HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: Bowman1 on June 07, 2012, 2049 UTC
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Back in the spring of 1993, I managed to pick up WKIK out of Jacksonville (?) on an old Hallicrafter's SX-73. Later on that year, I got my first verification from WLIS: We Love Interval Signals. The QSL had charicatures of goose-stepping Nazis on it, with the caption: "Always the first order of the FCC: SEIZE THE RADIO STATION!" It got printed in George Zeller's Monitoring Times column later, which was a huge rush for me back then.
What was your first pirate, and what radio did you hear them on?
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I'm pretty sure it was Radio Confusion back in 1978.
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First "pirate" was way back in the mid 70's some kids in my home town setup a few watts on 1610khz, and played radio everynight as "WSUE"
A few years passed when I heard Wolverine Radio---in 2010.
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In the mid-70s, when I was living in Pasadena, CA, there was a local college that ran a pirate FM station during finals week. They called themselves "KCAL". They started the week by playing "Ride of the Valkyries", and then anything that the DJs felt like for the rest of the week. It could be heard for maybe a half-mile around the campus. I visited the studio a few times; it was always filled with exhausted, drunken students who had been dragooned into manning the transmitter. I was appalled.
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WSKY in 1993 :)
1st QSL was from 6YVOS for their Jerry Garcia tribute show in 1995.
These stations were all heard on a Grundig Satellit 500.
Went back and looked at the log sheet from that night, the UTC times look later than I thought they were, but then again I could have been an hour off. I should add that these are possibly not the first pirates I ever heard, but the first ones I ever logged.
01-02-93
7415 Mhz
05:10z WSKY
05:25z WMAD
06:10z Voice Of Garbage
06:18z Voice Of The Night with a call in # 713-780-1799
I have written down '(WCYC)?', but no time given; the two 'Voice' stations also had a QSO going at one point IIRC.
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KQSB. 1982 I think.
First QSL was TCS 1983.
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Voice of Laryngitis. What a way to start, a TRUE classic. Still have the QSL. Next was TNFM. A true Canadian classic.
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#1 WRAM, May 1983
#2 Radio Clandestine, July 2, 1983
#3 KQSB, August (I think) 1983
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It was either 'Free Radio North America', or 'WART' on shortwave. I can't recall for sure, I heard them both within a month or two.... but I kind of think WART was first. As I was already broadcasting TCS, I was much more focused on broadcasting than listening.
'WART' was more well-known as an AM pirate broadcasting to New York City. I caught them on shortwave, called his announced loop number, and recognized him as someone who had called The Crystal Ship's telephone loop number a few weeks before. Off-air he offered to do some work on our Knight T-150 transmitter which was having all kinds of fits, and did a great job on it for us, correcting many errors which the original kitbuilder had made, as well as replacing some aging parts. WART used a Johnson Valiant II on both shortwave and the top of the AM band at that time, around 1620.
'Free Radio North America' was on Thanksgiving Day 1982. They were quite powerful, broadcast station quality. Unfortunately, it is said that they were busted within a week, and never replied to my reception report.
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Probably WGOE in Virginia, somewhere around 1590 or 1600 AM, early 1970s when I was visiting relatives in that area. At least I think it was a pirate. Sounded scurrilous enough. :o
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Logged Pigmeat Radio on the FRN on 3/16/2007 (said he was only running 10 watts)
Logged Take It Easy Radio on #pirateradio on 3/17/2007
I don't remember what inspired me to listen for shortwave pirates (or what inspired me to choose my ID).
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Radio Wolf International 1990 I think on or near 7415 on a DX440. I still have the QSL in an envelope and in the last year figured out who they were and we have even emailed a couple times. Very nice guy. Amazing for me because I am not antisocial, just almost completely asocial, autistic-y, R. Crumb-ish. Or robot-like or self-centered if you listen to my ex. :D
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I'm not sure which was my first pirate heard but I do remember my first pirate QSL; The Voice Of Syncom.
