HFU HF Underground
Loggings => European Pirates and Private Stations => Topic started by: Ray Lalleu on June 21, 2022, 1458 UTC
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This is a forum about what is going on in Europe,
mainly about pirate radio, but not exclusively.
There are other good sites and blogs with the same target,
(I'm currently looking at those from ukdxer, Achim, JBK, Irish Paul, LHU, Toutatis, Rick)
but no one has a strict rule to exclude news not from pirate stations,
and they are regularly listing stations said to be legal and licenced in some country.
The real difference in Europe is not to know if a station is pirate or legal, but if it is a private station or a station backed by a government or a powerful religious or commercial group. That difference is quite evident. The difference between the small stations, pirate or legal, are not that evident. Many are in the grey line, using legal or pirate relays (sometimes even in parallel), and often it is impossible to know when a station is going legal, or going back to illegal. Even some licenced stations (or said so) seem to jump to unlicenced frequencies, or relaying unlicenced stations. Also many legal stations have their roots in pirate days and in the offshore era. And Europe is divided in many countries, each one with its own rules. Some stations in Ireland are broadcasting everyday for more than 20 years without a due licence and have never been sued, are they 'pirates' ? Each country has its own politics about sueing or not sueing the stations in the forgotten places of the radio spectrum.
So I don't want this forum being ruled by 'pirater than thou' !
This site is for listeners.
The stricter rules on this forum are the following :
- it's about Europe (so far the nearby regions of Northern Africa and Middle East are not really excluded, but there is absolutely nothing to say about those regions)
- it's about fresh loggings from the airwaves
- it's about 'broad'casting (one to many)
- the news must be as accurate as possible
- the subject lines must follow the format rule
- the BIG government, religious and commercial voices are moved to Shortwave Broadcasting
A separate board has been created for the many European pirates that operate in and above the mediumwave band (European MW Pirate Radio). These stations almost exclusively target a domestic audience only and come from different countries than most shortwave pirates, they are very distinct. Please log all such stations as well as the Russian/Ukrainian stations on 3 MHz in that board.
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Good evening Ray.
a Question: No more reports for MW stations here ???
Greetings,
Misti-Radio
John
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Good evening Ray.
a Question: No more reports for MW stations here ???
Greetings,
Misti-Radio
John
I think MW (and MW-Xtended) stations should go on here, but preferably when they can be heard in foreign countries, because this is an international forum. Just common sense and looking what can get replies ! (I use Twente SDR because my MW antenna is still not repaired, but I try to widen the target to listeners in all Europe - and I have no time to listen to everything). So go on, but it's better on evenings, it's better if the station does a good job about music, and it's better if the station is speaking too. If only any station could be half as good as Misti Radio !
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MW FB stations tend to be mainly oriented towards local or only national audiences, broadcast mostly "national" music and speak the national language. This makes them boring for foreign listeners. They are not as popular as on the American continent, where English or Spanish are the natural environment in a large area.
With poor HF propagation I sometimes listen to MW, which is broadcast by not only Dutch but also Greek and Serbian stations and I have a dilemma where to describe it!
In my youth, gray and technically poor, it was music on MW waves that fascinated us and built interest in radio technque. Check out the interesting memories of Radio Luxembourg here!
http://www.eastend-memories.org/radio/luxembourg3.htm (http://www.eastend-memories.org/radio/luxembourg3.htm)
Let's give this forum a chance for a new radio Two - Oh - Eight!
Can we agree on the principle that, for the sake of order, entries regarding European FB MW stations will be posted in the MW Free Radio thread along with the American ones?
At most, due to lack of interest, they will die a "natural death". :'(
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I've renamed this board to better reflect the types of stations logged here.
Can we agree on the principle that, for the sake of order, entries regarding European FB MW stations will be posted in the MW Free Radio thread along with the American ones?
At most, due to lack of interest, they will die a "natural death". :'(
I've also considered creating a second board specifically for European MW pirates, so that we have two, with the other for North American MW pirates.
The advantage to this is that it keeps logs of these two groups of pirates separate, as they are only rarely heard on the other side of the pond.
A possible disadvantage is both would be relatively low traffic boards, although we have several of those now on the HFU and does not not seem to be a major hardship ;D
Thoughts?
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I've just seen the new name (and subtitle) of this European forum.
So it's now clear that small SW pirate and/or private stations are welcomed here, independently of their legal status or no status or unknown status.
But it is now written that this forum is for SW. So excluding all logs below 1800 kHz ? Mixing them with the (American) MW pirate makes no great sense. Well, I have to see if there is much in that forum...
To be continued,
Ray
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But it is now written that this forum is for SW. So excluding all logs below 1800 kHz ? Mixing them with the (American) MW pirate makes no great sense. Well, I have to see if there is much in that forum...
To be continued,
Ray
If it would be better / more consistent to log European MW pirates here, then that is fine with me.
In fact I just tweaked the title of this board to better reflect that.
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My feelings are that the AM pirates should have a separate forum, as should HF pirate/small-scale licensed stations.
Perhaps the latter should be noted with a suffix to show they’re licensed, where known.
1. I understand you use 'AM' in the American popular way for 'MW' ?
2. Your 'where known' is wise. Often, we don't know for sure if a station is licensed or not. I can just add 'said' or 'believed' to be licensed in the comments about the station.
But there are more problems about that :
- a licensed station can go back to unlicenced frankly (not paying the fee, for example)
- a licensed station can be outside of limits (on an unlicensed frequency, for example)
- a licensed station can relay an unlicensed station (so what are the rules in Germany or in the Netherlands?)
- a station licensed or unlicensed in its own country can be relayed from a foreign country through another station, licensed or unlicensed or 'off limits'.
- a licensed station has not to say so publicly
Maybe the grey zone has stranger places I'm not aware of, (that's why I pleaded for including all the private stations in this forum).
So, we can add in comments that a station or a relay is said or believed to be licensed, without giving more assurance about that.
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I agree that there should be a separate forum for European MW pirates. Also, here is the latest list of European private shortwave stations. I think we should keep the legal private stations and pirate stations together as they are. I do think though that there should be something in the thread title to distinguish between legal and pirate stations. An example of a title for a legal station’s thread could be something like this
Radio Jong Europa (L) 6175 AM 1540 UTC 23 Jun 2022
Since pirate stations make up the majority of logs, I think that the title format should be left the same for them. The (L) would just make distinguishing pirates and legal stations easier.
As for the legal status of stations, I think the list below should be used to determine which stations are legal. It is almost as accurate as possible and published monthly by email. I will continue to post the latest list as I receive them.
Latest copy of the Hartvig list
(https://i.ibb.co/3B4YGhH/A46168-C5-1-BE2-4620-A698-1-C94-CCB3-EB1-F.jpg) (https://ibb.co/2gWYmKB)
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Since the board is 'HF' Underground, its debatable whether MF stations should be included at all; However, my feelings on the forums is that the Euro pirates should have their (our) own forum. We are totally distinct from the low power licensed private stations that some countries allow.
I believe there are enough of them to have their own forum, or maybe a sub-forum under a broadcast station main forum.
Pirates should be separate though - our parlous legal state and the situation where many of us cannot or do not maintain regular schedules does, I believe, make us more sought-after for DXers. So it would be disadvantageous for readers to have to sort through a mixed legal and non-legal forum.
H.
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Since the board is 'HF' Underground, its debatable whether MF stations should be included at all; However, my feelings on the forums is that the Euro pirates should have their (our) own forum. We are totally distinct from the low power licensed private stations that some countries allow.
I believe there are enough of them to have their own forum, or maybe a sub-forum under a broadcast station main forum.
Pirates should be separate though - our parlous legal state and the situation where many of us cannot or do not maintain regular schedules does, I believe, make us more sought-after for DXers. So it would be disadvantageous for readers to have to sort through a mixed legal and non-legal forum.
H.
Don't agree with anything above.
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As is your right Ray; however I don’t see why.
The forum is divided into many parts of the hobby, why merge two disparate types of stations together?
Both have entirely different circumstances, goals and business models - and therefore I vouchsafe, different attractions to our valued listeners.
Separate but both valued entities.
Viva la difference.
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Still not agreeing with any of your arguments.
