Gone for good?

[fpeconsultant]

I would have to check my log book but it has been at least 2 or 3 years since Edmund Fitzgerald Radio has been logged/reported/on the air.
They were always a favorite of mine and they were good about sending QSLs for accurate reports.  They were a regular around 11/8,9,10 to mark the anniversary of the day that the ship went down in 1975 on November the 10th.
I see SO MANY “unid” stations being reported that as somebody that’s been listening to pirates for 40 plus years I find it sad that EFR may have joined the “gone for good” list while stations that just don’t even identify themselves seem to proliferate - it is very sad.  Heck, it can’t be too hard to come up with a station name - even a bad one.
Oh well,
FPE

[ThaDood]

In this day of on-line Kiwi-SDR's, what appears to be happening is stations go on-air as a test to hear themselves, to see if they are heard from Point "A" to Point "B", to hear upon how well they are doing so. There doesn't appear to be an interest to spend the time to announce some sort of ID, or any interests upon QSL INFO, but the times that UNID's are logged-in can be an indications to the op upon who else is hearing the station. For these ops, that appears to be just enough for them. Just, my take here. 

[MDK2]

It definitely has been a few years. I think 2018 was the last time it was reported. That's the latest that I could find a report from searching this site. I was just double checking the most recent pirate reports to make sure I hadn't missed it. It was usually tough to get out my way, but I got it in 2017, posted a video of my rx to Youtube (mostly for myself but also so I could share it and get an eQSL), and somehow the YT algorithm gave it a boost years later and it became one of my most viewed videos in spite of poor rx (it was a daylight broadcast). I do miss this station too.

[East Troy Don]

I did a paper on the Fitz back in 1980 - fascinating saga.  I hope EF radio went QRT  for the last time at 7pm CST on November 10th.  That would have been the ultimate cosmic irony.

[fpeconsultant]

I did a paper on the Fitz back in 1980 - fascinating saga.  I hope EF radio went QRT  for the last time at 7pm CST on November 10th.  That would have been the ultimate cosmic irony.

Yes.  I always found the recordings of the transmissions between the Anderson and the Coast Guard haunting.
“The last we heard from the Fitz he said he was holding his own…”

[East Troy Don]

And, if i recall correctly,  the Captain of the Anderson, after making it safely to Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay volunteered to go back out into "the worst seas I've ever seen"  (35 foot waves and 80 mile gales) and see if he could provide assistance at the last known location of the Fitz but the corporate heads of the Anderson's owners refused permission , correctly I think since there would be nothing that could be done as the Fitz went down so fast they never got off an SOS.
Amazing courage nonetheless, though.