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My first pirate catch was Radio Doomsday in March of 2002. No qsl. 26 minutes later good old Alan Maxwell boomed in. 6.950usb for both that evening. 1st. qsl from a pirate, too: "KIPM official QSL #6_ _", the one with the kid's brain exploding out the top of his head.
sooo many memories... ::)
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The first pirate I ever heard was the Voice of Ganymede. I don't recall the year although I'm reasonably sure it was pre-1979. I had an old National receiver that I had picked up at a hamfest, with a hunk of wire strung up around the room. I had their QSL as well, but it was lost long ago during one of many changes of residence. I wish I still had it, as well as that old NC-2-40D receiver!
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This thread prompted me to finally dig out my boxes of QSLs and correspondance from my previous reincarnation as a regular sw listener in the late 70's/early 80's. I had memories of an Irish pirate in there somewhere and indeed I found a cover letter from Radio Dublin Int from 1980 confirming my reception and saying a QSL was enclosed. (The actual QSL must be in one of the other boxes).
My modern pirate era began on February 22, 2009, when I logged Radio Borderhunter from Holland. I remember it well. I heard a promo for Dr. Tim News, and google led me to Iann's/Dr. Tim's chatroom, where I ended up chatting with BH and another listener from the US (Alex V.). I was hooked ;D (and Radio Borderhunter is still one of my favourite stations to hear.)
Cheers, Terry
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PRN,Pirate Radio New England,way,way,back in early eighties.
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Logged Pigmeat Radio on the FRN on 3/16/2007 (said he was only running 10 watts)
Logged Take It Easy Radio on #pirateradio on 3/17/2007
I don't remember what inspired me to listen for shortwave pirates (or what inspired me to choose my ID).
I'm glad I was someone's first...........
My first pirate,not counting youthful experiments cluttering up the CB bands with overmodulated rock n' roll, was hearing a phony commercial at the top of the AM band on a car radio in an old Chevy circa '83.
They ran a commercial that went something like this "Cadillac;The large car for the man with a small penis.",then promptly faded out.
I nearly drove into the ditch laughing.
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My first pirate was KPRC in 1983. According to the sources of the day they operated on 1616. I wouldn't know, having logged them on an old Realistic DX-100 with an analog dial and a mile wide IF filter. My first shortwave pirate was logged in 1984 after I bought a Yaesu FRG-7700. That was KRZY on 7435. Thanks to the Frog I quickly added Secret Mountain Lab, Zeppelin Radio Worldwide, and Voice Of Laryngitis to the logbook - all within the first couple months of ownership. A decent receiver really makes a difference...
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My couple of brief recordings of KPRC that I made were just on a little boombox with the internal loop antenna. They had a nice signal in the Northeast :)
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My first pirate logging and QSL are actually the same station... for the same broadcast! That'd be Northwoods Radio in mid May of this year. I have a lovely QSL from them, now. I believe there are mallards on the obverse.
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I didn't do much, if any, QSLing early in my listening career so I don't have much reference material to look back on. But I pretty vividly remember my first shortwave pirate being Radio EXP, probably on 7415 KHz AM and early on what was likely a winter Sunday morning. Probably 1990, perhaps 1989. This station was mentioned in Andy Yoder's books of the era but little comes up in Google. I think the announcer's name was Dr. Blue or something like that.
Right around that time, thanks to Andy's books, I was also looking on mediumwave but with much less success. To this date, the only hobby pirate I've heard on mediumwave was a station that ID'd as WORM on or about 1620 KHz playing the Doors. Same timeframe, about 1990. Never saw this one reported anywhere else.
This was the dawn of a pretty active SW pirate radio era and it was a good time, from 1990 until about 1994 when I dropped out of the hobby for about 10 years.
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Zeppelin Radio Worldwide was the first pirate that I heard on shortwave back in 1987. This reception also led to my first QSL card - shown below. Others heard in '87 were the Voice of Free Long Island, KBFA "Broadcasters of Free America", Radio Clandestine, Voice of Laryngitis, etc. I was instantly hooked! I started recording just about everything I heard on cassette tape. I've slowly been digitizing these tapes to MP3. As for medium wave, my first(s) were both WJDI and WKND who did alternating broadcasts on 1620 KHz one night back in 1989.
(http://amdxer.com/misc/zeppelin-radio-worldwide-11jl87.jpg)