Hobart Radio International Shortwave: news

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February 28, 2015

DX Extra Shortwave News Show No.22 Released!

Hello fellow DXers, it is with great excitement to release the latest shortwave news programme DX Extra number 22 to the world wide web! It's also the last day of February!
In this fortnight's podcast:

AWR special QSL Kigali
RCI "Celebrating" 70 years
New station; Radio Risala International
Radio 292; where are they now
Pirate Radio News, logs and recordings
Audio Archive: Behaviour Night WBCQ

LISTEN via embedded player:

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To DOWNLOAD in 320kbps format or lower formats head to: https://archive.org/details/DxExtraNo.22
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TRANSCRIPT:

“At the beginning of this current Transmission Period B14 October 6, 2014, Adventist World Radio began a relay service from the Deutsche Welle shortwave relay station near Kigali in Rwanda Africa. The AWR relay via DW Kigali is on the air for a total of 2½ transmitter hours daily in three languages, French, Amharic & Fulfulde. In one particular time block, two transmitters carry the programming in parallel. However, Deutsche Welle has subsequently announced that they plan to close their African relay station at the end of this current Transmission Period B14 March 28, 2015 and then dismantle the station. The last AWR broadcasts from DW Kigali will therefor also end at the same time.

For those who would like to receive a QSL card for these now short term broadcasts, AWR would welcome all reception reports from listeners in any part of the world. Each reception report will be verified with a QSL card (not an Email QSL), and the envelope will be affixed with genuine postage stamps, not postal labels. In addition, while supplies last, a special QSL stamp showing Kigali will be attached to the QSL card. It is not necessary to send an off-air recording of your reception. We just need your honest reception report on paper. Where possible, please enclose return postage in the form of currency notes in any international currency, or mint postage stamps. Please note that IRC coupons are too expensive for you to buy, and they are no longer valid in the United States. Also please enclose your address label.

The only address for the special Kigali QSL stamp is the Indianapolis address at:-

Adventist World Radio, Box 29235, Indianapolis, Indiana 46229, USA. All reception reports, including all that have already been received, will be QSLed in due course. However, please be patient with us as we already hold uncounted hundreds of reception reports still pending, and it may take us many months to process them all.

The current AWR website shows the following scheduling for the daily Kigali transmissions:-

0600 - 0630 UTC 15700 kHz French

0600 - 0630 17800 French

1700 - 1730 9490 Amharic

1930 - 2000 17800 Fulfulde

2000 - 2030 17800 French”

Via the shortwave central blog http://mt-shortwave.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/awr-offers-special-qsl-stamp-for-kigali.html

“The flood of wonderful memories, fueled by the old and not so old photos of Radio Canada International’s 70 years, is now, as I write this, suddenly mixed with regret, lost opportunities, and missing colleagues. In a way I dreaded this anniversary, not knowing how to deal with this important milestone. RCI has survived all these years since its first broadcast on February 25, 1945, as Canada’s Voice to the World. But now, almost three years after an 80% budget cut that took us off shortwave radio, cutting us off from our listeners, how do you celebrate? How do you not look with some exasperation, regretfully, wistfully, at how little people, even colleagues, know about RCI’s proud achievements, and its path-breaking innovations? The contradictions of how some viewed us and the reality is almost too much to bear. People say we used outdated technology, weren’t moving with the times, and no longer needed to explain Canada to the world. Yet none of this is true. Using shortwave radio we reached every corner of the globe. Using satellite, LPs, tape cassettes, CDs, Facebook, Twitter, partnerships with local stations in other countries, we reached the world’s citizens. People who, surprising as some might find, were very curious about this huge democracy called Canada, that tried to carve out its place in the world, beside the huge super-power to the south. The other day a colleague asked me about a service referred to in French as “Transcriptions” and had no idea what it was about. As I talked about RCI’s record label that recorded Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, and a host of other classical, jazz and pop musicians, I saw my colleague’s eyes widen in surprise.

“We had a record label?” Yes, a respected catalogue of records which won Juno music awards, and was part of RCI’s mandate of telling the world about Canada, along with so many other services. Imagine, we broadcast live election night coverage of federal elections around the world, created an election website with instantaneous results in seven languages, sent out radio lessons to teach English and French, and produced area specific programming for Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, in English and French, in addition to all the other languages we broadcast in.