You have been listed here a countless number of times,
and you will still be listed here with those awful more or less licensed stations, like it or not.
Wishing you success in getting more listeners
edit : not countless, 924 times since March 2018
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I’m not sure I understand your point. What relevance is it how many times we’ve been listed?
The whole point of this forum is for listeners to report and/or identify what they’ve heard.
Anything that makes that more difficult is, surely, not a Good Thing.
Anyway, I’m sure Chris will make the correct decision.
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99 % from the MW pirates are from NL. Some of them to hear outside NL.
Ray.... you can better make a chat speciale for MW ?
Greetings,
JOHN
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I'm looking at the list of private stations - some are still very much "free radio" stations, albeit with a licence. Dutch stations like Piepzender & Delta are former pirates and still have a pirate attitude to broadcasting - they don't follow a fixed schedule and have a pop/Dutch music format. Mike Radio was licensed for a while but then went back to being a pirate.
Then there's the pirates who hire airtime on big 100kW transmitters, like Studio 52, but also can be heard broadcasting with their own transmitter.
Other stations like Shortwave Service might be low power but many of their relays are of state broadcasters, so shouldn't be included.
I think there should be some flexibility as to what station logs are posted - I think if they are "free radio", whether pirate or not, they should be included.
I agree a separate area for Euro MW pirates would be good. Maybe if there was a separate section more people would post MW loggings. A number of the Dutch MW pirates are quite international with English IDs, high power, looking for reception reports on the Pirate Chat and sending out eQSLs.
This is a great forum and I visit it every day.
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All;
From my perspective, I favour the compartmentalization approach, the main reason being functionality based on what I listen to and wish to consult and/or log.
I for one routinely do not care about the licenced stations, or some of the other board topics for that matter, and as such with just one click of the mouse will use the "Mark Read" button to bulk mark the messages as read and clear their status flags. Combining topics within the same forum heading will greatly reduce that functionality and result in having to scan the topics in order to only read the ones that are of interest.
My philosophy is that what is established for North America should be mirrored for Europe. The end user should be able to frequent section(s) of interest with maximum ease and flexibility. I for one infrequently consult the European Pirate section other than for mainly "The Vault" as that signal does reach North America and my location so it is of interest to me. Most other European pirates do not reach and as such I mark them as read in bulk.
As Chris mentioned:
I've also considered creating a second board specifically for European MW pirates ...
I personally do favour compartmentalization. Albeit these may turn out to be low traffic forums, if a user feels like trying to listen to European MW pirates, then the option is there and easy to get to. You may be surprised. As for one, I am totally surprised at the amount of readership and correspondence I have received about my static HFGCS Force Directional Message (FDM) and Emergency Action Message (EAM) Log. That steady and ever increasing readership is what keeps me posting and keeping this log active.
I like the HFU and its functionality which is the reason I joined it.
Thank you to Chris for funding it and keeping it alive and the moderators for keeping things sane and in the right forum location.
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Thanks to everyone for posting their suggestions on how to best organize loggings of the various stations we listen to.
We'll keep this thread going for as long as it takes to reach an overall consensus on what the organization of the related boards should be.
We should also keep in mind this is "just" a hobby, and the world will continue to go on no matter how we categorize radio stations. At the end of the day we all want to enjoy the hobby. Also let's continue to keep this discussion polite and respectful. And be aware that not everyone is a native speaker of English, and sometimes the nuances of language can be misinterpreted.
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IF IT ISN’T BROKEN DON’T FIX IT!!
I’m a relatively new user, I really don't see the point in messing with something that’s working fine.
Leave it alone, it great as it is.
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Perhaps the introduction of Child Boards such as the Broadcast Announcements one that is found under the Shortwave Pirate forum can be an option to consider. Even having a dedicated Broadcast Announcements child board under the European Pirates forum would benefit that community of operators. I do find the Broadcast Announcements very useful.
Rename Shortwave Pirate to North American Shortwave Pirates
European Pirates
Broadcast Announcements
MW Free Radio
Private Stations
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I echo NORMZ's post as things are fine as they are.
If anything I tire (yawn) of All the posts of legit stations and anything 'CB' related (yawn x2).
