Post-Christmas Weekend Loggings: 12/27-12/29/13

Radio Dr. Tim (NA relay): 6925, 12/27, 1335+ Weak here with occasional bits popping up clearly. Heard mention of the station being a member of Pirates for Peace. Not sure when the last time was that I heard R. Dr. Tim, but it's been a long time...nice to hear again. SSTV at end of show:

Radio Dr. Tim SSTV

WTPR: 6930, 12/27, 1445+ Tire Pressure Radio. Chain-letter type broadcast about listening to the show will cause low tire pressure. Mentioning different DXers who now have flat tires. Beerus Maximus reported this 12/27 broadcast first on HFU and just heard him mentioned in the program. He's apparently risking low tire pressure. "You are the next victim of tire pressure radio...even when warned, you kept listening...your tires have been deflating while listening..." Stories about listeners who tuned in around 1910-1920 and discovered that their tires were flat after the broadcast, etc. Lots of effects: reverb, delay, slowing down audio, etc.

Pirate Radio Boston: 13960, 12/28, 1640+ Nice to log a North American pirate on a high frequency again. Good sig here with Charlie Loudenboomer and Mr. X playing Joe Walsh. Some multipath echo on the signal. Not only being heard in the US, but also by several DXers in Germany & Finland. Possibly elsewhere, too!

Christmas Loggings: 12/24-12/26/13

Captain Morgan SW: 6951, 12/24, 2250+ Nice signal, clear IDs, Beach Boys Christmas song.

Merry Christmas!

WBNY: 6950, 12/25, 1415+ Nice signal, announcing the Belfast maildrop. Said that they only mail out QSLs 2x/year, so be patient. Into long montage of "monkey" audio clips interspersed with WBNY IDs.

I just received a Christmas present from the staff of WPOD:

Thanks!

Radio Dr. Tim (tent.): 6925, 12/25, 1856+ Weak signal. Light pop with a woman singing. I just tuned in, ID per HFU.

Holiday test broadcasts and schedules, 2013

We're officially into the season and I've started to receive e-mails about upcoming tests. If you want to announce a schedule in advance (remember, be safe about it), e-mail it to me and I'll list it here. With any luck, maybe a few stations will be heard by more people and in other continents.

With band crowding in Europe this time of year, expect more stations to operate outside of the typical 6200-6400 area. Here are some of out-of-band transmissions, just from the past week (thanks to Dr. Tim's Pirate News):

6450 Readymix 2300
6746.9 Radio Pioneer 0920
6795.7 Pink Panther 0840
6807.8 Sundown Radio 1115
6909.9L Baltic Sea Radio 0912
6910 Premier Radio 1945-2100
6930 Transeurope Radio 1324
6949.9 Coax Amateur 0830
6974.6 Ronalisa Amateur 1308

Pink Panther Radio marathon schedule
12/28 update: PPR e-mailed to say that he moved to 6798.5 kHz 
Pink Panther Radio from Holland is planning to broadcast for approximately five straight days, from Dec. 26-31 on 6798.5 kHz. The station has been heard by a few DXers in North America, so this should be a good opportunity for new listeners to tune in.
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EMR Transmissions 27/28 December 2013

27^th December: EMR  19.00 to 19.45 UTC via IRRS on 7290 KHz  Tom & Mike Taylor

28^th December: EMR  09.00 to 09.45 UTC via IRRS on 9510 KHz  Tom & Mike Taylor

Please send all E.M.R. reports to:  studio@emr.org.uk  Thank you!

EMR Internet repeats on Saturday and Sunday:     

Programme repeats are at the following times: 09:00, 13:00, 17:00, 20:00 UTC

Please visit www.emr.org.uk and click on the “EMR internet radio” button

which you will find throughout the website (see the menu on the left).