I shake my head as I hear people saying we need to change with the times, really get on board with the Internet. I shake my head because some of us were putting RCI on the web before there was a web. The list of RCI’s achievements and all the talented people who worked for it could be the stuff of a television documentary series. But sadly, no one seems interested now. A death by a thousand cuts, such an apt description, such a horrible process. You’d think we would appreciate the experience of 70 years, the achievements of generations of journalists, producers, and technicians. And this week we trot out the old photos, say how great it is that RCI has been around for 70 years. Then we’ll roll up the posters, the displays, and put the awards we’ve won back in the cupboard. We should have been allowed to think and work for the future. Because, our mandate to tell the world about Canada in a contextualized way, understandable to anyone, even someone who’s never been here, hasn’t gone away. Nor has the need for the honest journalism that many of us believe in, a journalism so necessary for those listening to what a country like us had to deal with and has to offer. Wouldn’t it be incredible, if after the celebrations, we could concretely renew Radio Canada International? Build on our strengths and our experience, and not be limited by false constraints? Lovely dream.
Via the RCI Action Comitte Blog http://rciaction.org/blog/2015/02/25/celebrating-70-years-of-radio-canada-international/

“15165 kHz, Radio Risala International - site unknown (perhaps Issoudun??).

This new SW station started on Feb 20 at 1830 UTC, with numerous IDs as "Radio Risala". I can't confirm this, but the language used sounded like Oromo (a.k.a. Afaan Oromo) which is spoken largely in Ethiopia. The programming featured mainly talk with occasional excerpts of instrumental music. This appears to be a religious group, Muslim-based faith. From 1853, there was a long chant in call and response style. Suddenly off at 1857 in the middle of the chant, so we didn't hear a proper sign off announcement. The signal strength was poor here at Mount Evelyn. The band was not in very good shape this morning. I tried recording it but the quality just wasn't good enough to include here.

However.....

The station has a Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/RaadiyooRisaalaa

There is also a website but it has virtually no useful information for English speakers!

http://www.risalainternational.org/

Hopefully, further information will shed more light on this broadcaster.”

Via the Mount Everlyn DX Report blog: http://medxr.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/new-station-radio-risala-international.html

"Amateur radio based group rescues released broadcast frequency

When the 'Deutsche Welle' decided to close down one of their 500 KW short wave broadcast transmitters near Munich at the end of 2012, a group containing some German radio amateurs applied for and were allocated the then available short wave frequency of 6070 KHz in 2013. This group now have an operational 10KW station on the frequency, using the driver stages from the old Deutsche Welle transmitter. The rest of the transmitter was built by and is run by Rainer DB8QC . The licence allow transmission 24/7 but at present most transmissions are on a weekend during daylight hours.

Content is mainly provided by existing Internet Radio stations wanting to get their material "on-the-air" this includes several soceities that remember the days of the Pirate Radio pop music stations in the North sea between England and Holland and a lot of their music content is from the 60's and 70's. Additional content is being sought and at only 15 Euros an hour, this is not a corporate big business rather a facility where smaller groups can afford to buy time to transmit their content. One such group is the Deutsche Amateur Radio Club, the National Amateur Radio Soceity in Germany, who hope to have a weekly 2 hour slot on the station from mid-March to send a DX orientated program, probably from 6pm local time on Sundays.

The DARC DX magazine will be in the German language and targeted towards German speaking listeners. Amateur radio is an international medium however so there are thoughts of also producing an international / English hour in addition, to reach out across Europe not only to radio amateurs but also to short wave listeners and the general public.

When I talked with another Rainer DF2NU who is one of the group running the station and the president of the Munich South section of the DARC, he told me that they hope to be able to broadcast more often once sufficient content is available however they are already seeing other broadcasters such as Radio China moving onto the frequency in the evenings as those stations percieve 6070 KHz as a free frequency. Rainer told me that currently "Channel 292" has airtime bookings for 20-25 hrs a week, mostly on weekends at which times it runs at 10 kW output. When the station is idle (as there is no booking), the transmitter power is reduced to 1kW and transmits an infinite music-loop with no actual program. Late evenings, after 8pm local, the transmitter is switched off completely in order to save energy costs. Rainer stressed that the license is for 24/7 so they can use the frequency at any time when they have content. With a current rate of EUR 15,-- per hour airtime you cannot earn any money. This broadcast station is an extenion of the amateur radio hobby and the group seek to simply cover their costs.

