Sunday, December 09, 2018

Festive noise

With Christmas fast approaching and all manner of festive lights and gadgets in the neighbourhood as people - including us - put up their decorations, there are potentially thousands more power supply units within a small radius from here. All that means a possible increase in noise level. And, sure enough, listening over the last few days has been challenging with various new forms of local interference to deal with. Luckily, I've been able to eradicate much of it, but that requires plenty of regular retuning of the noise canceller unit, which can become tiresome after a while. Living in the middle of nowhere is appealing a great deal right now!

Anyway, here are some logs from this side, including an interesting in-band catch this morning.

Freq       Time       Station SINPO

Sunday, December 9, 2018
1395       0750       Energy Power AM 24322-35443 music programme
1395       0818       Studio Dennaker 24322 music programme
1611       1543       Brugwachter 35433 music programme
1619       1754       Soto en Daniel 35443 music programme
1647       1809       Witte Tornado 44444-55444 music programme
1611       1812       Texas 24322 music programme
1620       1815       Weduwe 43443 music programme
1629       1829       Moonbreaker 34333-44444 music programme
1615       2059       Technical Man 35333-45444 music programme
1638       2235       Bluebird 55444 music programme
1648       2244       Monte Carlo 35333-45433 testing 

Observations
  • I was down with the radios this morning a little later than I had intended but before sunrise. However, I found no pirate activity on the usual frequencies at 1611 kHz and higher, so I checked out 1395 kHz and was pleasantly surprised to hear Energy Power AM coming in from Ireland. 
  • It's quite rare that I can hear this station, which broadcasts every weekend from the Emerald Isle but, according to the station's Facebook page, my reception coincides with a new modulation system that was put into operation on Saturday. 
  • I'm not sure what is being used now, but the picture above shows what the setup looked like at the beginning of November. And below is a short recording made this morning:
  • As I was listening to 1395 kHz this morning I became aware of a second station on the frequency which became clear as Energy faded down from time to time. It was Studio Dennaker, one of a handful of legal low-power Dutch stations operating on the frequency - not a pirate but certainly sounding like one!
  • 1620 kHz was a bit of a mess this evening. Daniel en Soto were broadcasting around 1619 kHz - with a carrier very slowly drifting up the band - and had a decent signal into the UK when a big carrier came up alongside them and Weduwe signed on for a lengthy music programme. The two stations were then battling against each other until Weduwe close down at just after 2000, with the result being a rather unlistenable hetrodyne. They could be separated using filters, but it was far from ideal.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
1647       2032       Keizer en Keizerin 35333 music programme
1655       0038       Snowman 24222-34333 music programme

Friday, December 7, 2018
1620       1830       Mustang 45444  
1647       1842       Admiraal 35443 qsoing

Wednesday, November 21, 2018
1611       1857       Mustang 44444 music programme
1630       1857       Noordzee 35443 qsoing
1645       1859       Casablanca (Twente) 35443 music programme
1629       1900       Dolfijn 34443 qsoing
1611       1915       Utopia 34443-44444 testing

Tuesday, November 20, 2018
1620       0630       Utopia 35333 music programme
1625       2053       Marianne 35333 music programme

4 comments:

  1. Hi David,
    Nice to see you were able to catch Energy Power Am on 1395.
    Unfortunately Radio Dennaker was stronger at my location Sunday morning.

    Paul.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Paul. Yes, I was very pleased to hear the station at last. I guess Energy must have been skipping over you. Nice to see you logging plenty of Dutch pirates on weekend mornings - you are obviously much better than me at getting out of bed early!

      Delete
  2. People should have to apply for planning permission for all these seasonal monstrosities.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the blog post and great log.
    Have a Merry Christmas (regardless of the MW noise) and Good DX for 2019

    ReplyDelete