Weekend Pirate Logs: 12/27-12/29/14

Weekend Pirate Logs: 12/27-12/29/14

I've been away for most of the past few days, so I don't have many loggings to offer.

Radio Ga-Ga: 6925U, 12/28, ca.0000+ VG signal, but the signal-killing combination of the washer and dishwasher rendered it unusable.

X-FM: 6975, 12/28, 0150+ Very nice signal with The Who "Eminence Front"  & Toto "Africa." Shoutouts to me & others logging on HFU.

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 12/28, 1300+ Box 13 show, then Dangerous Assignments show being aired on the Wheaties Big Parade. Nice signal.

XLR8: 6950U, 12/29, 0040+ Heavier song, ID, then an instrumental ska song. Another ID,then a fast-paced song that might be Latin American?

Pre Christmas loggings: 12/23-24/2014

Pre Christmas loggings: 12/23-24/2014

Channel Z: 6925, 12/23, 2224+ CZ Christmas special with Run DMC "Christmas in Hollis" & many more Christmas songs. Great stuff to wrap Christmas presents to . . . and I was

OTR unid: 6770, 12/23, 2330+ Red Skelton show, starting monologue with joke about Yankees in the World Series again. Interesting just how similar this is to the monologues on current late-night shows. Avalon cigarettes ad.

Happy Hanukkah: 6875.5, 12/23, 2354-0003* Pretty good signal here, but quickly wavering. "Far from the Home I Love" from Fiddler on the Roof, Interval signal repeated a number of times with cuing information intact

Snowball Radio: 6940U, 12/24, 0039-0040* Off the air mid-"All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth"

Radio BZN: 6952.5, 12/24, 0118+ Evidently BZN songs and an SSTV image coming through right now.

Nonpirate logs

NMN: 6501U, 12/23, ca. 2300 Coast Guard station from Chesapeake, VA. Gave a list of frequencies that would no longer be used in 2008 (!). Also gave phone number for inquiries as 1-800-742-8519. Excellent signal


Trenton military: 6754U, 12/23, 2335+ Aviation weather. Strong signal, accurate time checks

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 12/14-12/16/14

I'm getting really close to starting to lay out the 2014 Pirate Radio Annual, but I'll start adding in a few logs:

WHYP: 6880, 12/14, 0034+ James Brownyard belting out his biggest hits, such as "Niel Wolfish Got Runover by George Zeller, etc. Some announcements & bits by Maharishi Hashishi from Radio Free Euphoria. A few other songs from the 2001 WHYP punk Christmas special, such as Fear "F*** Christmas," etc. "Yah, yah" song by the original JB & off with George Zeller saying it's the worst thing hie's heard on shortwave. Excellent signal & audio.

Weekend Pirate Radio Loggings: 12/5-12/8/14

Weekend Pirate Radio Loggings: 12/5-12/8/14

I figured that I should start posting some of what I've been hearing. As always, I'll be updating this page through the weekend:

XLR8: 6925U, 12/6, 2310-2311* Just caught part of a song and a kind of whispery X-L-R-8 ID at the end. Fair/good in pescadore QRM

Radio Free Whatever: 6876, 12/6, 2219+ "Time Warp" show, with program from December 7, 1941, for the 73rd anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. Not many people are still alive who can remember that day. Dick Weed & Stavin on at the end with e-mail address and IDs. Good signal & nice to hear the rebroadcast.

Pesky Party Radio: 6950L, 12/7, 0202+ Tuning in to song that I think might be Santana. Nice signal here. My 1st time to hear this one. Now a Spanish cover of "Hotel California" with flamenco-style guitar.

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 12/7, 2350+ Comedy program. Nice signal. I need a better antenna on my backup receiver because I'm listening to Radio Casablanca on the Drake with the inverted V, which works much better than the short random-wire antenna that I have on the R-5000 right now.

Radio Casablanca: 6940, 12/7, 2351-0102* Cut in the middle of '30s or '40s music to original newsflash about the attack on Pearl Harbor. FDR Pearl Harbor speech. Really nice tribut. Some of the later songs have included "Praise the Lord & Pass the Ammunition" and "Remember Pearl Harbor." Some QRM, presumably from pescadores whistling and talking way down underneath the signal."Dancing Cheek to Cheek" Last song before the French national anthem is Vera Lynn "We'll Meet Again," which gives me chills when I think about how powerful it must've been for those listening during WWII

Free Thinker Radio: 6925U, 12/8, 0212-0235* Pink Floyd "Interstellar Overdrive" Pretty good signal. My 1st time for FTR. Hard copy copy a lot of the talk, but I've heard a number of clear IDs. Seems to be off now at 0235 UTC

Europe

Radio Black Arrow: 21491, 12/6, 1603+ Quick test here with a song or two and shoutouts to Chris Smolinski & I. Not a great signal, but I could hear that much of the announcements, which is better than I could do earlier with Sluwe Vos Radio and Radio Baltic Sea.

