Topics

1

European MW Pirate Radio / UNID (RU) 1713 AM 1451 UTC 12 DEC 2022

« on: December 12, 2022, 1501 UTC »

Poor signal (fair at peaks) on KiwiSDR in South Norway. (Fair-good signal on the Tambov KiwiSDR.)

Unstable frequency + drifting slowly upwards (1713.9a at 1528 UTC).

Non-stop Russian pop music.

First time I've heard a Russian music pirate on medium wave in Norway! (I've noticed before that the particular KiwiSDR I'm listening on now is quite good for receiving medium-wave 'QSO hooligans' - but I've never received a 'sharmanshchik' here before!)

2

European MW Pirate Radio / Boerenzwaluw 1635 AM 1345 UTC 07 DEC 2022

« on: December 07, 2022, 1354 UTC »

Weak-fair on SDR in South Norway, still day here. Good signal on SDR in North NL.

Polka, hi to people, asks for a report, off at 1355.

Back at 1403 with a report for Vliegende Drent (Vliegende Drent was on 1630 kHz and was very weak in South Norway).

Lovely station name!

3

European MW Pirate Radio / Drukstroomjager (NL) 1655 AM 1718 UTC 06 DEC 2022

« on: December 06, 2022, 1730 UTC »

S9 on Julussdalen, Norway Kiwi SDR

Instrumental tunes, ID, greetings to listeners. 1732 UTC: 'Edelweis (hoog tussen sneeuw en ijs)', then yodeling song and more greetings

4

European MW Pirate Radio / UNID (NL) 1636 AM 1634 UTC 06 DEC 2022

« on: December 06, 2022, 1655 UTC »

S7-8 on Julussdalen, Norway Kiwi SDR, S9+20 on the Twente SDR

Older country music: 'Folsom Prison Blues' (J. Cash), 'Driving Nails in My Coffin', 'Smoke Smoke Smoke That Cigarette', 'The Deck of Cards', 'Deep in the Heart of Texas', Blue Moon of Kentucky', etc. Still no ID at 1711 (but I've been listening on and off)

5

European MW Pirate Radio / Zwarte Boekanier (NL) 1625-1620 AM 1614 UTC 06 DEC 2022

« on: December 06, 2022, 1621 UTC »

S9+15 dB via Hoogeveen Kiwi SDR, S9 on Julussdalen, Norway Kiwi SDR

'Man of Action' (Les Reed Orchestra), polka, ID, asking for a report, instrumental tune, greetings to people, telephone number ...

Off at 1628 - but back again at 1632, now on 1620

6

General Radio Discussion / Discussion on Russian Mediumwave Pirates

« on: October 20, 2022, 0747 UTC »

Hi Shortwave_listener

I just wanted to say that I’ve been enjoying your logs of Russian/Ukrainian and Indonesian music pirates over the past months. I love the mystique surrounding these stations! (Why do they broadcast? Do they have listeners?)

I logged and IDed quite a few 3MHz hooligans (both music stations and QSOers) around 2010 with the help of Alex (ULX2) in Kyiv. Most of the hooligans I heard were from oblasts in the west of Russia and the east of Ukraine. (They usually gave out the name of a big city, but I suspect most of them were actually located in more rural areas.)

I agree that the music stations in the 1600–1650/1700 kHz range are different from the 'QSO hooligans' on 1.7 and 3MHz. I suppose they fall into the category of 'organ grinders' (шарманщиков) (low-powered stations broadcasting to a local audience). The term for high-powered QSO stations seems to have been дальнобойщиков – 'truckers'. (I suppose you’ve read the same articles as I via Google Translate.)

I did a bit of listening to these stations in January and February this year via the Kiwi SDR in Tambov. I only listened during local daytime in Tambov, and there were usually one or two (weak or strong) stations on. I guess the fact that these stations were audible via this SDR during local daytime says something about where these stations are generally located.

The Russian/Ukrainian music stations on 1.6MHz seem to have been more or less unknown to Western DXers until around 2006. At least I don’t remember hearing about them before Harri Kujala began listening to them in late 2006:

http://www.harriku.com/russia.htm

https://hkdx2.blogspot.com/2008/02/weekend-16-1722008-russian-pirates.html

73

Kai in Oslo

7

European MW Pirate Radio / UNID Russian pirate 1660 AM 0954 UTC 10 Mar 2022

« on: March 10, 2022, 0958 UTC »

Russian pop music. Good reception on Kiwi SDR in Tambov, Russia.

I've checked this part of the band from time to time recently, and it turns out there are fairly many music stations here. The Tambov SDR is one of the best for these stations.

OK modulation.

(In addition, there are strong voice (QSO) stations on 1685 and 1729 right now.)

8

General Radio Discussion / Pirate radio as intangible cultural heritage

« on: December 20, 2018, 1532 UTC »

Some of the readers of this forum might be interested in knowing that efforts are being made to have the pirate culture of the east and north of the Netherlands recognised as part of the intangible cultural heritage of the Netherlands. The man behind the initiative is Peter Zwiers, a local politician from the Dutch workers’ party.

