Once a Pirate Ship

[kb2vxa]

Once the most famous Europirate ship that broke the BBC stranglehold that wouldn't play pop, now legally "On air, on your mobile, on Internet worldwide,Radio Caroline.". In the background whenever I'm using my computer is "Europe's first album station" playing an interesting mix of oldies, rock, metal, reggae, and their variants with no head banger or rap crap that entertains when I'm not watching a guy with knives on his fingers or monsters from Japan. If you can't find a station on your radio dial that doesn't jangle your nerves and beat you over the head with obnoxious commercials look no farther than the Internet for Radio Caroline: https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html If you don't want to tie up your browser put this in your player's favorites: http://sc3.radiocaroline.net:8030/listen.pls

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[ad4mg]

Streaming in VLC now... link works great! Thanks, Warren for the nudge. I had also enjoyed a passive interest in Radio Caroline over the years.

[N8YX]

The inspiration for Allan Wiener's efforts and what eventually would become WBCQ.

Snagging pirates and clandestines on the air was and still is a favorite pastime. I have a short list of frequencies that I check, especially around holidays. (Tip: 6925USB on Halloween, all day long). One of my recently acquired NRD-515s has an NDH-518 (96ch memory unit) attached. An entire bank is going to be programmed with nothing but known pirate/clandestine hangouts.

Lots of Europirates in my SWL log over the years.

[K4PIH]

Pirate Radio. A good movie to watch, kinda funny and kinda sad.

[ka8ncr]

When I was in Amsterdam a couple years ago, I was wandering around the NDSM and found what I think is Radio Veronica moored to the pier. It is now a restaurant.

[N8YX]

5085 - WTWW - is also another station with a decent play mix, albeit not a pirate.

I managed to catch Texas Radio Shortwave on 6882USB during the Halloween pirate broadcast peak. Had another rig parked on 6925USB and heard quite a bit of activity there as well.

[ka8ncr]

Wolverine Radio still is my all time favorite pirate.

[W3WN]

I remember from long ago a Halloween favorite... The Voice of the Purple Pumpkin.

Haven't heard or heard about them for decades though.

[n6hcm]

i had them on my sonos this afternoon. can't imagine that the original carolina people expected to be heard like that ...

[kb2vxa]

BUMP!

After my computer came back from a major overhaul and upgrade that I was unable to accomplish with my minimal desk and a few tools I find I'm not the only pirate radio aficionado. Starting at the beginning, thanks to an old ARRL Radio Amateur Handbook I built a 100W transmitter, a 6146 modulated by a pair of 807s, and the business end of a Gates Sta Level peak limiter. This abortion was fed with a Bogen PA amp as a mixer, a turntable and professional tape deck, my stereo amp, and speakers, a 160ft quarter wave wire antenna, and finally a Collins air monitor. My friends and I rocked 1340KHz from June 1965 to August 1970 when the FCC shut us down.

Then there was Al Insane on his pirate ship anchored off Long Island simulcasting on MW, a number of SW frequencies, and FM, the only signal I heard faintly buried in the noise generated by a receiver's front end. Radio New Yawk International is what became WBCQ in Maine beamed to Mexico with 50KW, minimum SW legal power, but of course the real target is the US. Brokered air time leaves much to be desired, he's mostly another Bible beater, all that's left of what was once International SW broadcasting. The reason why his pirate ship couldn't be heard is he split power with several low power transmitters and inefficient antennas. On the other hand besides four fingers and a thumb was Radio Caroline heard all over the UK and much of the continent with almost FM quality audio. Financed by Ronan O'Rahilly (RIP) they had top of the line equipment from a Gates console, through an Orban AM 9000 limiter to an RCA BTA50H Ampliphase 50KW transmitter feeding my favorite antenna, a grounded vertical folded monopole welded to the deck with the best radial field of all, salt water. Today their AM does very well with a 1KW solid state transmitter feeding a quarter wave mast left over from the BBC already tuned to 648KHz clear channel. Their AM channels are spaced every 9KHz while ours are every 10.

The 40M pirates have had their day and it's over thanks to an FCC crackdown on pirate radio. They were on air for hours at a time using AM, decent fidelity and very entertaining. They degenerated into a few wayward hams using their Japanese rice burners on SSB with what Timtron calls telephonium audio, not worth listening to, a song or two, a brief ID and off they go playing cat and mouse with the FCC. I had the distinct pleasure of using a friend's super station all frequencies QRP to QRO, the AM station was all broadcast from mic to 1KW AM broadcast transmitters retuned, to antenna, a grounded vertical folded monopole that put out a whale of a signal from 160 to 40M. From 20M on down tuning gets too narrow to be workable. The exception to broadcast equipment was a Johnson Valiant I modified to take line level balanced audio from the processor rack feeding the modulators directly, it proofed out from 40Hz to 11KHz. Nobody really minds a 22KHz wide signal as long as it doesn't QRM anybody, and the FCC no longer monitors. The receiver was an R-390 I restored using the full shop manual, I often listened to the 40M pirates in the vacated telephone relay band just below 7MHz. One day I loaded up the Big V to 6925 and recited the lyrics to I Am The Slime by Frank Zappa slightly modified, "I am the slime oozin' out of your ham radio set." and they asked back and forth "Who is this slime guy?" ROTFLOL!

Commander Bunny WBNY eat your heart out! No, he's not W3BNY Ren, one of our old friends, nor is he WBNY Buffalo, NY.

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