Category Archives: Recordings

Shortwave Radio Recordings: Radio Romania International

Pirate Radio Recordings: UNID (percussion)

On New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2013), while band scanning, I tuned to 6,955 kHz around 22:15 UTC, and heard a relatively strong pirate station.

For at least 51 minutes, this unidentified pirate played various percussion music, much of which sounded like recordings of live drum circles. I never heard an ID during the broadcast, nor did anyone on the HF Underground board.

Listen for yourself: click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below.

Longwave Radio Recordings: WG2XFG

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Brian Justin with his homebrew transmitter (Source: http://w4dex.com/500khz/wd2xsh31.htm)

A few weeks ago, I posteded an article about Brian Justin’s holiday longwave broadcasts commemorating Reginald Fessenden’s Christmas Eve 1906 AM voice transmission.

I don’t spend a lot of time in the longwave portion of the radio spectrum, so this special event station gave me an excuse to venture a little lower on the radio dial. Fortunately, LW propagation was in my favor, and Justin’s signal made it the 215 miles to my home. While it’s not armchair listening, it’s most impressive, especially considering the transmitter used is “home-brewed” with modest output power.

This recording of WG2XFG was made when the signal seemed to be at its strongest on December 26th, 2013 starting around 12:40 UTC (Christmas evening, EST). Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

Listening Rewind: Radio Australia rings in the millennium

Rewind 14 years

Back in December of 1999, before setting off to visit family for the New Year, I had a sudden notion: I decided it would be fun–and a bit novel–to record radio broadcasters as each moved into the new millennium. As we were packing the car to travel, I changed my mind about using my Grundig Yacht Boy 400 to accomplish this fairly ambitious, round-the-world listening/recording endeavor; instead, I grabbed my ham radio transceiver, an Icom IC-735, and packed it, along with a hefty 12-volt power supply. While my IC-735 lacked AM filters (at the time) it had much better sensitivity than the YB400, especially when hooked up to a decent antenna. I also had the foresight to take along a few odds and ends, including a mechanical antenna tuner and a spool of long wire.

The Icom IC-735

To record the broadcast, I used my trusty Aiwa AM F70 MiniDisk recorder–remember those? Upon arrival at our extended family’s home, they kindly permitted me to erect a long wire antenna in a sloping configuration in their yard. It did a fine job netting the airwaves. The MiniDisk recorder recorded brilliantly, allowing me to monitor levels and even edit afterward.

As a result, I spent New Year’s Eve 2000 recording station after station as the earth turned. It was great fun, and meanwhile had very little impact on our family celebrations as I simply left the recorder running for long periods of time.

My trusty Aiwa AM F70 MiniDisk recorder.

While I have yet to dissect the many hours of recordings, if memory serves, I think I managed to record Radio New Zealand International, Voice of Russia, Radio France International, NHK, Voice of America, and Radio Canada International as each rang in 2000. The IC-735 performed quite well, save a lack of bandwidth filters, as I only really had two–very wide, and very narrow.

So, for your New Year’s Day listening pleasure: I hope you’ll enjoy, as much as I did, listening to Radio Australia ring in the new millennium yet again. In the news items, you’ll hear that Russian President Boris Yeltson has handed the reigns over to Vladimir Putin, and remarks about the (lack of) problems resulting from the infamous Y2K threat.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen below:

Pirate Radio Recordings: Radio Free Whatever, Pearl Harbor Tribute

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For your listening pleasure: one hour, seven minutes of the pirate radio station, Radio Free Whatever.

I recorded this broadcast on December 15 2013, starting around 2:40 UTC, on 6,925 kHz AM. This broadcast was a tribute to WWII and Pearl Harbor and contains news clips and music from the same time period. I believe my recording begins about five or so minutes into their broadcast.

Simply click here to download an MP3 of the recording, or listen via the embedded player below:

Sangean 909X on sale

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SWLing Post reader, Tom, writes:

Just thought I would tell you that at the moment I am seeing the White Sangean 909X Shortwave radio on sale from Amazon for $163.81 at the moment.

Says on the page it is 64% off which is the cheapest I have seen it so far and it ships from Amazon and not a 3rd party.

Link is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XU76PQ/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Tom

Many thanks, Tom! I believe that is the lowest price for a 909X I’ve ever seen.

Ironically, the price of the Tecsun PL-880 has been climbing on Amazon (currently $179.99) and the PL-660 price is back to $129.99 (up $30 from November pricing).

Note that I could not advise purchasing the PL-880 from Amazon at the moment as it appears that they have a stock of older firmware version radios (see previous post).

Pirate Radio Recordings: Channel Z (chasing pirates in a pickup truck)

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On the afternoon of November 29th, while traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday, I took my wife to an art supply store who was having a “Black Friday” sale. While she was inside shopping, I sat in my truck and remembered that I had my Tecsun PL-660 in tow (after all, never leave home without a radio, right?). I slightly opened the driver’s side window, turned on the PL-660 and extended the telescopic antenna out the window. I instantly I heard a station playing music on 6,925 kHz. What? I couldn’t be hearing a pirate this time of the afternoon, with a portable radio in a crowded parking lot!?!

Then I heard the station ID of Channel Z.

I quickly used my iPhone to log into my home computer (in a different part of the state) and tune my WinRadio Excalibur to record the broadcast. I could clearly see Channel Z’s AM carrier on the spectrum display.

After hearing the station email address, I sent in my signal report using my iPhone. Later, I received an eQSL (see above) and the following about the broadcast and Channel Z:

“You heard the special program, “Before They Were Famous – Part 3” from guest DJ Andy Walker. I was very lucky to have Andy do this show for Channel Z Radio, as he has been in semi-retirement the past three years, with only occasional guest appearances on Crazy Wave Radio in Germany, and now for the third time on Channel Z radio. Since Andy’s shows have received such a huge response from the DX community, there is a good chance he will do another show on Channel Z sometime soon.

(Source: DXArchive.com)

Andy has been involved in free radio for over 37 years, and got his start at the age of 15 as part of the site crew with Radio Kaleidoscope in London. He was instrumental in bringing long-time land based pirate Radio Free London (RFL) back to the air waves in the mid 1990’s, and was a regular DJ on WNKR (West and North Kent Radio) for over 20 years. In addition, he was part of the crew on Britain’s first legally licensed offshore station, Offshore Radio 1584 in 1992.

Channel Z has been on the air since November 2004, and started because of my interest in building homemade shortwave transmitters. To date, Channel Z has been heard in 30 states, Canada, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Newfoundland, Norway, Poland and Venezuela; all on homebrewed transmitters. This time I was using my favorite transmitter, the Commando, designed by Dave Martin of WNKR. The Commando does 25 watts carrier on 43 meters with a 14 VDC supply. The antenna was a horizontal dipole, cut for 6925 kHz, and was approximately 15 meters above ground.

Many thanks to Channel Z for the feedback. I’m amazed that I was able to hear the 25 watt Commando with my PL-660 in the middle of a crowded parking lot. Of course, that’s part of the magic of the shortwaves (and pirate radio listening).

For your listening pleasure, here is 50 minutes of Channel Z, staring around 21:40 UTC on 29 November 2013. This broadcast was recorded via my home SDR. Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below: