Friday night (late) I caught Renegade Radio on 6.93 MHz in the upper side band.
Renegade’s signal was consistently clear for unusually noisy conditions, though the station was occasionally plagued with transmitter problems. I did not edit these out in the recording because dead air never exceeded a few minutes. So, if you hear dead air, simply fast-foward a minute or two. Total broadcast exceeds one hour and, near the end, Renegade informs us that his transmitter was getting hot. I’ll bet: I don’t know Renegade’s set-up, but many pirates use modified ham radio transceivers that were never intended for those 100% duty cycles, often at full power. Keeps a pirate warm on a winter night, though!
Feel free to listen to the recording of Renegade Radio in the embedded player below, or right click and save this link to download the MP3 directly:
Cool I need to check that out. I usually spend more time on the 7200 looking to chat with someone. But the AM filter options are continuously variable up to 8 kHz, so it sounds really good. The Noise Blnker and IF DSP Noise Reduction are great for blocking out static and interference.
I also have a Tecsun PL-600 for portable use, but it just doesn’t compare.
Hi, Ross,
For pirates, 8 kHz will be more than enough! Quite often, pirates will broadcast in USB as well (more punch per watt, y’know).
And yes, it’s very hard–nearly impossible–for even the best portables to compete with ham transceivers hooked to external antennas. Though the ‘660 is a great portable!
That ‘7200 will be a great pirate hunter. Try tonight! Check out this site for live pirate loggings:
http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/board,3.0.html
Great post! I like your blog, and really like this station. I might try to pull this up on my IC-7200, but how often does this guy broadcast? And is it always the same frequency?
Thanks and 73!
Thanks, Ross! This was the first I had heard Renegade in some time. I think the last time I caught them it was on 6,930 kHz as well. In general, you can hear pirates between 9,625-9,659 kHz most weekend evenings. If you like Renegade Radio, you’ll also like Radio Ronin Shortwave.
Your IC-7200 will be more than adequate for the job! How do you like the ‘7200, by the way? Never have operated one.
Cheers,
Thomas