Milestones so far: A page about the pirate culture has been created on the web site of Dutch Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage:

https://www.immaterieelerfgoed.nl/nl/page/3579/piratencultuur

A party celebrating the pirate culture was held in the house of the provincial government of Drenthe on December 15. TV news report (in Dutch):

https://www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/142000/Zendpiraten-feesten-in-het-provinciehuis

The pirate scene in the east and north of the Netherlands dates back to at least 1932, when a guy in Almelo set up what appears to have been the first pirate station in that part of the country. Today's 'pirate culture' comprises not only illegal radio stations (of which there are still many), but also legal stations and a music scene ('piratenmuziek'). The piratenmuziek festivals appear to be particularly popular.

It'll be interesting to see if Mr. Zwiers succeeds. (You can follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/piratencultuuriscultureelerfgoed)

73

Kai in Oslo, Norway

9

General Radio Discussion / The world’s oldest pirate station with an Internet presence?

« on: May 10, 2013, 0704 UTC »

Nora on the Dutch AM Forum posted this interesting link:

http://home.versatel.nl/snijders.44/index.htm

Radio Edison began broadcasting in 1952 and must have been one of the first pirate stations in the province of Drenthe.

The landscape of Twente in Overijssel, just south of Drenthe, had had a thriving pirate scene since 1932, but the pirate phenomenon doesn’t seem to have spread northwards (to today’s pirate strongholds of East Drenthe, East Groningen and East Friesland) until the beginning of the 1950s.

According to the web site, Radio Edison is soon to return – as an Internet station.

10

General Radio Discussion / Film from 1971 about rural pirates in Ex-Yu

« on: November 09, 2012, 2113 UTC »

Hi!

I’ve been listening a bit to Serbian and Croatian pirates recently, and I just discovered that a film mentioned by Harri Kujala on his web site (http://www.harriku.com/serbia.htm) is now on Youtube! (It wasn’t when I checked a couple of years ago.)

I thought that maybe some people here would find it interesting. Have a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqc2m7HVTec

The pirates on the film are all from Croatia. Most of today’s medium wave pirates in the former Yugoslavia seem to be from the north/northeast of Central Serbia and the south of Vojvodina (I don’t know why they haven’t kept up with this cool tradition elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia!). (Much more about pirates from Ex-Yu here: http://www.hkdx2.blogspot.com/).

Here’s a description of the film taken from Harri’s page (written by DXer and pirate historian Björn Quäck):

'As far as balkan pirates are concerned I know of a film documentary called "We want our voices to be heard" from the year 1970 about illegal radios in Yougoslavia. It was produced by Zagreb Film, the author is Krsto Papic.

Obviously there were plenty of pirates in the Tito age, quite similar to the situation as it is still in Holland. I hadn't seen that film myself but I have a description out of a documentary movie directory I can quote from.

The 15 minute film shows several pirates from the rural mountain areas of Croatia and in the Drau river valley where the radio stations were operating with very simple equipment but got very popular among their local audiences.

Authorities were hunting the pirates and there were severe punishments but as soon as a station was gone a new one appeared. 5 stations were shown in the documentary, Radio Cerje, Radio Stanica, Radio Ladanje, Radio Stef and Radio Podravini. Programmes not only contained music but also some political views and even a language lesson for workers who intended to emigrate to western Europe.'

73

Kai in Norway

PS: Here’s an interesting documentary about a very similar pirate scene on the other side of Europe from roughly the same time (1967):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZwIaM5U4R4&feature=related

11

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID on 6925 USB on Sat Oct 30

« on: November 02, 2010, 0905 UTC »

2303 music
2305 ID: '... Radio' (three syllables? Something like _adix Radio?). ‘...radio at gmail.com ... Halloween special ...’
2306 rather well-known song
2309 Another ID. ‘Halloween broadcast.’
2309 instrumental
2311 ‘You’re tuned to ... ...radio at gmail.com ... QSL card ...’
2311 ‘Dust in the Wind’
2314 ID. ‘... Halloween broadcast ... ...radio at gmail.com ... Happy Halloween 2010!’ End of broadcast?

SIO 131. Some QRM from a cw station, a noisy station on around 6930 and some USB operators (pescadores?) on 6926.

Anyone who knows who it was?

RX: Sangean ATS 909
ANT: 100m beverage (BOG, not terminated) at 290 degrees
QTH: Grimstad on the south coast of Norway

This was the only NA pirate I managed to catch this Halloween weekend (apart from a few weak carriers). 

73

Kai in Norway

12

General Radio Discussion / Pirate DX-pedition in Norway 18/19 September

« on: September 13, 2010, 0750 UTC »

Hi!

Another pirate listener (Arvid Husdal) and I plan to go on a ‘pirate DX-pedition’ to the south-west coast of Norway this coming weekend – i.e. on Sat 18 and Sun 19 September. We’ll be listening from Arvid’s car, using our Sangean ATS 909 receivers and 100-200 m of wire.

We did the same trip last September and heard several very low powered Dutch MW pirates during daylight hours (best catch: Jan van Gent with 3 watts on 1660 kHz in the middle of the day – distance: well over 500 km).

This year we’ll also listen out for American SW pirates. We’ll check 6.8/6.9 MHz from around 0400 UTC on Sunday the 19th (sunrise here is at 0452 UTC). I know this is very late at night in North America, but who knows – perhaps someone is planning a DX test to Europe? Are there any particular frequencies we ought to check – perhaps outside the 6.8/6.9 MHz area?

It would also be cool to catch some of those pirate beacons. I don’t know if it’s possible, though. Most of them seem to be located in the west of North America… But we'd like to give it a try anyway! Any particular frequencies we ought to check?

73

Kai Salvesen
Kai.salvesen at gmail dot com