Auds'n'Ends: 2/20/14

Electricity was in the air on Saturday night.

Of course. This is radio. Any time a radio station is on the air, the signals are bouncing around the ionosphere.

But Saturday night, was different because Undercover Radio was on the air and with a lot of power. Again, this isn't anything new. Undercover radio often uses a lot of power and so does Wolverine Radio. Wolverine is often heard all around the world.

The difference is that approximately 40 listeners (from at least 18 different states and two Canadian provinces) reported the broadcast on the pirate forums. Shortwave broadcasting is supposedly dead and buried, but this was a fantastic turnout, just from those active loggers, let alone all of the listeners who heard the broadcast but didn't write about it.

To add to the incredible signal and the number of listeners, the audio was excellent as was the programming.

Dr. Benway took advantage of the excellent signals and captive audience to offer two-sided Undercover Radio t-shirts for sale, with "all funds raised going to the Wounded Warriors."

Good times listening to the radio.

* I'm selling off a few things on eBay to clear some space around here. Everything is starting really low, so I thought I'd mention them here. Ramsey FM-10 (working) starting at $4.99, a Hallicrafters HT-18 low-power CW/NBFM transmitter starting at $49.49, and a WiNRADiO WR-1550E software-defined receiver (SDR) starting at $4.99.

* My recording computer crashed this past weekend and I thought that I lost a few audio recordings + a few SSTV images (I did lose the audio, but the images were saved):

WRR aired a Radio Totse SSTV image

SSTV from Heat Man Radio (although it took me a bit to determine that it wasn't "Meat Man Radio")

* Considering the snow over the past two weeks, this movie should be particularly horrifying for people in some parts of the U.S. (especially in the South)

* Why is called the Winter Olympics when it could be called "4 hours of ice dancing every night for two weeks" ?

* Radio song of the day is Vladimir Ussachevsky "Wireless Fantasy"

* I hate to end this post on a sad note, but I received this e-mail tonight:

FINAL TRANSMISSION of Radio Spaceshuttle! (INFO-Wednesday 19/02/2014): Hello friends everywhere,

We have sad news to tell you dear listeners! Radio Spaceshuttle is making last programes to be aired in near future. We shall use one of our 76 mb frequencies 3900/ 3905 or 3927 kHz to these transmissions.

We do not know yet times or dates of these transmissions- It might be only one or two different sessions in the end of February or start of March 2014. We would like to have few hours to be aired but that is absolutly not sure.

After these transmissions we shall take our antenna masts and antennas down and do not really know shall we ever return to airwaves  again :(
We shall put our equipments to good warehouse waiting for better times (if there ever are such).

Radio Spaceshuttle wish as many listeners as possible to try our frequencies during The Final Countdown. Please try direct or with any remote receiver to catch us! We like to receive your tapes, music wishes or memories of short history of Radio Spaceshuttle. Send your audiofiles and other material as soon as possible to our e-mail : spaceshuttleradio@yahoo.com . Or send link to your audio source, please.

Many thanks all dear listeners! It has been so fun....

Good Bye, this is Radio Spaceshuttle's call for our LAST FINAL transmissions!

Please use our email-address spaceshuttleradio@yahoo.com or send your report to our mail box:

Radio Spaceshuttle International
P.O.Box 2702
6049ZG
Herten The Netherlands

Best greetings- May God Bless You (and us),
Dick of Radio Spaceshuttle

My weekend loggings: 2/15-2/17/14

WRR: 6925U, 2/14, ca2230+ Tuned in, but had to leave, so I hit Record. Layers of pescador QRM here, with WRR somewhere near the top. Easy to pick out the old country music, but tough to copy when he went to talking because everyone was talking at the same time. Copied a Radio Totse SSTV during the broadcast.


Unid: 6867, 2/15, 1433-1441* Devo "Praying Hands," "Shrivel Up," & "Strange Pursuit." Static crashes, but pretty nice signal here. Off with no IDs. Maybe a homebrew transmitter test? If so, the audio sounded great here.

