I also found what was left of my very first homemade loop antenna. I remember it well - it went to all sort of places throughout the UK when I was younger. In particular I recall it going on holiday with us to Norfolk, where I was amazed to be able to hear Dutch pirates blasting over the airwaves at all times of the day and night. I remember hearing a station called Rooie Piraat. I heard him just the once and never again. I often think living in that part of Britain would be great for listening to the pirates from the Netherlands and that I would hear all sorts I am unable to hear otherwise, but maybe I would find myself listening to pirates all day long, every day!
As I update the blog I am listening to Radio Barcelona from the eastern part of the Netherlands playing some music on 1633. His signal, as usual, is huge. Last summer I sat drinking beer with the man behind the microphone and with Radio Barones. Two powerful pirates together - good times.
I've been listening for a couple of hours tonight and although there have been some strong signals, there is a lot of static on the band. This generally increases as we get into the summer months and tends to make life a little tricky for the international listeners. Anyway, this is what I've heard, together with some logs from Tuesday evening . . .
Thursday, April 04, 2013
1654 2135 Santana 45333 qsoing
1670 2140 Underground weak signal testing
1646 2142 Vrolijke Mijnwerker 554444-55555 qsoing
1638 2142 Calipso 54444 qsoing
1640 2142 Veronica 42343-44344 qsoing
1629 2142 Noordzee 55344 music programme
1619 2143 Ruisbreker 24222-35333 music programme
1655 2147 Vuurvogel 55444 qsoing
1658 2151 Amigo 34343 qsoing
1653 2154 Monte Carlo 34232 qsoing
1648 2154 Casablanca 45444-55544 qsoing
1670 2155 Underground 34333 testing with dipole
1656 2215 Bluebird 44344 qsoing and music programme later
1657 2226 Jeneverstoker 33222 qsoing
1647 2249 Noordzee 44333 qsoing
1659 2259 Studio 69 34232 qsoing
1633 2303 Barcelona 55444 qsoing
1625 2314 Marskramer (Friesland) 35343 qsoing
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
1645 2205 Noordzee 44544 music programme
1655 2205 Vrolijke Mijnwerker 55544 qsoing
1638 2211 Calipso 55544 qsoing
1661 2211 Jeneverstoker 34433-45444 qsoing
1654 2229 Vuurvogel 55544-55555 qsoing
1645 2231 Monte Carlo 42432 qsoing
1648 2232 Casablanca 55444 qsoing
1646 2236 Vrolijke Mijnwerker 55544 qsoing
Observations
- Conditions on Tuesday evening were very good and the Jeneverstoker was delivering his best ever signal into our location. From what I understand he runs around 100 watts and was doing very well. Have a listen to this. The beginning of the recording is particularly impressive
- There was a big qso on Thursday evening with station after station joining in, and very little doubling up, which made for pleasant listening. It would have been even better without the annoying static on the band. Vuurvogel particularly caught the ear, with his fine signal, audio and radio voice. Running considerably less power was Studio 69. He was operating with 25 watts and a vertical coil antenna at around 16 metres high and arriving into our radio room with a perfectly listenable signal
- Underground from right here in the UK was busy testing on his regular channel of 1670. He started with a T antenna and later switched to a dipole, which gave us much better reception, peaking with a SINPO of 34333 and a peak of 42% on our stand alone meter. This way of measuring signals is used greatly throughout the Netherlands, and our meter came from Radio Zeewolf. With a scale of 1 to 100, even slight deviations from day to day can be seen. When we heard Underground a few days earlier, for example, he was peaking at 38%, although the noise level was a little lower that day
Nice blog site, great that there is more than just the logs!
ReplyDeleteIf you can it would be nice to see a few scans of the stuff from the late 80's on the site to jog the memory. I lost all my old copies of 'Pirate Chat' etc in too many house moves over the years.
Paul