Category Archives: Recordings

Pirate Radio Recordings: Bust A Nut Radio

You know the proceedure

Bust A Nut Radio‘s AM signal came in fairly strong last night sometime around 5:45 UTC (February 2nd) on 6,940 kHz.

You’ll hear a great variety of music–from classic rock to electronica–complete with originally produced ID’s and bumpers in this pirate radio recording.

Click here to download an MP3 of the entire show, or simply listen in the embedded Archive.org player below:

Note: This is a recording of a real pirate radio broadcast. If you are easily offended by strong lyrics and offensive music, you should slowly back away.

Pirate Radio Recordings: Red Mercury Labs

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electromagneticradiowaves Last Saturday night, I caught the shortwave radio pirate, Red Mercury Labs, on 6.9251 MHz in the upper side band.

This broadcast, which started around 1:57 UTC, contains a great mix of rock music with some commentary throughout.

You can download the full recording as an MP3 file by clicking here, or listen via the embedded player below. Enjoy:

Shortwave Radio Recordings: All India Radio – Ravi Shankar

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Ravi Shankar passed away December 11, 2012. Like many people, Shankar was a complicated fellow, but no one can deny his talent on the Sitar. His music will live with us forever, not to mention through the musical talents of his children, Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones.

I recorded this clip of him on All India Radio some weeks ago. Click here to download or enjoy below:

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Firedrake?

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“Mum, this sounds like Firedrake. Quick, make a note of it in the logs!”

I’ve noticed a broadcaster that routinely transmits weekends at 11:00 UTC on 6,970 kHz. Some mornings, it’s much stronger than others. Saturday morning, my time, I managed to record it in its typical format: music. Specifically, Chinese folk music, at least so it sounds to my untrained ear.

I searched through logs and in the WRTH, and I could find no mention of a broadcaster on 6970 kHz. It doesn’t help that the 27 minute broadcast contained no audible IDs.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion that my initial hunch is correct–that this is the Chinese jamming service, Firedrake. Using Firedrake, the Chinese government transmits music on top of broadcasts they wish to block. It’s fairly effective (and annoying). While I’ve heard Firedrake a number of times over the bands, I can’t say I’ve ever tried to listen to the one-hour production.

The following recording contains a 27 minute broadcast of what I believe may be Firedrake on 6,970 kHz, starting around 11:00 UTC, Saturday January 26, 2013. Click here to download the MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Note that the first two minutes have some digital noises (in the lower side band) that affected my receiver’s AGC.

If you can confirm or correct my supposition, please comment!

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Radio Havana Cuba’s DXers Unlimited

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ArnieCoroDXersUnlimited If you live in the Americas and you regularly listen to a shortwave radio, you have no doubt heard Radio Havana Cuba across the shortwave spectrum. When I travel in North or Central America, I can easily hear RHC, often without even extending the telescopic antenna on my portable.

A long-running program on RHC’s English hour is Arnie Coro’s DXers Unlimited.

Tuesday night, I recorded the DXers Unlimited segment from RHC’s The English Hour on 6 MHz, and offer it here for your listening pleasure. If the recording doesn’t sound typical of shortwave radio, it’s because: a) RHC’s signal is exceptionally strong into North America, and b) I recorded this with an AM filter 24 kHz wide. In other words, I widened my DSP filter to match RHC’s bandwidth on my spectrum display–and to put this in perspective, I regularly record between 7-9 kHz wide. (This results in the crisp, high-fidelity audio you hear in this recording, though unfortunately at the compromise of any adjacent stations abiding by HF broadcasting etiquette.)

You can download the MP3 directly by clicking here, or simply listen in the embedded player below:

Pirate Radio Recordings: Two short UNID broadcasts

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“Wow–those were short!”

I was travelling Saturday night, but had the foresight to set my WinRadio Excalibur to record the pirate spectrum. There were few pirates on the band–less than I would have expected to hear on a holiday weekend in the US–and some of them were plagued by a local broadcaster whose spurious emissions wiped out the whole band at times.

I did catch a couple of interesting unidentified broadcasts, most likely transmitter tests as both were very short. The first broadcast came on around 3:10 UTC (Jan 20) and consisted of two songs, ending with the Tardis sound effect from Dr. Who. Click here to download the MP3 file, or listen in the player below:

The second broadcast came on just after 7:00 UTC and consisted of only one song–no IDs at all. I would suspect this was the same pirate; however, the first broadcast had a tinny sound that this broadcast lacked. Indeed, their USB signal was quite amazing (wish s/he would have broadcast a full show). Click here to download the recording, or listen via the player below:

Please comment if you think you can ID these broadcasts.

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Voice of Greece music

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For your listening pleasure: 193 minutes of music, and a little Greek commentary, from the Voice of Greece. Recorded on Friday, January 18th–starting around 22:30 UTC–on 9.42 MHz.