HFUNDERGROUND is the name of the forum.
Why not remove All the non underground stuff then?
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From a listener / user point of view. I believe this will be a step backwards. Users will now be in a mixed listing made up of stark polar opposites - licensed and unlicensed operators hammered together with no reference or indication as to what is what. The core information that many users require regarding the status of what they hear will neither be shown nor available. Very often the legality or lack of... is the most unique difference between various transmissions and the proposal is now to disregard this.
I would echo the comments of others in that consistency across the forum should be observed. I note the Shortwave Pirate section pertaining to US loggings does not list “private” FCC licenced stations no matter how small or large it is uniquely made up of Pirate listings. I believe the European Pirate section should reflect this for continuity purposes and ease of use if nothing else...
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Good afternoon.
Legale pirate's list MW from NL below.
https://www.radio-tv-nederland.nl/am/am.html
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I echo NORMZ's post as things are fine as they are.
If anything I tire (yawn) of All the posts of legit stations and anything 'CB' related (yawn x2).
HFUNDERGROUND is the name of the forum.
Why not remove All the non underground stuff then?
This is a bad idea. The non underground sections of the forum can still be useful to the people who are interested in SWBC and other legal things on the shortwave spectrum. I have yet to find any other forum with a SWBC section that has as much activity and as many useful posts as the HFU. If you do not find legal transmissions interesting, then don’t visit that part of the forum! There are parts of this forum that are of no interest to me as well but I would never propose removing them just because I don’t like them. Also, I have edited my previous post on this thread and added some more ideas.
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Perhaps the introduction of Child Boards such as the Broadcast Announcements one that is found under the Shortwave Pirate forum can be an option to consider. Even having a dedicated Broadcast Announcements child board under the European Pirates forum would benefit that community of operators. I do find the Broadcast Announcements very useful.
European Pirates
Broadcast Announcements
MW Free Radio
Private Stations
I like this idea from SIGINT, works for me
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Hope that we can do this for the North American sections for stations like WBCQ and LPAM and LPFM fall in the same situation. Hard to tell if the station is pirate or not for a lot of LPAM which are legal to a degree over power their signal for more distance then they would a pirate station. There are a few LPAM stations that fall in this situation like The Valley 1620, The Edge 1620, and a few others MW AM stations that seem to be legal but are not.
What ever Chris does is okay but even in North America we have the same issues.
Thank you for letting me post my opinion.
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Eh hem..
Appreciate the effort BTW, Really..
I'm not overly concerned.
Everything's Fine..
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I think this new change is going to throw people off ???
Just like ebay, get used to one way and "hold up" lets change it and confuse everyone again.
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I just hope one day everyone can live in "Radio Heaven" . ;D
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I've just seen the new name (and subtitle) of this European forum.
So it's now clear that small SW pirate and/or private stations are welcomed here, independently of their legal status or no status or unknown status.
But it is now written that this forum is for SW. So excluding all logs below 1800 kHz ? Mixing them with the (American) MW pirate makes no great sense. Well, I have to see if there is much in that forum...
To be continued,
Ray
Strictly speaking anything below 3 Mhz or a longer wavelength than 100m is no longer shortwave, and anything above 30 Mhz or shorter than 10 meters, is also no longer shortwave. I have no problem with MW euro-pirate logs, if and when their reception is international and not local only. But it is true, 1600-1700 khz is no longer shortwave
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Since the board is 'HF' Underground, its debatable whether MF stations should be included at all; However, my feelings on the forums is that the Euro pirates should have their (our) own forum. We are totally distinct from the low power licensed private stations that some countries allow.
I believe there are enough of them to have their own forum, or maybe a sub-forum under a broadcast station main forum.
Pirates should be separate though - our parlous legal state and the situation where many of us cannot or do not maintain regular schedules does, I believe, make us more sought-after for DXers. So it would be disadvantageous for readers to have to sort through a mixed legal and non-legal forum.
H.
Don't agree with anything above.
I think Harmony does have valid points, to be honest
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The more specific the page is the better -- I would favor a separate list for European "AM/MW" pirates.
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Good evening. It's OK for me now. :P :P
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I've yet to see anyone state a clear, logical reason to include private European stations in this forum.
