Some serious set ups!

https://piratenzenders.com/#/rek-fm-soap/

https://piratenzenders.com/#/brekdeer/

https://piratenzenders.com/#/pcg-96-7/

30 KW + and 100 meter towers are pretty much the norm over there.
The RDI mostly confiscate the entire set up these days. Before they would remove essential components from the transmitter & trash the rest of it. Cutting the Heliax feeder into short lengths was also a favourite.
The generators mostly had sand poured into the fuel tank & easy to break bit vandalised.

Now they turn up with low loaders & a vehicle capable of towing any trailers away. Sad times.

wondering was it mw or fm? you’d never see the dutch using a cze 5w, not theres anything wrong with it away for something to hear music afew 100 meters away, maybe further if they've got a proper aerial.

radionortheast wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 9:41 am wondering was it mw or fm? you’d never see the dutch using a cze 5w, not theres anything wrong with it away for something to hear music afew 100 meters away, maybe further if they've got a proper aerial.

These guys run commercial gear on FM, some even have +60kW tube final stages to an stacked dipoles at +80m mast.

It is incredibly impressive. Maybe they should have used 300W a twin dipole and 130-140m tower. Much more cost effective to be closed, what is in the way in Netherlands ? Nothing, it's mainly flat geographically speaking.

It is not as if going from 30KW to 300W would deter an enthusiastic listener. That should easily go 40miles in all directions.

It seems like overkill to me and it must be 30KW ERP looking at those mega stacks.

Anyone know what the coverage is ? Presumably to the horizon and a little beyond, which is about 35 miles each direction ?
I do not understand the extreme nature of that much power.

If I have time, I might test it on radiomobile software.

The authorities probably do not even fine them. When your confiscated mast cost €40,000. It is completely and totally nuts, but also amazing. I think thye need to scale back their operations somewhat. Coat hanger dipole on the top of a tree ?

This is totally unimaginable in the UK. First no landowner would allow it, ever. The lorry would never get down the winding roads, lorry !!!! Even that is mad... ha your antenna system for pirate is on a Jugernaut, an HGV, in the Uk it is like.... 2 geezers in a Vauxhal Corsa (Opel in Europe) 1.1 litre with a roll of rg-58 coax and a few coat hangers in the boot. You got the rig man ? Yes the 0.9W exciter we stick on the side of a hill.

Seriously it is a true cultural phenomena there.

They do get fines, but 7500€ was upper limit back in the day, dunno how nowdays.

Elektrodump seems to be out of FM gear, but they have nice small HF rig there.
https://elektrodump.nl/en/mw-hf-transmi ... a1504.html

Last time I saw a Dutch 1.75MHz set-up, they were using a weather baloon to lift their aerial! They had earthed their gear to the water mains, and were running 2kW carrier / 8kW peak. They had some serious audio processing hardware as well, and apparently had spend all week trying to get rid of the RF getting into their audio gear, in time for their Sunday broadcast!

A whole lot of ex-pirates now run their little (legal-ish) AM stations. These are meant to be low power, but some of them really push their luck!

Albert H wrote: ↑Fri Jul 04, 2025 3:44 am Last time I saw a Dutch 1.75MHz set-up, they were using a weather baloon to lift their aerial! They had earthed their gear to the water mains, and were running 2kW carrier / 8kW peak. They had some serious audio processing hardware as well, and apparently had spend all week trying to get rid of the RF getting into their audio gear, in time for their Sunday broadcast!

A whole lot of ex-pirates now run their little (legal-ish) AM stations. These are meant to be low power, but some of them really push their luck!

Friend of mine from Netherlands runs final with two GU43B tubes. 3.5kV on anode, 120W of carrier from driver/modulator, about 2kW carrier from 1.6Mhz to 30Mhz.

PSU is bigger than amplifier deck...


Under 500€ to build.

Used to get the stereo sign coming on this was just 4w loft antenna 20kms away, compleatly flat path with a ford car radio, not proper radio or anything load of songs in winamp, was a compleat suprize to see it. I suspect an aerial been put on top of a tall tower, power increased not much more, you’d likely beable to get a stereo signal, this would only be open countryside, in a built up area it would less likely. My guess their maybe trying to get to some far away built up area maybe a city, thats why the erp is so high.

FMEnjoyer wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 6:57 pm Anyone know what the coverage is ? Presumably to the horizon and a little beyond, which is about 35 miles each direction ?
I do not understand the extreme nature of that much power.

The only time I've ever run that much power on a pirate gave local coverage to around 65km in all directions, in solid stereo whereever you went. It also travelled much further in some favoured directions - in some instances they were getting regular listeners at 155km from the site (in mono)!

All that increasing power does is increase the field strength - the "range" is always the same. 1 Watt will go as far as 500 W into the same antenna - it's just that the signal to noise ratio of 1 Watt will be poor at distance, and the 500 W will be noise-quietening.

These days, the proliferation of radio stations, electrically noisy computers and battery chargers, and much more has conspired to raise the noise floor at all frequencies. Back in the late 70s, Thameside Radio achieved London-wide coverage (albeit in mono) with just 80 or 90 Watts. These days, even little local pirates run 300 W to make themselves heard!