Thinking back to the very start of amateur radio, Hams were allowed to transmit music, news and entertainment programs, so it's nice to see some of this coming back onto the short wave bands thanks to the efforts of groups like this one.

I wonder as we see more and more broadcasters leaving the short wave bands in favour of Internet broadcasting, whether we'll see more licences and surplus transmitters being picked up by amateur radio groups? This seems to be somewhat of a repeat of the situation when it was said 200 metres and up is useless for broadcasting - give it to the amateurs. We all know what then followed. Perhaps amateur Radio groups around the world can put new life into released shortware broadcast frequencies?

Via the Southgate Amateur Radio News website. http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2015/february/amateur_radio_based_group_rescues_released_broadcast_frequency.htm#.VPEA5HWUfCJ

[Pirate Theme]

First up we have broadcast annoucements news:

“Dear listeners,

We have plan try to reach more listeners with special quite high powered and directed transmission on 9600 kHz, 31mb next sunday 1st of March 2015 18:00-19:00 UTC. …

Our target is to reach areas of entire Europe, Mediterranean Sea area, Near-East, (Asia) and North-Africa. In any case it will be needed very good receivers and proper antennas for our listeners to get our signal. I wish everyhing will go right with these plans and our strange music will reach bigger areas and much bigger audience?? Let's see what's happens...

Please send ideas of programs and music you like to hear from Spaceshuttle. We would like to fullfill your requests in special musical shows in future. I wish you will have fun with our programes also in future! Please tell you thoughts to us by e-mail: .

Your letters/reception reports are very welcome to our address in Herten:

Radio Spaceshuttle International

P.O.Box 2702

NL: 6049 ZG Herten

The Netherlands

A little fee (2 euros) for return postage (for full info printed QSLs) is needed!

Via swpirates digest

It's time to have a look at the latest pirates logs:

Here are the Europirate logs for the middle of January

Fri Feb 27

4026 1818 Laser Hot Hits. Oldies. SINPO 54444.

6240 1749U Radio Barracuda. Earth Wind & Fire "September." SINPO 44433.

6290 1744 Radio Hitmix. German pop. SINPO 54444.

6300 1738 Radio Mirabelle. Soft rock. SINPO 34333.

6325 2002 Premier Radio. "Hippy Hippy Shake," ID, "Some Girls Do," utility splash. SINPO 33333.

6380 1815 Misti Radio. Oldies, sign off. SINPO 34333.

Thurs Feb 26

4026 1805 Laser Hot Hits. Caroline 558 recording. SINPO 54444.

6290 1726 Radio Mirabelle. Belgian pop. SINPO 44433.

6930 1650 Radio Blackbeard. Dance music, strong peaks. SINPO 44433.

Wed Feb 25

6205 1657 Radio Barracuda. Stevie Wonder. SINPO 34333.

6239 1649 Misti Radio. Polka and Dutch songs. SINPO 34333.

6291 1639 Radio Caroline Int. Move from 6319. Jingles, oldies. SINPO 44433.

6304 1749 Radio Vendor. Dutch songs. SINPO 54444.

6319 1620 Radio Caroline Int. SSTV, jingles, pop. SINPO 44433.

6390 1722 Radio Mirabelle. ID, French pop music, CW QRM. SINPO 43333.

6747 1630 Radio Pioneer. Polka, Hollies "I Love Jennifer Eccles." SINPO 54444.

European logs via shortwave DX blog.

Heading over to North America:

6940 01h29UTC Insane Radio 28th Feb 2015

0130z poss ID

0136z ID "Insane Radio" x3

0140z "American Dream Plan B" Tom Petty

0200z fade out, only see carrier, very slight audio By member Rafman

6950USB 02h19 Radio True North 28th Feb 2015
“Have been noting an S8 carrier w/out audio here for a while. Very quick periodic fades.