With Stiig's list, it's easy to ID the private stations. This wasn't always the case.
A few guidelines about posting loggings in this forum are probably in order. Something like these just for starters:
1. Pirate stations broadcasting from a commercial or private station's transmitter (Channel 292 or Shortwave Service, for example) shouldn't be reported here.
2. Pirate stations relayed by other pirate stations should be reported here.
We have a forum where the European low-power private and commercial stations can be reported, leaving this one for pirate stations only.
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I agree. This should be pirates only.
Small private stations can have their own.
H
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All old European pirate MW loggings
that were in this forum since 01 JAN 2022
have been moved to a new forum.
European MW Pirate Radio (https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php?board=46.0)
The moves include the Serbian and Russian stations, up to a bit above 3000 kHz
No 'MOVED' posts about those old loggings, only about the newer moves if needed.
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Good evening Ray, Why ?????
Because a new board has been created: https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/board,46.0.html
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I see on Discord MW reports :( :( Strange
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I see on Discord MW reports :( :( Strange
I disagree, this is a great event. Technically, MW stations were never supposed to be logged on this board, or anywhere on the HFU. They were logged here because there was nowhere else to put them. It created disorganization by mixing two completely distinct types of stations and it discouraged people from logging them at all. Now there is a dedicated place here on the HFU for them which creates more organization and encourages more people to log them. A vote was held to determine if this new board would be created and the vast majority voted in favour of creating the new board.
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And cool - finally we know where to write about these stations!
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This is a good move!
There are a lot of Dutch, Greek, Balkan and Russian pirates over 1600 kHz and also around MW.
I visited several Greek pirates on year 2006 in Larissa. They really have big voltages!
Later I made a visit to many Serbian pirates in 2008.
Here is a page of Larissa-visit in Greece: http://www.harriku.com/larissa.htm
Harri Kujala, Naantali, SW FInland
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This is a good move!
There are a lot of Dutch, Greek, Balkan and Russian pirates over 1600 kHz and also around MW.
I visited several Greek pirates on year 2006 in Larissa. They really have big voltages!
Later I made a visit to many Serbian pirates in 2008.
Here is a page of Larissa-visit in Greece: http://www.harriku.com/larissa.htm
Harri Kujala, Naantali, SW FInland
I have seen your website, it is excellent! Did you ever find more information about the Russian pirates? We have had a lengthy discussion about them here and still not come up with a lot of information: https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,103600.0.html
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About Russian pirates. I can hear those stations daily with huge signals.
I have never contacted any and these days I do not want to hear Russian language at all.
They do the same QSO-work with each other but also play music.
They use stations names like Planeta, Kurier, Proton ,Galavok and very often they give the city-location.
They mostly operate around 1700 kHz and 3000 - 3100 kHz and these days rarely go down to 1650 kHz etc.
I have not looked the discussions in the forums here about Greek, Serbian and Russian, but I will do it later.
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All loggings of Mediumwave pirates back to 1 January 2022 have now been moved to the new forum.
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Since the board is 'HF' Underground, its debatable whether MF stations should be included at all; However, my feelings on the forums is that the Euro pirates should have their (our) own forum. We are totally distinct from the low power licensed private stations that some countries allow.
I believe there are enough of them to have their own forum, or maybe a sub-forum under a broadcast station main forum.
Pirates should be separate though - our parlous legal state and the situation where many of us cannot or do not maintain regular schedules does, I believe, make us more sought-after for DXers. So it would be disadvantageous for readers to have to sort through a mixed legal and non-legal forum.
H.
Harmony does have a point that I agree with. Pirates have to deal with aerials falling down often, activity from the authorities, power cuts, homebrew failing equipment and all manner of problems related to that mode of operation and typically run low power for only a few hours a week or day. It is a bigger catch for the DXer than a legal SW transmission that does not have any of these problems - no matter if the programmes are a former pirate relayed by a legal 6160 etc. Pirates should be kept seperate.
On the other hand I take the point that the line is blurred between pirates and legals as Ray says. The solution, if not making a new legal section, is to specify in the logs that the transmission is legal, with (Licenced TX) or something.