Global HF Weekend starts tonight!

I haven't been e-mailing everyone and their brother (or sister) about this Global HF Weekend because I've been trying to finish the Pirate Radio Annual instead (and working on the woodshed so that I don't need the glowing tubes of the SP-600 & R-390A to stay warm this winter).

Not sure if other people have been spreading the word about the weekend or not, but with a DXpedition in Newfoundland, I'd expect that some pirates will be testing for the land of red dirt and Anne of Green Gables. One of the DXpeditioners posted a comment on prior blog entry here, so they're likely to notice if some pirate posts a test in the comments section below. Their focus is on medium-wave stations, so my guess is that any North American pirates who want to test for them would probably be more likely to be heard if they operate between 1710 and 1750 kHz. Using a split channel (any frequency within the band that ends in a "5") might also work, but that could cause some nasty interference to the stations on either side channel.

The DXpeditioners (and others) will also be checking the European pirate frequencies. So, we'll see how it all goes.

During the last Global HF Weekend, Lupo Radio (Argentina) was relayed in North America, which I thought was pretty cool. Definitely the spirit of what it's all about. Speaking of which, I've been seeing tons of logs of Brazilian pirates lately. I don't know if these operators ever check into HF Underground, FRN.net, or Free Radio Cafe, but it would be great if some of these guys would "plug into" the existing scenes (a good example would back in the 1990s when stations like AARS, Radio Blandengue, and Radio Cochiguaz from South America were trading programs with European and North American stations). Made for some really interesting radio listening!

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On a previous post a few days ago, I mentioned not remembering offhand any pirates using 120m. One listener commented about Radio Gabanzo using 90m back in '87. I didn't remember that, but it got me thinking about 120m. I know I've heard of pirates using the area, but I think it was a long time ago (or maybe not even in North America). My mind keeps sticking on a photo QSL that was in PopComm from WHY back around '83, but I think that was some 90m freq, like 3405 kHz.

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Thanks to Ion Radio, Radio Ga-Ga, and Radio Illuminati for the recent eQSLs! I'm not including the Ion Radio one here because it's a duplicate (except for details) of one I just posted a couple of days ago.