UNID Pescadores/Freebanders 6925 LSB 2330 UTC 30 Jan 2017

[R4002]

Hearing music and lots of sound effects on 6925 LSB.  Much stronger signals than usual.  Reminds me of Mexican CB, that is, Pesky Party Radio?

[PirateSWL]

Sounds like someone is having fun with the peskies @ 0020 UTC. I can hear them talking and someone else playing something to mess with them.

[Pigmeat]

If you speak passable Spanish/Spanglish they'll occasionally talk to you, or so I've heard. I wouldn't have direct knowledge of such things. Besides, President Trump sez speaking Spanglish is a federal offense, a yuge, bigly, federal offense. Speaking jibberish and tweeting such is still fine.

[R4002]

Don't worry.  Soon we'll have a wall around the ionosphere.  That Mexico will pay for.

I have a, uh, well, we'll say "working" or maybe "passable" knowledge of Spanish.  Seems like the traffic on 6925 LSB and the dozen or so other frequencies (6900 USB and 6900 LSB being the one that comes to mind) is a combination of land-based transmissions and actual pescadores (that is, fishing fleets operating outside the legal marine bands, which I find interesting because whenever I scan through the nearest marine allocations [6200-6525 kHz and 8195-8815 kHz] when the 43 meter "fixed" band is full of "pescadores" the marine frequencies are usually pretty empty save for a digital transmission here or there and weather/marine information broadcasts.

I think more often than not, the "pescadores" are actually freebanders.  The transmission I heard for this log sounded so much like Latin American CB freebanders (complete with noise toys, clips from songs, people jamming each other, the "HOLA! HOLA! HOOOOLLLAAAAAA!", etc) that I thought for a minute somebody was re-transmitting an 11 meter frequency on 6925 kHz LSB  

[Skipmuck]

From my observations, it would seem that a good portion of the transmissions heard here are in Portuguese. I suspect these to be the "true" pescadores. The music I've heard and able to shazam tends to be Portuguese or Spanish, so this is by no means a definitive statement on the subject. I don't think it is too much of a leap of faith to characterize some of these transmissions to be of a "clandestine" nature...ie...drug trafficking related. Others just seem to be bored or having fun after a long day of fishing and a couple of good bottles of vinho. I believe we are hearing a pretty good mix of human nature at play. I just wish they would find some other band than 43 meters for their playground. 

[Pigmeat]

I've heard the Nicaraguan Coast Guard out of Bluefields and Puerto Cabezas conversing with them occasionally in the 6915-6950 range. There are a ton of sandbars and reefs along the Mosquito Coast and the NCG doesn't have the money to replace the beacons that either burn out or are taken by storms.

[R4002]

If the Nicaraguan Coast Guard is talking to them then that makes the frequencies somewhat "official" right?  Even if they're outside the ITU authorized maritime bands, they are operating in what's called "fixed/mobile" (doesn't that apply to, well, every single type of radio transmission?) bands, of which 6765-7000 kHz is one.

43 meters isn't their only playground, that's for sure.  I've heard them above 75 meters (40xx kHz area) and, of course, the whole 25-30 MHz region is up for grabs when the band conditions are right.  Out of the box, most HF-SSB marine radios do 1.6-30 MHz (or 1.6-27.5 MHz appears to be another common one), so pick a frequency for you and your pescadore buddies and go!  

I imagine its a combination of land-based and marine transmissions that we've been hearing on these frequencies, the big one being 6925 kHz LSB.  I think 6900 kHz - USB and LSB, is, at least when I've listened to it, Mexican in origin (going by the accented Spanish language heard).  Doesn't stop Brazilian fishermen from using that frequency though!

I'm sure that drug traffickers are using HF radios as well, but I doubt they're what we've been hearing.  A smart drug smuggler wouldn't use the same frequency over and over again and be so chatty (danger of being DFed, etc).  I have seen documentaries about narco-submarines and they were shown to be equipped with Icom IC-M710 HF-SSB radios for communication with whichever fishing boat they meet to make the mid-ocean transfers of their cargo.  I imagine its a predetermined time and frequency and the communications are short and to the point, probably using terminology that would sound like usual fishery communications if some DXer (or some law enforcement agency) were to stumble upon their QSO.  

The documentary in question also discussed upon the use of driftnet radio buoys attached to containers trailed behind normal fishing boats.  If law enforcement shows up, the container is released, the buoy floats to the surface, turns its transmitter on, and is later retrieved.  Since this is the same technology used for regular fishing activities, nothing seems out of the ordinary.  The buoys operate in the 1600-4000 and 26000-28000 kHz ranges, before you ask  

I'm sure they're using other frequencies besides 75, 43 and 11 meters.