0220 Possibly hearing mx with a thump

0224 OM talk, but can't get any detail

0253 hearing what sounded like RTN's voice until a pesc came up in the LSB

0256 pretty sure I heard the ID, then back to the mx

0302 Sounds like "Black Betty"” By member jFarley

6850 23h54UTC 26th Feb 2015 The Crystal Ship “Trying to sign on, but having some troubles.” By member Chris Smilonski

North American Logs via the HF underground forum. (We also thank other members contributions to the pirate logs that may have not got a mention.)

DX Extra is being relayed via World FM 88.2FM in Tawa, near Wellington in New Zealand, Worldfm dot co dot nz and on shortwave via relay partners on Focus International, Magic 6205 Europe, Pandora Radio, Premier Radio, Cupid Radio and Global 24 9395.

Before we go it's time to get an audio clip out of the archives. This is a shortwave recording of WBCQ 7490 13th February 2015 of Behaviour Night showcasing music from the 20th century.

Until next time remember shortwave radio is still full of mysteries – keep tuning and keep reporting. Take care and stay safe

Image: Ivy up brickwall at Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

January 3, 2015

DX Extra Shortwave show No. 18 Released!

Hello fellow DXers, it is with great excitement to release the latest shortwave news programme DX Extra number 18 to the world wide web! Happy New Year!
In this fortnight's podcast:

Radio Australia cutbacks update
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty raided
International broadcasters shortwave demise
Pirate Radio Logs and recordings (Radio Cochiguaz)
Audio Archive: Radio France International

LISTEN via embedded player:

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To DOWNLOAD in 320kbps format or lower formats head to: https://archive.org/details/DxExtraNo.18
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We had great reception into Europe on Saturday the 3rd January 2015 and are still getting reports, below is a recording of 20 minutes of the shortwave broadcast:
LISTEN via Shortwave Radio:

DX Extra No.18 via Premier Radio 6910kHz 03/01/15 20h48-21h08 heard & recorded by Gino Italy. SINPO 54444

TRANSCRIPT:

“The ABC could soon abandon international shortwave radio broadcasts to China and Indonesia, ending more than 70 years of beaming news and current affairs on high frequency into Asia.

But the public broadcaster's management insist it will not flick the switch on shortwave services of Radio Australia to Papua New Guinea and tiny Pacific nations for now.

ABC international chief Lynley Marshall said the older shortwave technology was still relevant in the Pacific, despite a drive to make mobile and internet devices the ''primary'' way of delivering news.

Staff had grown increasingly alarmed in recent months that the shortwave service to the Pacific would be canned - including a popular Tok Pisin service to PNG - raising fears expats and locals would be vulnerable to dangerous news blackouts during natural disasters or regional strife.

Radio is the cheapest and most widespread source of news in poorer Pacific provinces. Most nations run only a 2G mobile network with little coverage outside capitals. When Prime Minister Julia Gillard visits Port Moresby on Thursday almost twice as many locals will hear news of the trip on radio than see it on television or read it in newspapers.

But with a contract to broadcast shortwave from a 240-hectare site near Shepparton - costing the ABC about $4.1 million this financial year - set to expire some time after 2014, fears had grown shortwave would cease in favour of streaming audio online and deals to broadcast on local stations.

The ABC has been wrangling internally for months on how to best deliver international services, as mandated under its charter to provide an Australian voice on world affairs

High-frequency services had not rated a mention in an internal ABC memo in February flagging an ''online and mobile strategy as the primary focus'' for international broadcasting.

But Ms Marshall said there was no end in sight to shortwave broadcasts in the Pacific, and the Shepparton array was part of this strategy. ''One of the things we have to look at is what is the most effective way of reaching audiences?'' she said. ''You'd have to see a significant take-up in other devices to warrant moving away from shortwave.''

But the digital revolution accompanying the economic boom in Asia has led to a dwindling audience for shortwave. China also began jamming the Radio Australia signal in January, although that interference has since stopped.

Ms Marshall confirmed the continued targeting of China and Indonesia with shortwave was up for debate. ''We haven't made any final decisions on that but a number of the staff here have questioned the relevance of shortwave into markets like Indonesia and China,'' she said.

''I think there is justification for re-evaluating what we are doing there based on the way in which audiences are consuming media.''

