The topic is developing in an interesting way. Lucas- thanks for mentioning me!
Here are some of my words to explain where the шарманкa came from. In ancient Russia, there were wandering musicians playing lyre-like, instruments made by themselves and romantically called шарманкa . This name was adopted by Russian radio amateurs, who called it their home-built transmitter.
"шарманщик" is even a nice apt description of such broadcasters, instead of the pejorative name "radiochulign" coined by the authorities.
They say "I work on шарманкa " but I have not heard him say "I am a шарманщик".
The fact is that perhaps half of the Russian population is related to the military, and it is easier to "fix"
a decommissioned transmitter there than to buy a Western-made TRX (legal barriers and prohibitive dollar prices for them). Romantic, free broadcasters, young people and grandpapas, who pursue their radio passions beyond shortwave licenses, work on such often dilapidated equipment. It is the authorities who call them "radio-hooligans", and they call themselves "svobodnyj", "свободный" means freedom.
The first transmitters were built on television lamps, because only this was available in Russian stores. The obtained power of about 10W allowed for reception in the area of several streets and such a young constructor had a group of his listeners in the district where he lived. They listened to their favorite music and talked about their equipment, while the authorities hunted them with GAZ bearing cars.
Then came the transmitting lamps used by the military and HAMS from the GU ... series, which allowed to reach a power of several hundred watts. Even recently, the owner of Radio Buchta was looking for these lamps for his car HF transmitter, because they used up quickly (probably had a few kW of power).
Interesting observation about the reception range of these stations. You can hear them in the daytime in Finland on a vertical antenna, worse on long antennas. Europe does not pick them up (central and western, neither do I), even after dusk. The conclusion is obvious - these are low-power stations located in the western and central European part of Russia, from where the direct wave reaches the recipients. At night, they are lost in the multitude of reflected waves and high background levels.
I picket out the Radio Buchta Swobodnych Wołn on 1575kHz legibly during the day.
It broadcast from Belarus near the Russian border, it had to be a local transmitter with a power
of at least 10kW. A few years ago in Poland, on the initiative of local communities, a group of low power transmitters (1-10kW) was officially operating. Unfortunately, for economic reasons, they all seem to have fallen silent.
