Yesterday evening, maxp tweeted:
maxp @maximus_freeman
Halloween: Pirate Radio’s holiday swling.com/blog/2013/10/h… #swl #swling h/t @SWLingDotCom
Halloween: Pirate Radio’s holiday swling.com/blog/2013/10/h… #swl #swling h/t @SWLingDotCom
Who knew? Having just watched The Numbers Station and then hearing the CW numbers station 10115.5 kHz, I was ready to listen for some pirates.
There were a bunch of them on, too, in the MHz or so just below the 40m band. The first one that I heard was on 6925 kHz. I didn’t write down the details, though. Tuning up the band, I logged Wolverine Radio (GO BLUE!) on 6945 kHz USB. They were playing Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”
Tuning downband, I logged XFM Radio on 6870 kHz, AM and then a Spanish-language station on 6880 kHz. Unfortunately, the station wasn’t strong enough to really get a good ID.
The strangest station I logged had to be the CW station on 6933 kHz. Here’s what I copied:
KPZL KPZL PUZZLE RADIO VAMPIRES ROAM ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT GHOSTS AND WITCHES GIVE US A FRIGHT BUT SCARIEST OF ALL AND SEETHING WITH SPITE IS THE WINGNUT FROM THE RADICAL RIGHT PUZZLE THIS…
What followed after that was a series of five-character code groups. Apparently, you were supposed to try and decode the rest of the message.
I gave the dial another spin tonight and logged a couple of different stations. There was a Slavic-language station on 6925 kHz LSB, My New Underpants on 6950 AM, and an Asian-language station on 6970 USB.
It’s interesting that the pirates use AM, USB, LSB, and even CW! I guess that’s to be expected. It is pirate radio, after all.
For more information, including loggings, check out:
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