{"id":1707,"date":"2011-08-30T19:12:02","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T23:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=1707"},"modified":"2013-11-27T21:43:41","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T01:43:41","slug":"using-exalted-carrier-reception-to-tune-in-pirate-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/using-exalted-carrier-reception-to-tune-in-pirate-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Using exalted carrier reception to tune in pirate radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve found that one side benefit of installing\u00a0a <a title=\"KC4HW's delta loop page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kc4hw.net\/deltaloo.htm\" target=\"_blank\">40 meter delta loop<\/a> this past weekend is that I now have an antenna which is practically ideal for listening to pirate radio stations in and around the 6925 kHz &#8220;watering hole.&#8221; So, I&#8217;ve been spent a lot of evenings recently listening for pirates with the new antenna.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1715\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Ultraman.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1715\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1715\" alt=\"Shortwave Pirate MAC Shortwave featured DJ Ultraman\" src=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Ultraman-300x226.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Ultraman-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Ultraman.jpg 446w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1715\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shortwave Pirate MAC Shortwave featured DJ Ultraman<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But Sunday night was a noisy night on the 40 meter band&#8211;I was hearing active static crashes probably associated with hurricane Irene. I did pick up a relatively strong signal from pirate station MAC Shortwave with DJ Ultraman at around 20:40 EST (00:40 UTC)&#8211;listen to the end of the broadcast <a title=\"archive.org page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/details\/MacShortwave-DjUltraman\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/embed\/MacShortwave-DjUltraman\" height=\"30\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Note that I start the recording using the Alinco DX-R8T, but find the bandwidth too wide (hence the adjacent broadcaster you hear), so I switch to my Palstar R30C. One bonus in this recording: Commander Bunny&#8217;s parody of &#8220;I Shot the Monkey&#8221; originally recorded from WBNY studios.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At the top of the hour I heard Renegade Radio start a broadcast, but the signal was very weak here in the southeastern US. In fact, I couldn&#8217;t even ID the station. So, I turned to a trick I&#8217;ve used on tabletop and portable shortwave radios alike&#8211;namely, <em>Exalted Carrier Reception (ECR)<\/em> also known as <em>Exalted Carrier Single Sideband (ECSS)<\/em> reception.<\/p>\n<h3>What is ECR or ECSS?<\/h3>\n<p>Simply put, it&#8217;s when you tune in an AM broadcast using the SSB mode on your radio. In my case, I turned on the USB\u00a0 (upper side band) mode on my Palstar and zero-beat the frequency&#8211;meaning, I tuned out the hetrodyne whine until the audio sounded as natural as possible.<\/p>\n<p>This is sort of a &#8220;poor man&#8217;s version&#8221; of\u00a0synchronous\u00a0detection (and, frankly, a little inferior to sync detection on most radios). \u00a0Still, in this case, it made a huge difference in the intelligibility of the broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>Why does it work? \u00a0Well, as my ham buddy Mike recently explained it:&#8221;You are removing any selective fading problems by filtering away one of the sidebands and injecting a carrier of steady amplitude which eliminates the &#8216;tearing&#8217; heard when a broadcast carrier is varying in amplitude.&#8221;\u00a0 Got that?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1712\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/PalstarInUSB.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1712\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1712 \" title=\"PalstarInUSB\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/PalstarInUSB.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"135\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1712\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Palstar R30 in USB mode tuned to Renegade Radio<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At any rate, one of the reasons it works so well on my Palstar is because I can keep the bandwidth set rather wide while listening in SSB, thus helping a bit with the loss of fidelity that happens when moving off of the AM mode. If your radio automatically switches to a narrow filter in SSB mode, the audio fidelity may take a bigger hit, and degrade further.<\/p>\n<p>Though I don&#8217;t have a comparison <em>without<\/em> using the ECR\/ECSS method, I can tell you that the AM signal was barely audible. After tuning in using ECR, it became armchair listening.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Archive.org page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/details\/RenegadeRadio-PirateRadioShortwave\" target=\"_blank\">Listen to almost one hour of Renegade Radio for yourself<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/embed\/RenegadeRadio-PirateRadioShortwave\" height=\"30\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Those of you who have old radios with a very stable variable BFO (beat frequency oscillator) instead of a product detector might try using your BFO tuning to inject the BFO directly over the fading broadcast carrier to accomplish same kind of reception as ECR.<\/p>\n<p>So, next time you have difficulty hearing a weak shortwave station, consider turning on the SSB mode and using the ECR\/ECSS method. You may like what you hear!\u00a0 Ahoy, there&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve found that one side benefit of installing\u00a0a 40 meter delta loop this past weekend is that I now have an antenna which is practically ideal for listening to pirate radio stations in and around the 6925 kHz &#8220;watering hole.