Unid (but Cool AM relay per HFU): 6924.5, 2/15, 1645 I was trying to save some of the accumulation of unsaved pirate recordings currently on the recording laptop when I turned the R-5000 back on & had a carrier near 6925. I punched in a few freqs to try to get it more accurate (the tuning knob is frozen on my R-5000) and the signal disappeared. Per Chris Smolinski on HFU, it was Cool AM.

Cool AM relay: 6925, 2/15, 2027 Here with Golden Earring "Twilight Zone" at 2027. Clear ID at 2035. Fair signal

Heat Man Radio: 6935U, 2/15, 2255+ Good signal with Velvet Underground, into song "Television will Not Be Revolutionized," computer music & now SSTV

CYOT: 6960, 2/15, 2255 Don't have much here aside from the carrier. ID from logs on HFU

WEAK Radio: 6925U, 2/15-16, 2338+ Pretty good signal with music. Clear computer-voiced IDs from when the station was on regularly five years ago. Kraftwerk "Pocket Calculator" and more. Great to hear WEAK back on the 3rd anniversary of its raid!"Sweet Home Alabama," Minor Threat "Small Man, Big Mouth"--interesting mix

Radio Free Whatever: 6925U, 2/16, 0105-0206+ Sign on with USSR national anthem, Dickweed & Stephen talking about progress with the t-shirt campaign. Super signal here. Reel Big Fish "Sell Out" and more

X-FM: 6925, 2/16 Tuned in during Queen "Bohemian Rhapsody"Good signal

Bangalore Poacher: 6925U, 2/16, 2026+ Numbers station parody with an Indian-sounding numbers announcer. fair signal

Undercover Radio: 6925U, 2/16, ca2340+ Incredible signal, with stories about Dr. Benway's 1st broadcast in 1977, setting his Viking II on fire. Into old shows, such as New Year's 2003/2004, etc. More than 30 people logged this one on HFU, and it was well heard in Europe!

Snowstorm Pax loggings: 2/13-2/14/14

The snow is falling here and coincidentally or not, pirates are on the air. I missed Cool AM, but:

Captain Morgan: 6924.5, 2/13, 0203+ Excellent signal here with one of the captain's short '60s/'70s songs shows and the "Twilight Zone" theme.

Unid: 6925, 2/13, 1802+ Saw on HFU that Radio Free Whatever was on the air at 1700, checked the radio and something is here, but it's too weak for me to know if it's RFW. I have it recording and I think it's about time for me to shovel the driveway.

Cool AM relay: 6925, 2/13, 2205+ Fair here. Listened for about 10 min. and went back out and shoveled some more. Not sure about the snow total here, but I think it was about 12-16"

Auds'n'Ends: 2/12/14

I've been watching the news and hearing stories about everything that's going on with the upcoming snow storm on the East Coast. Schools are already closed in Washington, DC, Virginia has National Guard troops ready and it's being reported as a superstorm from North Carolina through Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and more.

Whenever I hear of massive snowstorms, I think about WFAT and, especially, WONS. WFAT (formerly WCPR) regularly broadcast during severe snowstorms from Brooklyn, New York. The idea was that if the streets were clogged and the streets were closed, then the FCC wouldn't be able to travel to close stations.

In addition to the extra safety, the snow made for some festive broadcasts. The WFAT and WONS ("snow" backwards) snowstorm broadcasts often started around 0400 UTC and would sometimes last until as early as 1200 UTC. I remember seeing an article on WONS years ago (I believe in the '90s and in 73 Magazine).

I searched around on the Internet and couldn't find anything from WONS, unfortunately. However, the station featured call-ins to telco loop numbers on frequencies in 43 meters. Searching through some of my own archives, I found broadcasts from WONS in January and April 1979 on 6945 kHz and 6955 kHz. FYI, WONS and WARG were, to the best of my knowledge, two of the first pirates to use this frequency range.

