Pirate DX-pedition in Norway 18/19 September

[Kai]

Hi!

Another pirate listener (Arvid Husdal) and I plan to go on a ‘pirate DX-pedition’ to the south-west coast of Norway this coming weekend – i.e. on Sat 18 and Sun 19 September. We’ll be listening from Arvid’s car, using our Sangean ATS 909 receivers and 100-200 m of wire.

We did the same trip last September and heard several very low powered Dutch MW pirates during daylight hours (best catch: Jan van Gent with 3 watts on 1660 kHz in the middle of the day – distance: well over 500 km).

This year we’ll also listen out for American SW pirates. We’ll check 6.8/6.9 MHz from around 0400 UTC on Sunday the 19th (sunrise here is at 0452 UTC). I know this is very late at night in North America, but who knows – perhaps someone is planning a DX test to Europe? Are there any particular frequencies we ought to check – perhaps outside the 6.8/6.9 MHz area?

It would also be cool to catch some of those pirate beacons. I don’t know if it’s possible, though. Most of them seem to be located in the west of North America… But we'd like to give it a try anyway! Any particular frequencies we ought to check?

73

Kai Salvesen
Kai.salvesen at gmail dot com

[Kai]

I forgot to mention that we won't have any Internet connection at the remote site. Last chance to get in touch with us is tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 0400 UTC or so, before we head out the door. (It takes a few hours to drive to the listening site, so although we leave rather early, we won't be able to listen to American pirates tomorrow.)

It's possible that we (or at least I) can start listening a bit earlier than planned on Sunday (perhaps at 0300 UTC or even before that). But I can't promise anything.

Thanks to those who have sent me pms and e-mails - and to L Cee Intl for copying my message onto the FRN Grapevine forum (I wanted to post there as well, but the FRN doesn't seem to accept new member at the moment.)

73

Kai

[syfr]

Make sure and check 8.35 Mhz 

[Kai]

Hi everyone!

Disappointing results at the "expedition". Wolverine Radio was received quite well for a short while, but apart from that there was very little to be heard (just some weak carriers on 6850 and 6940).

I’ve had better luck hearing American pirates at home (or more precisely: in a small wood near home ...) using a small active loop antenna or a short piece of wire! I don’t know if it was the conditions of because our beverage-ish antenna wasn’t the best choice for 43 m. It is also possible that it’s better to listen some hours earlier than we did (other listeners' results this Sunday suggest that). (Although Curious George's results in Hungary this summer would suggest that sunrise or just after sunrise in Europe is actually a very good time of day for transatlantic reception.)

Thanks to those who tried to reach us anyway!

Fortunately, we did manage to receive quite a lot of low-powered Dutch medium-wave pirates (there is just water between our listening site and the northern parts of the Netherlands, and that seems to be ideal) – so the expedition was actually quite successful. A preliminary version of our (pirate) log can be seen at http://www.am-forum.nl/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11520

73

Kai

[Zoidberg]

I'd bet on fickle propagation, Kai.  That Wolverine show you heard was barely audible here (Texas) and that station is usually strong.  Propagation seems to be a matter of luck until we get some sunspots.