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Fessenden Tribute Broadcast on 12/31 and 1/1
Brian Justin, WG2XFQ, will be broadcasting a tribute to to honor Reginald Fessenden’s Christmas Eve 1906 AM voice transmission. The tribute was also aired on 12/24 and 12/25, but I forgot to mention it here. Kilokat7 logged the station in Michigan on HFU, so there are possibilities for listeners in the Northeast to hear it. The schedule is 486 kHz (longwave) from 0001-2359 UTC. This was advertised by the ARRL, so I'm sure everything's legal, but I guess I need to take a look at the rules that allow someone to broadcast music on this frequency with 500 watts. Interesting possibilities! Much more info is available on the ARRL site.

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Radio Geronimo Test on 12/22
Dear friends of shortwave radio, something is happening on 6070 kHz.
Last Sunday the tests of our new stand-by transmitter between 9 and 10 UTC were
successful. This weekend we will try to run the transmitter for the first time
with regular programming.
We hope, during nighttime, too; this should make reception possible in the U.S.
For this transmission we would be glad to get detailed reception reports, esp.
concerning modulation.
Furthermore we would like to draw your attention to a program of Radio Geronimo
Shortwave, that will be aired on Sunday 22nd, from 10 to 12 UTC.

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Radio Marabu Christmas schedule
(using Google Translate) This year, we spotlight our Christmas program on 24, 25 and 26 December 2013 through 24 hours of on the frequency 6305 kHz.

In addition, we are on 25 and 26 December 2013 from 20.00 to 24.00 clock to listen to 6070 kHz.

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Free Radio Service Holland Christmas Show
December 29th FRSH will be on 7600//5800 kHz & 6070 kHz for at least 5 hours Pxs will be presented by Jan van Dijk doing the German show.
Roger Davis -celebrating his first year on the station- will be presenting another classic FRS Golden Show with great (and rare!) 60s/ 70s stuff as well as a
feature on offshore radio. Peter Verbruggen will be looking  back to what happened in the past (Day Calendar) playing a mix of 80s/90s/00s records in FRS Magazine.
He will also host FRS Goes DXMas with the latest news from the wonderful world of wireless. Last but not least: Paul Graham will be doing an 80s show. Within the programmes 
October mail and Season’s Greetings will be read out. There also is the Phrase that Pays. FRS will most likely commence at  08.00 UTC/ 09.00 CET.

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New World Music program from Artem
Dear friends and collegues in hobby !Merry Christmas to all of you !Please, find enclosed two links for the Special Christmas and New Year Artem 's World Music. Thanks to all who Took part in this show . Hope all of you like result . And let this one be N15 (some of you Noted my fault with numeration of my previous show, sorry) . All the best and hope to see you all in 2014. Yours truly , Incredible Artem http://www.sendspace.com/file/nyt7ff
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My pre-Christmas weekend loggings: 12/21-12/23/13

Pirate Radio Boston: 6925, 12/21, ca1300. I heard Christmas music on 6925 kHz, hit record, then had to leave to run some errands. Guess I'll update this after I check the recording.

Snowball Radio: 6930, 12/21 Christmas music, including Ramones "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)." Part of the time the signal was good & sometimes it was really watery.

UNid: 1720, 12/21, 2345+ I have horrible grinding noise here on MW. I'm guessing that it's a powerline transformer problem somewhere. After seeing a logging on HFU, I checked here and have heard audio fade up above the grinding noise a few times, but that's about all.

Liquid Radio (tent.): 6925.2, 12/22, 0003+ I saw that Liquid Radio was on. The carrier is here and I'm occasionally getting brief fade-ins on the fast techno dance beat, but it's barely there and only occasionally.

"All I Want for Christmas" 12/20/13

All I want for Christmas…

The nondefinitive guide to gift purchasing and receiving for shortwave listeners, pirates, and other hobby broadcasters.

"The Hopalong Cassidy Playset sure is swell, but I'm hoping the Harris HT20HS is in the garage." 

OK, it’s only five days until Christmas, so this doesn’t leave much time for shipping, let alone shopping or handing out lists to the ones you love. If you try submitting lists now, you might wind up with fruitcake, which could be a good thing if you’re the pirate who runs the Fruitcake station.

But, with that in mind, I looked up some interesting items for sale on eBay for SWLs & pirate listeners:

Disclaimer: I don’t in any way endorse any of the products in this article; they are simply items I thought looked interesting while searching around on eBay.

