HFU HF Underground

General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: jordan on January 27, 2014, 0034 UTC

Title: Shortwave pirate stations
Post by: jordan on January 27, 2014, 0034 UTC
Are most pirate shortwave stations in the 6900 kHz band, just below the 40m amateur band?  Are there ever any in the 31m SW band (9400-9900 kHz) or other bands?  Is there something particularly special about 6900 kHz that makes it a favorite for pirates?  Which modulation modes do most of them use?
Title: Re: Shortwave pirate stations
Post by: redhat on January 27, 2014, 0150 UTC
As I understand it, most modern era pirates run close to 40M.  This is because it offers a good balance of daytime and nighttime propagation.  It also doesn't hurt that antennas in this range are less unwieldy that the lower bands.  People do operate around 20M as well, but not as many.  USB is probably the most common mode used, AM a close second.

+-RH
Title: Re: Shortwave pirate stations
Post by: Fansome on January 28, 2014, 0003 UTC
Pirates like to come on in the late afternoon and evening, at least during the week, because that's when the DXers are listening. 6920 and up propagate well at those times. Also, the frequencies are typically ones that aren't likely to interfere with non-pirate stations. 6925 is just the latest such frequency; 6950, 6955, 7415, and others were in use at one time, but abandoned because of other users on those frequencies.