General Category > Pirate Radio History

Vintage reception report MEGA THREAD!

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Beerus Maximus:
I'm starting this thread to post pictures/scans of written reception reports to pirate radio stations. We've all seen QSL cards, but few have seen what the pirate radio operators saw before email: written reception reports from listeners in the age of "maildrops".

I grew up with a friend whose air name was "Doctor Lobotomy". He operated numerous shortwave pirate radio stations in the early 1990's. We lived across town from each other, attended high school together but didn't really know each other until we became acquainted by CB radio in our town. Over time, he revealed he was a shortwave enthusiast, a ham radio operator, and eventually, he revealed he operated pirate radio stations. He was instrumental in my introduction to the hobby that has followed me to this day.. HF pirate listening, utilities, oddities, etc.

I'm starting to scan his absolutely huge collection of reception reports. He's long out of the radio scene but I've been bugging him about putting these out there for a while, since I think they are so cool. Maybe you'll find them interesting? If so, please let me know. If you SEE one of your reception reports, feel free to comment! In the interest of privacy, I'll blur out last names and street addresses but keep town/city names. Unfortunately many of these DXers may have passed, some may have no interest in the hobby anymore, and some may still be here. If I happen to post something YOU wrote and you don't want here, feel free to let me know and I'll gladly remove it.

The reception reports are presented in no particular order. Stations I've identified so far operated by Dr. Lobotomy: Radio Free New England, WGNK, KMRZ, WARI, Alternative Radio International, Lobotomy Radio Network, East Coast Music Radio. Operations were primarily from mid-1991 until late 1993, and sporadically from there until about 1995. Almost all of the broadcasts originated from this bedroom studio in the Boston suburbs. I took this picture of Dr. Lobotomy sometime in probably 1992:



I'll continue to update this thread during 2020 as I have time to scan in a huge collection of reports. Keep checking back! Also, if anyone else has reception reports they'd like to add, feel free!

Beerus Maximus:
One of the stations he operated was "Radio Free New England". He used many different station names over time. Here's a reception report from 1991, which was one of the earlier operations he ran:

Beerus Maximus:
Another Radio Free New England report:

Beerus Maximus:

Beerus Maximus:
This DXer was well known (and derided) for his penmanship and very terse reports. His reports actually spawned at least one spoof pirate radio station (not operated by my friend). This is undated but likely from the fall of 1991 as it was bundled with other dated reports from that time.

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