Premier Radio: 6942, 12/6, 2045+ Good carrier with occasional audio peaks. Too much noise and a bit too early, I think. Running a relay of Christmas FM, a station from Dublin that's licensed to broadcast for 30 days

Cupid Radio: 6304.9, 12/6, 2336+ Pretty good signal, song by the Foo Fighters, shoutout to me

Radio Marabu: 6239.3, 12/7, 0050+ Signal's getting much better with new wavish pop. Much less noise with the synch detector on, but there's a het on frequency and the synch detector is having trouble locking. The result is two hets going up & down in frequency, sometimes both coming down, meeting, crossing over, etc. Annoying.

Laser Hot Hits via Magic: 15700, 12/7, 1600+ I've been listening to this and have mostly just had a carrier and no audio, but over the past minute or so, I'm getting audio of pop music with a female singer. ID per HFU, but given the few SW stations playing pop or rock music these days, I'd be surprised if it was anything but a pirate. It'd be interesting if LHH would go 24/7 on 19 meters--it'd be audible in North America at some point every day!

Weekend Pirate Radio Loggings: 11/29-12/1/14

Weekend Pirate Radio Loggings: 11/29-12/1/14

Old-Time Radio unid: 6770, 11/29, 2000+ I've been listening to hours of Westerns, including Frontier Town (I think from 1949 or 1950), Frontier Gentleman (1958), Gunsmoke, Lone Ranger, Sgt. Preston, and Fort Laramie. Nice to have some entertainment when other stations aren't on the air

Radio Free Whatever: 6945U, 11/30, 0030-0108* Pop/hip-hop with a pro ID for Dick Weed & Stephen. Nice signal with a variety of music, including one by the Foo Fighters

unid: 6950U, 11/30, 0208-0211* Percussive music. Good signal between Wolverine and X-FM. No ID

Wolverine Radio: 6940U, 11/30, 0214+ Mae West "Come Up and See Me Sometime," The Cars "Touch & Go," etc. I'm not detecting a theme. I've heard about three IDs so far.  Excellent signal <later> A-ha, per the final SSTV image, the theme was the senses

X-FM: 6960, 11/30, 0211+ Redhat here with an excellent signal. Too many stations on at once for me to completely follow!

unid: 6924, 11/30, 0256+ Pretty good carrier, but no audio. On for at least 10 min. and still running

Old-Time Radio unids: 6770, 11/30, 1300+ This morning the lineup has included March 13 and Dangerous Assignment "Flying Saucer over Santa" from April 14, 1950

Europe

Black Bandit Radio, 6300, 11/29, 2220+ ID per HFU. Fairly weak here & seemed to go off the air after a few min.

Non-pirate logs

6738.75U, 11/29, ca2200 English phonetics & numbers with a lot of multipath echo. Excellent signal

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 11/21-11/24/14

Weekend Pirate Loggings: 11/21-11/24/14

I need to get back to work on the Pirate Radio Annual, but there's been so much activity--and I've been home and able to hear some of it, so I'm posting my loggings:

unid: 6884, 11/22, 1939-1956+ Was looping a small section of a couple of Beatles songs. At 1954, the looping stopped & The Zombies "She's Not There" came on. Now playing CCR "Heard It Thru the Grapevine" I stopped recording this one & moved up to WJFK. After WJFK signed off, I came back down here, but it was gone.

WJFK: 6949.2, 11/23, 1956-2006* Pretty good with strong audio. '60 pop "Sonny," etc., all of which had a connection to the assassination of JFK. Heard it from this point until the sign off, after a few IDs, with an "old radio recording" type of sound. Thanks for the show & the QSLs from years past!

unid: 6880, 11/22, 2029-2046* Huge signal here & excellent audio with Climax Blues Band "Couldn't Get It Right" & more '70s pop & disco.