* Sony CDX-GT270MP car stereo shortwave head unit. $149.99. This head unit contains two shortwave bands: 2,940–7,735 kHz and 9,500–18,135 kHz (except for 10,140–11,575 kHz) in 5-kHz steps. It’s not easy to find shortwave head units.

·   * LPB AM-30 carrier-current transmitter. $99. Your own legal AM station, signal controlled only by the power lines and its power transformer. Of course, without the coupling unit, it possible to output the AM-30 into an antenna for significantly less-than-legal operation.

* E. H. Scott receiver in the cabinet. What’s cooler than a huge, heavy boatanchor? A huge, heavy boatanchor covered in chrome. Unfortunately, this one is missing the speaker, so the seller doesn’t know if it works.

* Sanyo RP-8880. $89.99. Lots of knobs. How often do you ever see a Sanyo shortwave radio? 

* Harris HT20HS 20-kW analog TV transmitter for Channel 9. $21,000 + an awful lot of shipping. Not sure what the choices of applications are here. Maybe take it to the Florida Keys and beam the signal to Cuba? Check the WRTH and take it to a country that still has analog TV?

* Wild Planet Radio DJ. $35. This toy is a part-15 AM transmitter with a built-in cassette deck, EQ, and sound effects. Although there are dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Of low-power FM transmitters on eBay, you won’t find many AM transmitters. The Wild Planet Radio DJ might be a toy, but it’s a great price for an LPAM transmitter.

 * Delco 1102 1935 tombstone radio. $59.99. Here’s a good price on a fairly uncommon radio that needs a lot of restoration, both physically and electronically. The shipping is about as expensive as the BIN price, though.

 * Guy Guden Space Pirate Radio LP still sealed. $99.95. Who wouldn’t want a copy of this? Of course, the price is a bit more than that of the typical CD.

Auds & Ends, 12/18/13

* The 2014 Universal Radio catalog arrived today. This is one catalog that I still keep, not just until next year, but actually save. I also used to save catalogs from EEB and Fair Radio Sales. I don't know if anyone ever thought about it, but the covers of these Universal catalogs are the inspiration for the back covers of the Pirate Radio Annuals:

Of course, with being the market for a new SDR, I was re-reading the entries for the Perseus and SDR-IQ a few times. I was also eyeing up the Tecsun PL-660 a bit more than I probably should be.

* I also received the following Christmas message & image from Mustang Radio, from Holland:

Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy 2014!!!

good dx without jammers!!

best regards Mustang Radio Crew

 

FYI, Mustang is one of the better-heard European pirates in North America

* Not sure yet if anyone's received their copy of the Pirate Radio Annual, but nearly every one was sent out last Friday, 12/13. Friday the 13th curse?

* Songs about radio: An old radio friend passed this song to me Kentaurektum "Surfin' on Shortwave." This is one will be awesome to tune in to sometime, late at night.

* I'm tracking down an article for the 2014 PRA that I'm really excited about. It seems like it's a thumbs up for now, but I'm hoping to track down a little more information.

Loggings: 12/17/13

I've been working on some things recently and while putting the series of Ken Burns The War on in the background. It's fascinating and the footage is amazing. Moreover, if you really take it to heart, it's tough to complain about anything.

Probably less than an hour after watching part of episode 3 of The War, I turned on the receiver and heard:

Radio Casablanca: 6940, 0000-0040* Excellent signal and punchy audio. As always, the station plays WWII-era music with audio clips from the movie Casablanca. Some of the music included an instrumental version of "Thanks for the Memories," Billie Holiday "Night and Day," "Cheek to Cheek," "I'll Be Seeing You,"and "Without Your Love."Aside from the fact that the announcements are obviously and audio clips from Casablanca and they announce a gmail address for reports, you could easily imagine that a time portal opened up between now and 71 years ago on 6940 kHz. I really should have connected a long antenna to one of my '30s radios and listened to the broadcast for full effect.

Back to The War. Did you know that a B-24 contained more than 1,500,000 parts, but that a completed bomber was turned out every 63 minutes at the Ford plant?