Unid-Greek? 1695 AM 1700 utc 30 Dec 2019

[canswl]

I was hearing what sounds like Greek music this morning for a couple of hours. Fantastic opening to Europe from WCNA. Any thoughts who this might be?  73, from Masset, BC

(subject line edit by moderator Ray)
 

[KaySeeks]

Certainly possible.

The three big centres of MW pirate activity in Europe are The Netherlands, Greece and Russia. (Perhaps Serbia is a fourth.) Greek MW pirates often use a LOT of TX power (as do the Dutch) and have good antennas. Greek pirates congregate between 1610-1750 KHz or so, with the most amount of activity in the 1650-1700 area, especially 1690 KHz in the area of Athens. Most of them will play Greek folk music, interspersed with speech, in sort of a "QSO-style" of operating with other stations. Some will just play Greek music for a few minutes then shut off. Others will just play pop music for a few minutes and then off.

There are periods when the Greeks can be well heard elsewhere in Europe so making it to WNAm seems plausible.

[kris]

Yes, Serbia is also often active in this band. I have not heard Russian music stations so far, but above 1.7 MHz quite often babble between their own, only in Russian. They don't use HAM call signs, but nicknames like pike, birch, strong, boss. Their next band is 2.9-3.2MHz. They use AM in both bands and LSB on 2.9. The quality of modulation and tuning to a common channel are terrible.
    On the evening of 29/30 Dec, MW was very active and exceptionally good propagation for Europe, but I didn't make notes or entries on HFU.

[KaySeeks]

but above 1.7 MHz quite often babble between their own, only in Russian.

Yes, this is what I have heard and am referring to. This is usually between 1700-1800 KHz. Yes, only talk from the Russian stations; no music, ever.