WFAT later changed its name to WGUT (for AM broadcasts) and to WHOT (for FM broadcasts). The crew from the station posted a link to their snowstorm broadcast from January 10, 1984. Whether or not any station decides to take to the airwaves for this snowstorm, this show will give you something to listen to while watching the flakes fall.

* The 3rd anniversary of the FCC raid on WEAK Radio is February 16. Thanks to some assistance from generous pirates, WEAK has returned for a new broadcast each of the past two years. In the spirit of listening to old shows, here's a link to four hours of WEAK from August 3-4, 2009, on 6940 kHz USB.

* I received this e-mail from Tom Taylor of European Music Radio:

European Music Radio Relay on 16th of February 2014

EMR  08.00 to 09.00 UTC  Gohren / 7265 KHz  Stewart Ross

EMR  09.00 to 10.00 UTC  Gohren / 9480 KHz  Tom & Mike Taylor

EMR  09.00 to 10.00 UTC  Nauen /  6045 KHz  Tom & Mike Taylor

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

EMR Internet repeats on Sunday and Monday:    

Programme repeats are at the following times: 08:00, 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).

* While I was searching for info on WONS, I found that back issues of 73 Magazine are now in the public domain. Here's the link for downloads.

* The radio song of the day is not really a radio song. But it fits my mood. "Let It Snow" by Dean Martin.

Loggings 2/10/14

XLR8: 6925U, 2/10, 2344-2348*+ Clear IDs & rock music over pescador conversation.

My weekend logs: 2/7-2/10/14

Unid: 6925, 2/8, 1450 Reported on HFU, but I could only hear some carrier.

WHYP: 6925, 2/8, 2215+ Tuned in to James talking about how he's been working on a new project--he built a new modulator for a Heath DX-40 and has it on the air. He shut it down and came back up after a few minutes with the Viking Valiant II transmitter and Dixieland jazz. The DX-40 was good with occasional fades. The Valiant II is strapping here.

Wolverine Radio: 6950U, 2/9, 0204+ Tuned in just in time to catch an SSTV image of a street scene...and into more music. Looks like it's a double program night

Black Cat Radio: 6925U, 2/9, 0204+ Clear ID and some garagey instrumental music that sounds a bit Arabic influenced with the guitar solos. Kind of a Dick Dale sound. Sounds like an ad of some sort at 0219. Signal is fair, but has that "far away" kind of sound to it.

Auds'n'Ends: 2/7/14

Henry hoped the homeowner's association wouldn't notice his new inverted L

* With so much snow in various parts of North America this year, remember to turn on the radio when the storm is pounding down snow or ice. Some station might decide to either broadcast from a snowbound area or to potential listeners who are home from school or work. I didn't think about the possibilities earlier this week and missed a few broadcasts.

* I received a few QSLs recently from WHYP, The Crystal Ship, Channel Z, Frederic Chopin Radio, etc. If I write on the blog more often, I should have some more illustrations to keep things happening.

* Kilokat7 wrote an excellent in-depth account of WJDI, a station that, for the days it was on the air, had possibly the best signal of any medium wave station in North America. Even in '89, when the power was "down around a kilowatt," it could be heard across much of the eastern half of North America. Between the tremendous power of 10+ kW and the better propagation of 1620 kHz (as opposed to the low end of the band), WJDI had tremendous coverage in its later broadcasts.

* I guess the propagation on the high bands has been poor lately. I've had the R-5000 sitting on 27700 kHz for most of the week, but I've only had bits of a few SSTV images decoding. Nothing in the images were identifiable and no callsigns were visible.

* Don't forget about the Radio Free Whatever t-shirt sale. Whether you're at the Olympics in Sochi or talking to the president of your homeowner's association about your new inverted L antenna, they're sure to make an impression.

* Time for another song about radio: REM "Radio Song"

* Here's news from a private operation that leases time on licensed stations: Atlantic 2000 will be on the air this Sunday 9th of February from 09:00 to 10:00 UTC (10:00 to 11:00 CET) on 7310 and 9480 kHz. The programme will be streaming at the same time on our website. http://radioatlantic2000.free.fr