Social media is highly popular in Indonesia, while the Radio Australia audience in the mostly closed China market is difficult to gauge.

Radio Australia was launched in 1939 on the eve of World War II, with prime minister Robert Menzies declaring in the first broadcast: ''The time has come to speak for ourselves.''

The service is intended to provide reliable, independent news and English-language training and also win goodwill for Australia.

Ms Marshall said Radio Australia had great ''heritage'' value in the Pacific and would not be lost under plans to bring the ABC's international radio, television and online services under one brand.

A confidential ABC research report for the Radio Australia audience in rural PNG shows at least 30 per cent of people rely exclusively on shortwave transmissions to listen to the station.

A megabyte of data in Fiji costs about $3. An hour of audio streaming used about 30 megabytes.” Via The Age Newspaper Online

WASHINGTON - The Broadcasting Board of Governors today condemned the raid and closure of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Baku office by Azerbaijani authorities.

Investigators from Azerbaijan's state prosecutor's office entered the RFE/RL bureau on the morning of December 26 accompanied by armed police officers. They searched the company safe, ransacked files and equipment, and ordered staff members to leave the building after holding them in a room for several hours without telephone or computer access. Several staff members later were summoned for questioning.

"This unwarranted action is an escalation of the Azeri government's abusive attempt to intimidate independent journalists and repress free media," said BBG Chairman Jeff Shell. "We call on the authorities to immediately allow RFE/RL to resume its important journalistic work from Baku, and to release investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova." The government raid comes three weeks after the arrest and detention in Baku of prominent Azerbaijani investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova, a contributor to RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service programming. Ismayilova was sentenced to two months of pre-trial detention, and if convicted could serve three to seven years in prison. Khadija's arrest has been widely condemned, including by the BBG. Amnesty International has declared Ismayilova a prisoner of conscience, "detained solely for exercising her right to freedom of expression."

"The raiding of our Baku bureau is a flagrant violation of every international commitment and standard Azerbaijan has pledged to uphold" said Nenad Pejic, RFE/RL's editor in chief and co-CEO. "The order comes from the top as retaliation for our reporting, and as a thuggish effort to silence RFE/RL. This is not the first time that a regime has sought to silence us, and we will continue our work to support Azeris' basic right of free access to information and to report the news to audiences that need it."

"The operation of our bureau is incapacitated in Baku," said Kenan Aliyev, director of RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service. "There has been a long ongoing crackdown on the media and NGOs in Azerbaijan, including the arrest of Khadija Ismayilova, the host of our show and our contributor. We view this as part of this ongoing campaign against independent media."

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is an independent federal agency, supervising all U.S. government-supported, civilian international media, whose mission is to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. BBG networks include the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Marti). Via Shortwave Central Blog.

“OTTAWA, Ontario — At the height of the Cold War, the BBC World Service, Radio Canada International and the Voice of America used high-power, multilingual broadcasts on the shortwave radio bands (1710 kHz–30 MHz) to blast news and information behind the Soviet Union’s “Iron Curtain.”

In turn, Radio Moscow, Radio Havana Cuba and East Germany’s Radio Berlin International pumped their own versions of reality to the world via shortwave.

REDUCED BROADCASTS

Thanks to the nature of shortwave propagation, in which radio waves can bounce around the world by reflecting off the ionosphere, then off the ground and then the ionosphere again, these broadcasts got through.

Granted, because they were AM signals, their audio was scratchy and often interference-ridden; and even sometimes blocked by government “jammer” stations operating on the same frequencies. But nevertheless, eastern Europeans heard at least some of these international broadcasts.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, followed two years later by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soon after, the Internet caught on. Collectively, these forces demotivated governments from maintaining multi-antenna/multitransmitter shortwave transmitter farms, where power-hungry 50 and 100 kW AM transmitters guzzled electricity like frat boys downing kegs of beer.

The result is that international broadcasters have reduced their shortwave broadcasts in favor of the Web, or — in the case of RCI — abandoned shortwave entirely for the Web. RCI’s massive shortwave antenna and transmitter farm in Sackville, New Brunswick, which provided stellar coverage of Europe during the Cold War, has since been torn down. “It’s amazing how many of the major shortwave broadcasters have abandoned shortwave — completely or mostly — since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” said Jeff White, founder and general manager of Radio Miami International. WRMI is a United States-based commercial shortwave broadcaster, which covers the Americas, Europe and Africa via its 13-transmitter, 23-antenna facility located in Florida.

