Messages

46

North American Shortwave Pirate / Turtlehead Radio, 6925 USB, 0345 on 7 April 2013

« on: April 07, 2013, 0401 UTC »

Been hearing the Colonel for the past half-hour or so with various stuff from the 1980's (mostly)  with a few canned computer-voiced ID's etc., email addy, just heard "Rehab" by Amy Wino, "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats (actually, I don't know the actual song title) and so forth.  S = 6 with noise floor of S= 5, making the computer-voiced  ID's a little tough.   Seems to be the only game in town, at least at my QTH.  Thanks for the show, Colonel Turtlehead!

Osborne White

P.S.:  Heard near Stockton, California

47

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6950.6 khz AM 4:00z 2-18-13

« on: February 18, 2013, 1508 UTC »

Well, you guys stumbled upon  Mysterious Mystic Radio -- WMMR.  We were running ca. 30 watts to the sloper at 30 feet or so, and thus the S5-S7 carrier in Montana is quite a surprise & quite good news!  No eQSL's, but if you send three first class stamps to the Blue Ridge Summit  address along with your report, you'll (eventually) get something back via the mails....BTW, we were airing program number 103 last night, this consisting of 78 rpm records played on the old Victrola; per Farmer John, those teenagers stole his 8-track player (during program number 102), so he's stuck with the wind-up Victrola (and the Edison cylinder machine) for the time being.  New program in the works, likely more of the same with maybe some Blue Amberol cylinders thrown in for good measure.  Tnx & 73....



Osborne White, General Manager
Mysterious Mystic Radio -- WMMR

PS:  Not a few bars of London Bridges or Yankee Doodle (take your pick) but the last part of an instrumental version of "Barney Google" by The Badgers on the Puritan label, ca. 1926 and on brown shellac....

48

North American Shortwave Pirate / Radio PeePee Vagina 0622 UTC Just Now

« on: July 19, 2012, 0635 UTC »

Just caught Radio PeePee Vagina 0622 UTC on 6937 USB, tormenting the poor pescadores with falsetto (badly rendered) Spanish attempts at cuss phrases & the usual "Close Encounters" renditions.  A solid S = 7 at my location on the Left Coast.  Pse QSL!


Osborne White

49

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: 6.950 am Mysterious Mystic Radio

« on: July 18, 2012, 0823 UTC »

We were testing our transmitter, ca. 20-25 watts to a sloper at ca. 30 feet or so.  I'm glad that we got out at all, but it seems that we have a bit of work to do yet.  For one thing, some electrolytics need replacement (lotsa hum etc.) and the audio line level input is a bit, well, touchy so far.  We'll give it a whirl and try again soon.  Thank you for the posting(s), after we get some of the troubles ironned out, we'll be back! 

WMMR - Mysterious Mystic Radio

50

Equipment / Re: AN/FRR-22, FRR-23, etc.

« on: August 24, 2011, 2028 UTC »

Hiya Andrew:

Yup, the SSB /BFO works much better on the R390A, also the filter widths are much more useful, etc.  The trick with the SP-600 BFO is to put the AVC on 'manual' and back the RF Gain down to minimum, then the BFO will seem much stronger and will actually do the job!  On mine, although the radio is mucho stable in terms of frequency, the BFO is a bit drifty; after a half hour or so, though, it seems to stabilize pretty well.  As I mentioned, I mostly 'cruise around' with the SP-600, but then I 'go parking' with the R390A!  The R390A is darned near as fine performance-wise as the TS-850 and it has FAR better audio through the stereo amp & EV PA speakers, best audio on HF that I have ever heard! 

Since the SRR-21 is a LF receiver (it's range tops out at 600 kcs. as I recall) it proved a bit difficult
to put to 'the test' and to compare with the R390A, and the SRR-23 (HF coverage) has never worked since I got it, my comparison is based on somewhat limited experience, but the military users seemed to prefer the R390A etc.  While I have heard anecdotally of R390A's being reinstalled in shipboard radio rooms due to their relative immunity to overloading in high-rf environments (the Racal R-6790 was apparently the replacement for the R390A) I have not heard of SRR-23's being reinstalled; again, this is based on anecdotal info only!  Regardless, the SRR is a very cool beast, and I am kicking myself for not at least TRYING to get mine up & running!  It's on the back burner, and I have a whole 'kitchen fulla back burners!'


Osborne White
 

51

Equipment / Re: AN/FRR-22, FRR-23, etc.

« on: August 22, 2011, 2305 UTC »

Hiya:

First off, Andrew, congratulations on the SP-600!  That is my main HF receiver, it is much easier to "cruise" the bands with than the R-390A, which I prefer for sitting on a specific frequency.  At my main listening post, those two are in service almost continuously, at least while I am present at the dials! 

Meanwhile, I also have a SRR-21 & a SRR-23.  The SRR-23 has never worked, but seems to be complete & intact, but the SRR-21 worked well for years, that is, until something (transformer) smoked while the radio was plugged in but turned OFF!  Grrrrrrr!  They are VERY difficult to work on, especially without the extender boards etc. and yes, they contain subminiature tubes soldered into plug-in boards.  Another cool feature that they have is a "projected dial display" on the ground glass directly above the visible dial.   They are fairly rare anymore, but not impossible to find.  Fair Radio Sales sells a copy of the manual for them for somewhere around $60, I have a copy myself including the schematics etc.  Basically, they were replaced by the R-390 / R-390A radios.  Eventually, perhaps I'll get around to trying to service mine, but....In any event, the SP-600 & the R-390A are entirely better receivers anyhow, IMHO, and the R-390A has marvelous audio via the (adjustable & metered) line level output into a stereo amp & speakers.  Best wishes etc. & good DX!

52

North American Shortwave Pirate / WPOD on 6925 USB yesterday 0530 GMT

« on: July 31, 2011, 0807 UTC »

Okay, here's my first posting:

WPOD "This is WPOD, White Punks On Dope Radio, broadcasting via shortwave radio to North America & the World" etc. (doing this from memory, can't find my scrap of logging paper, so....)  Man's & woman's voices, variously, w/English-ish accents.  Asked for loggings via the world wide web. 

Began program at ca. 0530 GMT with repeated clip from Tubes song "White Punks on Dope" (?)

0534 or so, into "Sister Mary Elephant"  by Cheech & Chong
0538 or so, following man & woman ID, requests for reports via WWW etc., longer version of Tubes (?) song
0545 or so, following more ID & requests for reports via WWW etc., , into Talking Heads song "This Ain't No Party, This Ain't No Disco" etc. (obviously different title, but you get the idea, I don't remember the actual title of it!)
0548 or so, ID & sign off, followed by other station / voice (?) "Is that it?"

S = 20 db over S 9 at first, solid S 7 by sign off

Audio pretty "tinny" but punchy / solid, sorta like it'd be if station was using the microphone & speech processor on a riceburner ham box!

Heard at Sacramento California on TS-850 & SP-600 JX, sloper at 35 feet

Please QSL via US Mails to:

PO Box 190091
San Francisco, California
94119
-
eQSL to:

elroy at
hellokitty.com