Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, “The Captain,” who recently sent a message regarding “EC Pirates”–an aspect of the pirate radio/free-bander scene I’ve never covered here on the Post. I asked him to explain a bit more about EC Pirates:

“Echo Charlie [Pirates] are a bit like amateur radio operators in that they don’t play music, they talk all around the world mostly around the 45 metre band using the calling frequency 6,670 kHz, but they do have other band plans too, usually just under the amateur radio band plans. They are pirates as they are not licensed for those bands: freebanders if you like.

Here is the band plan they follow:

86/85m 3430-3500 kHz
calling 3470 LSB

45m 6530-6700 kHz
calling 6670 LSB

29m 10400 kHz USB

21m 13900-14000 kHz
calling 13970 USB

21m South America
Calling 13555 kHz USB

16m 18010-18050 kHz
calling 18030 USB

14m 20900-20980 kHz
calling 20930 USB

EC started many years ago after World War II [when surplus] military equipment was up for sale. Guys bought the units up and used them on AM mode but slowly switched over to SSB over time. No one is really sure why its called Echo Charlie but they think its because this old equipment had EC on the casing or something like that. I’m still reading up on the history of it all.”

“The Captain” has also created an online forum for EC Pirates and various radio topics. It requires (free) registration to post and read: http://ecpradioforum.forumotion.com/