MW Dutch top end of band and SW pirate listening thread...

[EFR]

Radio Lowland on 6285kHz, S7 here.

[EFR]

Btw, if you have space for 20m long dipole, do you have space for fullwave loop for eg 48m band?

It isnt that big, and has much lower noiselevels on urban area.

[FMEnjoyer]

It might be just about possible but 48M band I listen to only occasionally the 20m dipole can do very well on 48M, I am a casual listener who does more than most mainly for MW pirates - outdoor antenna and a ham radio. MW has quite low noise here when horizontal and many nights I am hearing them up to S9, with the CME the band was knocked out and SW extremely noisy...for any but the best RX antennas.

I had that Scottish pirate that comes on 48M here 20dB over at times on SW. SW is hard work to listen to, the fast phasey sounding fading means it is really hard to listen to even with very strong signals, tiring on the ears most of the time. MW fading is more slow and gentle, more acceptable I find.

By 10PM I could hear the MW pirates on a portable with a ferrite in bed ! Just bad luck/timing, that is the nature of HF radio.

[LeeCavanagh]

Do you not mean ‘good luck/timing’ rather than bad? S urely, if you were able to listen in bed on ferrite that’s a good thing (or do you mean it stopped you listening to a local)

[EFR]

Yeah, I have quite big antenna farm at my backyard, mainly due i'm located here very north part of EU, not in UK.

I just like to hang around here on RN, seems to be most active pirate radio forum in whole internet.

Normally it is quite hard to listen Dutch MW pirates here, lots of strong russian ones drifting up and down on 1610-1800kHz.

150м Band (2000-2200kHz) seems to be nowdays quite empty, not much euro or russian stations.
2400-2600kHz is some pirates, mainly russians, but some stations with weaker signal and euro music.

2900-3300kHz (100m/Troyka) seems to be quite active nowdays, even some music pirates, I think they run old mil rigs, drifting up and down with very narrow audio.

I like to stay between 2-7Mhz...

[LeeCavanagh]

I get a lot of Chinese or Japanese stations strong. But yeah those Russians get everywhere too.

My Dave is 6-7 but I also like the 27mhz bands and usually get the d x users on usb or lsb , seems to pull them in whereby am fm are too noisy with cross channel interference , lsb seems to suffer less and help tune the others out

[FMEnjoyer]

Do you not mean ‘good luck/timing’ rather than bad? S urely, if you were able to listen in bed on ferrite that’s a good thing (or do you mean it stopped you listening to a local)

To listen to MW pirates on a ham radio I have to connect 20M of coax out of my house to the centre of the antenna so it is not permanently set up. It's a small job to do it and the radio is not permanently set up either. It only takes 15mins but a lot more work than switching a portable radio on. So it was bad luck I had prepared and let it be know I was going to listen on this forum in case pirates were interested for a report, given it has 100,000 + views some would appear to be checking.

Unfortunately the conditions were poor and that was the bad luck. But that is HF or approaching LF (MW) radio, completely unpredictably.

[FMEnjoyer]

1525 comes in very strong this evening, no interference only on Sony with ferrite rod. Just the usual fading.

[radionortheast]

shouldn’t it be 1521 fmenjoyer, i’m not sure 1525 is an official channel, I get some weird interference near 1566

[FMEnjoyer]

Sorry meant 1625 was a bit tired Dutch, very strong with the classic high pitched organ songs.

[radionortheast]

not hearing any of the dutch stations lately think the ligher evenings have done for them, the piped organ songs did make me think of that epsoide of wallice and gromit

[FMEnjoyer]

Yes they have gone a bit quiet had a check for them Sat night, also lots of CME and nasties from the sun lately. Peak sunspot time brings trouble for the D layer / geomagnetic storms as well as DX opportunities. I am sure some will be on come twilight through the summer, MW is usually quiet in the winter as well. Many thunderstorms crackling away in summer.

[Nige from Brum]

The Dutch MW pirates are on every evening, this weekend was no exception. This weekend I heard Blauwe Fazant, Turftrekker, Bluebird and a few others.

I'm a member of a few Dutch pirate groups, and I get notifications & reports 24/7/365. Literally there is activity all day everyday. If you are ever in The Netherlands, especially the north ie Groningen, Drente & Friesland, it is worth taking a radio & having a listen. I even heard Blue Bird whilst sat next to The Norderney, the former Radio Veronica ship in Amsterdam, and later on De Blauwe Koe on very low power.

Early mornings about 5 or 6 are another good time to listen. Zorro, Tolouse, Boren Zwallow & Rietfink are regulars at this time.

[radionortheast]

I did wonder about lightening, interesting on those recordings of mw stations from new york across Atlantic I couldn’t hear any crackles I found strange there would likely to be some storms happening between here and there which lead to crackling, unless they have some kind of anti lightening filter. anti deep fat fryer filter or maybe chip pan de-enabler , to me alot of the filters didn't seem to do anything altered the tone, only the makers probably know what they do it would be cheating to use actual noise reduction.

[FMEnjoyer]

BIG signals tonight 1655 massive on ferrite rod only. 1630 and 1612 also easily heard, all the Dutch oldie hits that you have never heard of in your life. They must have a big local audience cause otherwise, why ? 1655 playing English vocal soft rock to be fair.

[trancetechnic]

FM broadcasting is still rocking too!

Check this out! (Great alternative If you can't get your rig on a roof of a tower block these days!)
Probably why pirate radio stations in London are going legal?. We always transmitted direct but made sure we would change location after a few days!.

[radionortheast]

I do love these videos, its the music they put on too, I saw one looked like it was next to a tow path, this is all big bear when you've had/compared to 1w 4w transmitters.

[Nige from Brum]

BIG signals tonight 1655 massive on ferrite rod only. 1630 and 1612 also easily heard, all the Dutch oldie hits that you have never heard of in your life. They must have a big local audience cause otherwise, why ? 1655 playing English vocal soft rock to be fair.

1629 was Turftrekker
1655 was Yogi Bear

[FMEnjoyer]

Thanks Nige.



Well to us Brits it is all pretty weird to us. We love that they have the same pirate culture as we do but the music, well it's all double Dutch to us. It seems very "traditional" and there seem to be quite a few young people there, you would think they would be listening to other music than oldies style. I bet the beer is cheap and good and you can get totally hammered for €20 - like Oktober fest in Germany ? But with a risk of being raided ? Mainly a sausage fest.

It is a bit like your local deeply conservative farmer opening the barn gates for a pirate radio shindig ! I guess they are all probably stoned out of their minds as well as drunk out of their minds ?

[Nige from Brum]

I've been demystifying the Dutch Pirate scene for a few years and the more I find out, the more wormholes it sends me down!

There is a pirate culture over there, very different to ours. In fact the pirate music & parties are on the cultural asset list of things totally & 100% dutch. There is a lot more to the music than accordion & "Barrel Organ" music. Most of the music you hear played is from artists from that region. A lot of it has a more traditional sound, but there are some great examples of Rock, Country & many other styles we would recognize. Some of it even in English!

The reason for the first pirates starting in the 20's was because traditional dutch music didn't get played on the radio by the government station. It is still the case that legal stations completely ignore traditional music.

I was over there last July for the Short Wave Combination Holland summer BBQ. Not a party as such, but beer was 1 Euro a bottle, and there was a 500 watt Shortwave transmitter on for the whole weekend from the site. I shall be over there for this years one too.
I'm also going to visit the Pirate Culture exhibition at Assen Museum.

Contrary to what you may think, Weed smoking is actually frowned upon by most Dutch people. Ive actually seen flyers for Pirate Parties asking you not to smoke weed there!