The sun sets on another day

As the sun set outside the radio room on Wednesday evening I was hoping for a busy night on the MW band. As it turns out, it was pretty quiet, although there were still ten stations heard here in the UK, a level of pirate activity we can nowadays only dream about in this country. Here's how my view was looking - you can see the loop antenna if you look closely - and here are the stations heard:

Freq Time Station name SINPO

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

1620 1717 Monza 35443-45444  (q)

1656 1721 Mebo 2 weak signal - 25332 (q)

1618 1722 Skywire weak signal (q)

1655 1751 Turfsteker 25232 (q)

1625 1903 Blauwe Koe 45434 (m)

1665 2017 Kristal 35333-45434 (m)

1630 2028 Marskramer 44444 (m)

1655 2221 Turftrekker 45434 (q)

1665 2228 Vonkenboer 25332-35333 (q+m)

1665 2229 Vrolijke Mijnweker 55444 (q)

(m) = station was broadcasting a music programme
(q) = station was qsoing
(r) = station asking for a reception report from another station
(t) = station was testing

Observations

• A quiet night on the band. There was a bit of qsoing at either end of the evening, with programmes from Blauwe Koe, Kristal and Marskramer in between. Good also to catch Vonkenboer spinning a few records at the end of the evening following a chat with Vrolijke Mijnwerker and Turftrekker. There were some nice peaks on the Vonkenboer signal, which was good going considering a transmitter power of only 175 watts and that propagation wasn’t at its best tonight.

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

1625 1554 Pandora 35333

1645 1601 Dageraad 25222

1611 1657 Drukstroomjager 55444-55555 (m)

1655 1730 Professor Sickbok 45433 (m)

1638 1732 Twentana 45434 (m)

1665 1742 Belladonna 35333 (m)

1625 1744 Wegpiraat 45434 (r)

1620 1752 Uniek 25222 (q)

1647 1847 Baanbreker 35333 (r)

1638 1912 De Klok 25222 (q)

1617 1930 Marianne 45434 (m)

1665 2240 Vonkenboer 25332 (m)

1638 2240 Bluebird 45434 (m)

Observations

• While one of the pirates was on air tonight I was able to hear the needle being put to the record and the scratches on the track before the music started - that’s always one of those little things that delights me about our hobby - somebody, somewhere in another country is playing records and I can hear every detail hundreds of miles away.

• Drukstroomjager was blasting in once again and he sent me this video as he was transmitting live and has allowed me to share it with you. It was fascinating being able to hear the same music being played in the studio and on my radio at the same time: