Shortwave Pirate Radio 2015 – A Year In Review

[ChrisSmolinski]

Another year... another year in review... see who were the most prolific pirates this year: http://hfunderground.com/blog/?p=475

If you see any typos, errors, or suggestions for additions, feel free to send me a message, so I can fix it. Thanks!

[redhat]

Thank You for putting this together, I always get a kick out of seeing the results for the previous year!

+-RH

[Skipmuck]

This is fascinating to read! Thanks Chris...after spending more time is healthy for a normal person listening to and logging pirate radio broadcasts, I look upon this as a snapshot of the amazing time being spent both broadcasting and listening by afficionados of the hobby. I do have one question though....the pie chart indicating the activity by day....am I correct in assuming that this chart is UTC? If, for instance Eastern Time in North America was used, the chart might look somewhat different. Very interesting to read! Tip of the hat to Liquid Radio and that little giant of a transmitter

[ByteBORG]

Thanks for the well put together article, Chris.
And yes, the second half of last year was much more active than the first.

Kind of shows the time invested by the listeners, as well as our broadcasters to say the least.
Kind Thanks to them also, speaking as a listener.

[Terry]

Great report, thanks. I echo the others comments.

[EliteData]

excellent work Chris !
thank you for the insightful information.
that must have taken some significant time and effort to compile and complete this data.
hats off to you

[Rizla]

Great survey, Chris. Food for thought. I remember, 10-15 years ago, after PassportoWBR went away and many were talking of SW  as a doomed, outdated hobby in the digital age. I remember some guy telling me that podcasting would kill the shortwave pirate. Au contraire, mon fraire. What an exciting time to listen to the pirate bands. I love all the new frequencies -- great to hear the ops experimenting... with the internet to spread the news, there are more listeners than people think.

In the 80's it was 7415kHz for the most part.  Later 6925. I'm sure I'm forgetting some freq's with tonight's holiday cheer. The variety now is far more interesting. How would you compare last year's activity to twenty and ten years ago, Chris? I think the number of stations is high. (?) Even with the list of "most heard", it still beats the old ACE bulletin numbers, I would think? A ten percent increase (accounting for a few points here and there) in a year, in the iPhone age? Pretty cool.

 The activity over the weekend has been stunning, even here in AZ, with lousy conditions, XFM was heard very legibly, i.e. we ID'ed the station and heard the tunes, S-3, on a cheap Grundig in the field, so to speak! What would also be interesting:  which stations covered the most of the continent (and beyond)? There were some great, very loud stations that took the western states (and elsewhere) seriously as listeners this year (timing does matter) and I really appreciate that.

[EliteData]

i think over the last 30 years things have certainly changed to the point where it has become adapted to a new cliche of pirate broadcasters and enthusiastic listeners alike, with the advent of the internet and digital age upon us that has colored the landscape of the shortwave radio spectrum into a grey area of questionable emptiness and wonder, thats one thing has lived on to remain in its place.
for the pirate, there is nothing quite like the warm fuzzy feeling that your broadcast is traveling in the thin air from an antenna.
for the listener, there is nothing quite like the anxious excitement you get when you receive a pirate broadcast on your radio, from the thin air on an antenna.
perhaps shortwave is indeed dying a slow death as it has been evident through the last decade with many commercial shortwave stations shuttering operations but this questionable vacancy of spectrum will soon be filled by clandestine pirates and many of them will appear in the shadows of the shuttered commercial shortwave stations.
as a listener enthusiast, i would like to hear more pirates conversing and talking live on the air between songs, thats something i miss hearing from the 70's and 80's that really isnt as prevalent today.
on the scale of things, i am wondering Chris, if you have logged a few years worth of data, perhaps you could collate a pie chart of the data between those years to see if activity has increased/decreased, it would be interesting to know.
 

[Fansome]

Mmmm... I like pie.

i think over the last 30 years things have certainly changed to the point where it has become adapted to a new cliche of pirate broadcasters and enthusiastic listeners alike, with the advent of the internet and digital age upon us that has colored the landscape of the shortwave radio spectrum into a grey area of questionable emptiness and wonder, thats one thing has lived on to remain in its place.
for the pirate, there is nothing quite like the warm fuzzy feeling that your broadcast is traveling in the thin air from an antenna.
for the listener, there is nothing quite like the anxious excitement you get when you receive a pirate broadcast on your radio, from the thin air on an antenna.
perhaps shortwave is indeed dying a slow death as it has been evident through the last decade with many commercial shortwave stations shuttering operations but this questionable vacancy of spectrum will soon be filled by clandestine pirates and many of them will appear in the shadows of the shuttered commercial shortwave stations.
as a listener enthusiast, i would like to hear more pirates conversing and talking live on the air between songs, thats something i miss hearing from the 70's and 80's that really isnt as prevalent today.
on the scale of things, i am wondering Chris, if you have logged a few years worth of data, perhaps you could collate a pie chart of the data between those years to see if activity has increased/decreased, it would be interesting to know.
 

[ChrisSmolinski]

I could probably go back a few more years with HFU data to see what activity was like, at least for threads of broadcasts, to try to ID a pattern. It's tough because with the increasing number of HFU members, there's more reports. Logging inflation 

My guess is there's both an increase in the actual number of pirate transmissions, and with the proliferation of SDRs running all the time, we're not missing as many of them. Thinking back to the dark ages of radios with knobs (and possibly not even digital readout) I could see how quite a few transmissions might never be logged. Either no one heard them, or they were only heard by lurkers that didn't post loggings in the ACE/etc.

I'll see what I can come up with.

[Skipmuck]

Thinking back to the dark ages golden age of radios with knobs

[clobdell]

Excellent information!  Thanks!   

[CoolAM Radio]

  Wow!!!

 Gathering all this Info!  Great Job!

  Tnx for Sharing!

  Andrι
  CoolAM Radio

[JoeFLIPS]

Great job on compiling all this info Chris! Thank you.