 WJFK: 6949.2, 11/23, 2112-2114* Just caught part of the last song and the IDs. Strapping signal

Renegade Radio: 6925U, 11/23, 0001- Excellent signal that's being heard all over North America tonight. It seems that the op is going for more '80s rock than heavy metal tonight: Phil Collins, Journey, etc. Talking about the crazy lake effect snowstorm in Buffalo, then "Riding the Storm Out" for the people in Buffalo. Rolling Stones "Angie." Talked about how the conditions seemed good for anyone to follow up with a broadcast, but that he would sign off shortly. Goodbyes to all, then The Police "King of Pain"--frequency started fluctuating a bit near the end of the song.

X-FM: 6955, 11/23, 0042- Another excellent signal. Think I heard the end of the sign on audio, with a lot of free radio-related audio clips, then into music. Playing Led Zeppelin "Kashmir," The Mind Flowers etc., by request

Orbital Mind-Control Satellite: 6925U, 11/23, 0123+ talking about the Crab Nebulae & when you hear the signal "you'll know what to do." Only about 200 Hz from Liquid Radio, so this is a real mess. I have a bad hetrodyne here and during music, I can't tell if I'm hearing audio from Liquid Radio or OMCS. I'm thinking it's audio from Liquid Radio because I just heard an LR ID.

Liquid Radio: 6925, 11/23, 0130+ Messy for a while, between having OMCS 200 Hz lower and also LSB pescadores there, too. Aldo Nova "Fantasy," which is much different than the typical LR techno music

Weekend pirate loggings 11/7-11/9/14

Weekend pirate loggings 11/7-11/9/14

If I get a chance, I'll put a real blog entry up about how I'm about to start contacting stations with tentative write ups for the 2014 Pirate Radio Annual. . .  way behind schedule. But I edited a bunch of audio files today and I'm hoping to get a lot more finished this weekend.

Unid: 6940, 11/8, 0025+ Weak signal here with occasional fade ups. A lot of adjacent-channel QRM is killing my chances of digging out any program details. Not sure, but there's a decent chance that this is Premiere Radio International from Ireland. PRI was on this frequency earlier in the evening.

Cool AM relay: 6920, 11/8, 0030+ I haven't heard any IDs yet, but I've been hearing lots of Dixieland jazz songs. Nice, strong signal

XLR8: 6935U, 11/8, 0048+ Variety of music, dance, punk, Black Sabbath, etc. Nice signal here, but getting hammered by splatter from a utility on about 6937 or 6938. Still running at 0542 UTC!

Pirate Radio Boston: 6920, 11/8, 0112+ Excellent signal for PRB's 22nd anniversary show. Charlie Loudenboomer reading listener letters, including some from last year on 1720 kHz. Charlie said that Dr. Benway uses "lots of chicken wire" for the ground on those MW antennas. Thanks to RF Whatever, JTA, MAC, etc.

Big Dog Radio: 6925U, 11/8, 2348+ Huge signal & nice audio with Lynyrd Skynyrd "Freebird." Promo "If you can't run with the big dogs, well, it's probably best if stay on the porch" & off

Cupid Radio (Netherlands): 21460, 11/8, 1540+ Very nice signal, almost 100% copyable, with shoutouts to DXpedition, Trans Europe, me, etc. Clear SSTV image of an immodest bear decoded.

Radio Hardanger (presumed Netherlands): 6296, 11/9, 0048+ Heard for about 15 min. with a fair-good signal and many IDs. Played some polka, dance music, and even calypso. Hammered by a spur signing on at 0100 UTC. Does anyone have contact info for this station?

Liquid Radio: 6925.3, 11/9, 0120+ Fair signal with music that's more poppy than techno tonight so far. Clear ID by one of the DJs, announcing the 97.7 frequency. Heavy pescador QRM.

Edmund Fitzgerald Radio: 6925, 11/9, 2257+ Extremely strong here with old two-way communications from people involved in the rescue efforts, the song "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," and the names of those who died on the ship. E-mail address announced and tolling bells.

Channel Z: 6925.1, 11/10, 0010+ Excellent signal with 10th anniversary show. CZ talking about all of the help that he received from the transmitter-building group, Fearless Fred, Dave Martin, & Radio Anarchy. Said that he was playing the Sham 69 cover of "With a Little Help from My Friends" for these guys + a Sex Pistols tune for Radio Anarchy.

Germany Calling: 6940, 11/10, 0108+ Another really nice signal, with big band by Charlie and His Orchestra, original Germany Calling IDs by Lord Haw Haw, and at least one computer-voiced e-mail address announcement. BTW, this was originally aired on Halloween to show the horrors of WWII; it's not a tribute.