Messages

1

North American Shortwave Pirate / sternradio 6961 AM 0300 UTC 15 May 2025

« on: May 15, 2025, 0307 UTC »

Was at 6966.70, then switched.

Weak but improving using Western PA SDR.

We're So Happy - The Danse Society
Everything Ends - Slipknot

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North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6925 USB 2228 UTC 9 MAR 2024

« on: March 09, 2024, 2244 UTC »

Signal very clear via KiwiSDR in Jumonville, PA. Thanks for the great tunes!

3

Software / KIWI SDR freezing on Andriod

« on: April 18, 2023, 2354 UTC »

Across several android devices, both utilizing the KiwiSDR webpage and KiwiSDR Android app, the same thing always happens: the sound and waterfall freezes after a couple of minutes. 

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it a known issue?

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North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Cloudsplitter Radio 6935 USB 2110 UTC 17 APR 2023

« on: April 18, 2023, 0126 UTC »

0116 UTC Not cloud splitter any more Id say Kiss 108 FM rebroadcast? UNID Now id say

DJ just mentioned a Lil Kim airport theft that occurred in 2003, narrowing down the time of the rebroadcast.

5

General Radio Discussion / Re: Podcasts about pirate radio or DXing?

« on: April 12, 2023, 2213 UTC »

Thanks! Let me expand my question to ask for recommendations on shows/podcasts that are about DXing in general; news and/or discussion (besides Glenn Hauser's, which I already listen to). 

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General Radio Discussion / Podcasts about pirate radio or DXing?

« on: April 11, 2023, 0449 UTC »

Any recommendations, whether about history,  news,  or both?

Google brings up too many results where pirate radio is meant non-literally (in particular,  a podcast about East Carolina Pirate sports).

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General Radio Discussion / AM stations listenable via KiwiSDR without other means of online listening?

« on: March 16, 2022, 2133 UTC »

Practically speaking, I'm happy we live in an era where, which few exceptions, you can listen to the radio station of your choice anywhere in the world on your phone or computer.

Nostalgically and selfishly speaking, I miss radio as it was before the internet, and now that I've been listening to stations via KiwiSDR tuners, I'm wondering what smalltime English language AM stations (I say AM since it seems few SDR turners avail FM bands, or I am idiotically (quite possible!) not figuring out how to access them) do not have a website/"listen live!"/tunein.com/etc mechanism, particularly if they have a strong community/variety bend to them. That is, you can ONLY hear them on the radio.

Does anyone know of any off the top of their head?

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General Radio Discussion / Re: A couple of newbie questions

« on: January 27, 2019, 0645 UTC »

This was actually GREATLY helpful; thank you!

9

General Radio Discussion / Re: A couple of newbie questions

« on: January 23, 2019, 0523 UTC »

Maybe the best introduction is to check out the Wikis on Shortwave, whether here or at Wikipedia.

There are some SW sites like The SWLing Post that have a lot of information on various aspects of the hobby.

Overall, it's tough to learn a lot by doing right now because propagation is so poor. The best thing to do is to check the bands -- if you're into ham bands, 40 meters (day or night, although night is best), 80 meters (at night) and 20 meters (afternoon and daytime) are probably best, and if you're into SW broadcasts, the 49 meter band at night and 31 meter band during the evening are probably the best bets for hearing stuff.

When conditions improve in a couple years, the other bands (15 meter ham band, 10 meter ham band, 19 meter SW broadcast band, 17 meter SW broadcast band, etc.) will open up.

As for LSB and USB, it's 'sideband', which is a form of transmission that gets a signal out farther per watt. Hams use it mainly (along with a few other services), but on the 40 meter and 80 meter ham bands you will hear LSB, and 20 meters and higher the hams use USB. If you want to listen to the morse code sections of the ham bands (usually the lowest section of each band), either LSB or USB will decode it.

I'm not sure I understand meter bands correctly. Are they chunks of the 0-30,000 mHz spectrum?  Like, I listen to both my radio and SDRs people have kindly put up on SDR.hu. Most of them have a range of 0-30,000 mHZ, with dropdown options for different bands. I just assumed those options just took you to different ranges within the big range of 0-30,000 (in the common case).  Is that not right?

10

General Radio Discussion / A couple of newbie questions

« on: January 22, 2019, 0412 UTC »

Hello,

A little background first: I was AM dxing as  a kid in the 80s and 90s without even knowing the name for it, and then I got a shortwave radio and loved that as well. I didn't really research what I was doing (these were pre-internet days), I just enjoyed finding new stations and countries (or cities for AM).

Now I'm getting back into the hobby (with a Tecsun PL-380), and I want to sort of...know what I'm doing. I know know, for example, what LSB and USB are (indeed you have to in order to pass registration) but I couldn't really tell you what they're used for, what's interesting about them, and so on.

Many if not most of the lingo and abbreviations I see in threads are over my head as well at this point. It's a slightly intimidating-looking learning curve.

So question #1 is, what is the best, user-friendliest guide for learning about shortwave dxing? Either online or in print form; something in a "dummies" style or "explain like I'm 5" style, if that makes sense.  Maybe a better question to ask what resources were most invaluable to YOU as you learned and became more of an SW subject matter expert.

Question 2 may sound like a non-sequitur but: are there any good resources for pirate radio recordings that are more than just 2-3 minute snippets? I haven't logged my first pirate radio finding yet, but in the meantime I'm happy to live vicariously through other people's recordings. Most of what I find on Youtube, however, is from the 80s and 90s, and I'm more interested in current stuff.

Thanks!