Mindful of radio’s continuing Third World popularity, the BBC and VOA have at least “maintained shortwave transmissions to places like Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia and Latin America,” White said. “But some of them, including the Voice of Russia, have ended all shortwave transmissions. The large religious shortwave broadcasters have more-or-less followed suit.”

SEVERAL ISSUES

There’s no doubt that money played a big role in the demise of international shortwave broadcasting, especially for cash-strapped governments.

“Shortwave transmitters are expensive to operate because of the electrical costs, and expensive to replace,” said Kim Andrew Elliott, an audience research analyst for the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (which runs the VOA), expressing his own views. In contrast, “The Internet is a cheaper way to transmit globally — unless the audience gets really big — the signal is more reliable, and stations don’t interfere with one another,” he said.

The Web has also caught on with government broadcasters because it’s considered cool. “The World Wide Web is sexy new technology,” said White. “So the station managers have been able to say to their bosses and governments that they have saved a lot of money by eliminating the ‘old technology’ of shortwave and replacing it with the new technology of the Internet.”

As well, broadcasters like the BBC World Service have moved to FM where it is possible to deliver better audio quality and signal reliability. “For many years, the BBC World Service has been broadcasting its services through its own FM relay transmitters and by providing programs to affiliates,” said Nigel Fry, head of distribution for the BBC World Service Group.

“The oldest FMs have been in service for over 40 years, with many more coming into service from 20 years ago to the present day as markets liberalize and licenses are secured.”

In swapping shortwave for the Web, these broadcasters have put their program delivery at the mercy of hostile governments who can block their Web-based content, just by disrupting their country’s Internet traffic.

That’s what recently happened in China, as the authorities tried to prevent their people from learning what actually happened 25 years ago in Tiananmen Square.

EASY TO BLOCK

“In an effort to prevent the dissemination of information related to this event, the Chinese censorship authorities have severely blocked most Google services in China, including search and Gmail,” said the China Web traffic watchdog Greatfire.org in a June 2 email to Bloomberg News. “Our gut feeling is this disruption may be permanent.”

It is relatively simple for authoritarian regimes to block websites they don’t like. But in fairness, shortwave radio broadcasts can also be blocked by “jamming” stations. “Some BBC World Service Internet services are blocked in specific countries — most notably in China,” said Fry. “The English shortwave broadcasts to China and the surrounding countries are also being jammed by the Chinese and have been for some time. Our Uzbek broadcasts are also jammed.”

There are ways that Web-based services can get past government blocking through software programs, at least as long as some Internet traffic is getting through.

For instance, “some international broadcasters are employing technologies such as Psiphon that circumvent the blocking of Internet content,” said Elliott.“The circumvention technologies are not infallible, however, and they may fail in the face of more vigorous interdiction. They certainly will not work if a country physically cuts off Internet lines bringing in foreign traffic, or slows them down to debilitating speeds.”

To meet this challenge, VOA has an experimental program underway called “VOA Radiogram.” In this program, the station broadcasts both text and photographic information via shortwave to listeners equipped with radio-connected computers.

“VOA Radiogram is an experiment to provide information to any place where the Internet, or at least content from abroad, is unavailable due to dictators, disasters, conflict, or remote location,” said Elliott, who is leading the effort. He said that the experiment has been very successful. “We tried various modes, including PSK, MT63 and Olivia, but MFSK (multiple frequency shift keying) has been the best performer. MFSK32, at 120 words per minute, provides a good compromise between speed and accurate copy under challenging shortwave reception conditions.”

Via radioworld dot com http://www.radioworld.com/article/international-broadcasters-reconsider-shortwave/271847

The pirate world has had the busiest time of the year, Christmas and New Year provide many pirates on the air.