&#8221; So, I&#8217;ve been spent a lot of evenings recently listening for pirates with the new [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,297],"tags":[563,565,567,564,566,562,4092,561],"class_list":["post-1707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-pirate-radio","tag-dj-ultraman","tag-ecr","tag-ecss","tag-exalted-carrier-reception","tag-exalted-carrier-single-sideband","tag-mac-shortwave","tag-pirate-radio","tag-renegade-radio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-rx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3690,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/numbers-stations-the-english-man-came-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":1707,"position":0},"title":"Numbers Stations: The English Man came back","author":"Thomas","date":"June 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Two weeks ago this Friday,\u00a0I caught and recorded the numbers station often referred to as the English Man. He was found in the pirate radio watering hole (of 6,925-6,990 kHz) on 6,949 kHz. After sifting through more spectrum recordings taken the following evening by the Microtelecom Perseus, I realized that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Numbers Stations&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Numbers Stations","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/numbers-stations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/RussianCipherMachine.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8212,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/pirate-radio-recordings-channel-z-chasing-pirates-in-a-pickup-truck\/","url_meta":{"origin":1707,"position":1},"title":"Pirate Radio Recordings: Channel Z (chasing pirates in a pickup truck)","author":"Thomas","date":"December 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"On the afternoon of November 29th, while traveling during the Thanksgiving holiday, \u00a0I took my wife to an art supply store who was having a \"Black Friday\" sale.\u00a0While she was inside shopping, \u00a0I sat in my truck and remembered that I had my Tecsun PL-660 in tow (after all, never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"QSL247","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/QSL247-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/QSL247-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/QSL247-768x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8851,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/how-to-tune-in-pirate-radio-broadcasts-on-shortwave\/","url_meta":{"origin":1707,"position":2},"title":"How To Tune In Pirate Radio Broadcasts on Shortwave","author":"Thomas","date":"March 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of The Spectrum Monitor Magazine. Even as many legacy international broadcasters are abandoning the shortwave bands, shortwave remains active and vibrant in another quadrant: namely, on shortwave pirate radio. Over the past few years, I\u2019ve found that one of my favorite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Articles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"QSL from Radio Gallifrey Intergalactic","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/twGallifrey-QSL-300x182.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31031,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2018\/03\/guest-post-listening-to-pirate-radio-stations-from-south-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":1707,"position":3},"title":"Guest Post: Listening To Pirate Radio Stations from South America","author":"Thomas","date":"March 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Chris Smolinski, who shares the following guest post. Note that this post has also been published on Chris' excellent blog, Radiohobbyist.org: \u00a0 Listening To Pirate Radio Stations from South America by Chris Smolinski Looking for a new DX challenge? In addition to shortwave pirate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Guest Posts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Guest Posts","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/guest-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/DhcQKXh-e1520339222291.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2442,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/christmas-tunes-via-pirate-radio\/","url_meta":{"origin":1707,"position":4},"title":"Christmas tunes via pirate radio","author":"Thomas","date":"December 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night--Christmas Eve--I recorded a few minutes of pirate radio station, Wolverine Radio on 6,925 kHz USB. Their signal was very strong here into the shack. Wolverine played a selection of several rockin' Christmas songs. Merry Christmas and enjoy! If media player does not appear above, please click here to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/RadioListening-300x190.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9413,"url":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/pirate-radio-recordings-mac-shortwave\/","url_meta":{"origin":1707,"position":5},"title":"Pirate Radio Recordings: MAC Shortwave","author":"Thomas","date":"April 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"For your listening pleasure: over one hour of the pirate radio station, MAC Shortwave. I recorded this broadcast on April 27, 2014 starting around 00:05 UTC, on 6,950 kHz AM. MAC Shortwave\u00a0features host \"Jimmy Stewart\" and some excellent\u00a0big band music. The first SWLing Post reader to identify this\u00a0MAC Shortwave\u00a0interval signal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"820px-Annex_-_Stewart,_James_(Call_Northside_777)_01","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/820px-Annex_-_Stewart_James_Call_Northside_777_01.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/820px-Annex_-_Stewart_James_Call_Northside_777_01.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/820px-Annex_-_Stewart_James_Call_Northside_777_01.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/820px-Annex_-_Stewart_James_Call_Northside_777_01.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}