.

Take tonight, for example, I switched the radios on at about 2100 UTC and could find only two pirate stations on MW. A look back at the logs from corresponding Monday in 2016 show that I heard seven pirates between 2100 and 2200 UTC. 

Who can blame pirates for enjoying the weather and watching the football with a beer - I've been doing similar. But, on the up side, when the World Cup is over and the temperatures begin to drop, I'd say the bands will light up again with activity.

Here's a look at the stations I've heard recently:

Freq       Time       Station SINPO

Monday, July 2, 2018
1635       2150       Bluebird 55444 music programme
1665       2150       Rebel 25222 music programme



Observations

  • Nice to hear Bluebird playing some English music on his show tonight. His signal was very strong as usual on the peaks, although there was plenty of static to contend with at times
  • Rebel was doing well on 1665. He has 50 watts of power and was breaking through very nicely at times, although he too was suffering from static, which is very much a sympton of the very dry weather we're experiencing

Tuesday, June 25, 2018
1625       2035       Marianne 55444 music programme
1645       2035       Oldtimer 45444 music programme

Thursday, June 21, 2018
1625       2022       Pandora 35433 music programme
1629       2023       Turftrekker 44444 music programme
1620       2208       Anton 45444 music programme
1611       2208       Polkaman 33222-33333 music programme
1635       2223       Monte Carlo 45333-45444 report for Anton
1635       2232       Vonkenboer 25222 qsoing 

Sunday, June 17, 2018
1655       2155       Snowman 35343 music programme
1611       2246       Polkaman 32322-34343 music programme 

Observations

  • Interesting to hear Polkaman trying out a new frequency tonight. He's been using 1665 kHz for as long as I can remember!