We’re going to have a look at “Shortwave Pirate Radio 2014 - A year in review” written by Chris Smilonski

Here are the most common modes used in 2014:

“AM 944

USB 776

LSB 49

CW 32

FM 16

SSTV 46

AM beat out USB this year, last year they were virtually tied”

We all assume pirates are on air most on weekends and while that is true there’s definately ones during the week, here Chris gives statistics of logs over the year;

“Sunday 387 (20%)

Monday 155 (8%)

Tuesday 189 (10%)

Wednesday 223 (11%)

Thursday 230 (12%)

Friday 331 (17%)

Saturday 460 (23%)”

We can see that 57% of transmissions are over Friday and the weekend. “But don’t give up on weekday listening! 40% of transmissions are on a Monday through Thursday”

The top 5 frequencies in use for 2014 are: 6925, 6930, 6950, 6940, 6770 with 6925 on 50% of all logs.

That was via the HF Underground blog.

Let’s have a look at some logs for Europirates and Ameerican Pirates:

Euro:

Jan 1st

6940 1655 Enterprise Radio. "What A Feeling," then Madonna. SINPO 34333.

6990L 1702 Baltic Sea Radio. Michael Jackson "Bad." SINPO 344433.

Dec 31st

3325 1547 Misti Radio. Testing on usual freq. Rock. SINPO 24332.

6207 1603 Radio Caroline-Rainbow. Many IDs, dance mx. SINPO 34333.

6238 1710 Radio Pirana. Non-stop Latin American music, via European relay, good peaks. SINPO 34333.

6267 1554 Skyline Radio Germany. Rock. SINPO 34333.

6284 1559 Radio Black Arrow. Inst mx, signing off. SINPO 54444.

6284 1652 Radio Underground. DT song, ID, greetings, strong peaks. SINPO 44433.

6295 1611 Radio Babysitter (Black Bandit). Country and DT mx. SINPO 54444.

6305 1658 Radio Merlin Int. Supergrass, talk about NY Eve. SINPO 34333.

6803 1608 Radio Pink Panther. Country mx. SINPO 54444.

Via the Shortwave DX Blog

Radio Cochiguaz a pirate that has been off the air for some time is came back with test a test transmission on December 31st 2014 on 6238. They have also done test transmissions in October 18th and 19th 2014 but no one seemed to log them. It says on their website that “Many of you may not know that our Director and the operator of our station passed away some years back. Some of us innvolved with this grate station has decided to keep the station going on in the memory of our great friend and pioneer Cachito Mamani.” http://www.radio-cochiguaz.com/

I do not know who is relaying them in Europe them but it will be great to hear South American voices and pan pipe music.

Let’s have a listen to them via Gino Italy who heard them on New Years Eve:

American:
3440 23h35UTC Jan 2nd WHYP playing old time tunes. S9+15 into New Hampshire by DimBulb

6850.5 23h45UTC Jan 1st The Crystal Ship Sign on with the doors, ID and intro talk by John Poet and A Trip to Pirates Cove by Tom Petty SINPO 43333 by ByteBorg

6920 USB 2h30UTC 1st Jan Radio Doctor Tim music by female artist, non-English show with Happy new year chorus S7 into Chicago by RCCI

American logs via HF undergriund forum. (We also thank other members contributions to the pirate logs that may have not got a mention.)

DX Extra is being relayed on FM via World FM 88.2FM in Tawa, near Wellington in New Zealand, Worldfm dot co dot nz and on shortwave via Focus International, Magic 6205, Cupid Radio and we welcome a new relay - Premier Radio. A big thank you to all our relay partners. Your generosity means a lot!

Before we go it was great to see so many reception reports from Europe hearing the 2014 Christmas special. We always love to hear from you and would love to give you an eQSL for hearing us on the DX Extra - send your report to hriradio at gmail dot com and join us on facebook at facebook dot com forwardslash dxextra

It's time to get an audio clip out of the archives. This is a bit of festive music for New Years heard on Radio France International’s transmission on 9665 on the 1st of January.

Until next time remember shortwave radio is still full of mysteries – keep tuning and keep reporting.

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Interval Signal Special Part 1 & 2

Over 1,000 enjoyed going back in time hearing interval signals of past and present shortwave stations.

Number Stations Over 579 people enjoyed this special show.

UFO & Alien Special Over 1,772 listeners now know the truth is out there, and a bit more.

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