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Pirate on 6935 MHz Somewhere in California

C

cc333

Airing now (8:34 PM Pacific Time).

I received it on the KFS NW KiwiSDR. It's broadcasting using USB.

They're calling themselves "Elbows Up Radio" with a decisively far left tone, so they must be broadcasting from SF somewhere.

c
 
Yeah, it totally could be, now that you mention it. When I went to look up "elbows up," I found references to the Canadian boycott of American goods, among other sorts of things.

I wonder where in Canada they could've been broadcasting from? My guess would be British Columbia, given it's the closest to California, but skywaves are a funny thing. If the conditions are just right, you can receive signals from thousands of miles away (as @SomeRadioGuy can attest to, given that his location seems like the Skywave Capitol of the World haha :) ).

I recorded the last hour or so of it, which I have a feeling isn't too common (I don't think anyone records these pirate broadcasts, do they?)

EDIT: I don't normally do Facebook, but I came across this: HF Underground | Elbows Up Radio on 6925 khz USB @ 3:03am UTC | Facebook

So it seems this definitely is being broadcast from Canada. Wow!

c
 
cc333 said:
I wonder where in Canada they could've been broadcasting from? My guess would be British Columbia, given it's the closest to California, but skywaves are a funny thing. If the conditions are just right, you can receive signals from thousands of miles away (as @SomeRadioGuy can attest to, given that his location seems like the Skywave Capitol of the World haha :) ).
Click to expand...

I bet Paul knows what the station is.
 
K.M. Richards said:
I bet Paul knows what the station is.
Click to expand...

I confess i dont know where this one is, but ive heard a few pirates up here.. B Side on 6935.. Mix on 12100 and YHWH 7475...... (The later is well kn own to be in California desert somewhere.

I've also heard Cupid Radio on 15015 (500 W into a 3 element beam) in the nordic countries, strong enough to decode their SSTV.

I'm not nearly as fanatical about pirates as some are, its not a bad thing, just not my thing.
 
The government shutdown has likely emboldened pirate operators, so there may be more activity.

Most pirates seem to prefer the 6800 to 7000 kHz range, usually referred to as the 43 meter band. IIRC WRMI and WWCR have used 43 meterband frequencies in the past, but not recently.

Friday and Saturday nights are the best times to search for pirates.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
The government shutdown has likely emboldened pirate operators, so there may be more activity.
Click to expand...

You read my mind and I was going to say the same thing, right before these transmissions were identified as legitimate by a licensed Canadian operator.
 
"Legitimate?" Nah, still a pirate - but a Canadian one. The only licensed shortwave broadcasting left in Canada that I'm aware of is CFRX, the SW relay of Toronto's CFRB. Oh - and CHU, the time signal station from near Ottawa.

(I think CFVP in Calgary still holds a license but is no longer on the air.)
 
I'm only speculating here, but perhaps the operator is "legitimate" in the sense that they have a proper Ham license, but they are being a pirate because they're using said Ham license improperly to do their thing. They could do this legally using Canada's equivalent of the FCC's Part 15 rules, but their range would be far smaller, and they clearly intended for this to be heard in the US.

Whoever it is and whatever their legality is, one thing is very clear: they don't like the current POTUS very much.

c
 
There's nothing to make sense of. Regardless of who's running it, it's a pirate. A ham license only authorizes you to operate your equipment on certain frequencies (of which 6935 isn't one) and in certain modes, which don't include music broadcasting.

If you have ham equipment and you're running it on 6935 with a broadcast, it's a pirate operation.

It's also true that there are a lot of those out there, especially on weekend nights, and because they're not really interfering with anything of any importance, nobody in the US (or presumably Canada) is expending any enforcement resources chasing them, whether or not the FCC is currently in business.
 
tvnut said:
The amazing thing is you heard it. With so few listening to shortwave, a pirate is needle-in-haystack broadcasting these days.
Click to expand...

No, actually its not... there are some people who listen for pirates about as religiously as I listen to Radio Nacional Amazonias on 11780 (which is, to say... alot, daily). Very few pirates get missed.. if they sign on, someone hears them. Alot pof the guys use SDR's and can easily see a carrier pop up on that
 
@SomeRadioGuy Yeah, that's true.

However, I think the point @tvnut was trying to make was that I'm not one of those religious pirate finders. I'm just an ordinary person who decided to scan the dial because I was bored. Not many people in general do that.

I must say, I've never actually found a pirate broadcast before, so it's kind of fun!

Wish I could submit a QSL or something, but I don't know who to send it to.

c
 
cc333 said:
@SomeRadioGuy Yeah, that's true.

However, I think the point @tvnut was trying to make was that I'm not one of those religious pirate finders. I'm just an ordinary person who decided to scan the dial because I was bored. Not many people in general do that.

I must say, I've never actually found a pirate broadcast before, so it's kind of fun!

Wish I could submit a QSL or something, but I don't know who to send it to.

c
Click to expand...
Thank you for getting my point. And congrats; only pirate I’ve heard (aside from someone on 87.9 in my town) was on AM way back in the 70s.
 
They have been around as long as I can remember. I rarely tune to SW these days, but back in 1980's, 1990's if you ventured to the 6900 - 7000 kHz range you would run into them. Halloween used to be a good day to try for them as that used to be a popular day for the pirates to broadcast. One pirate station that you would almost certainly hear on Halloween was the Voice of the Purple Pumpkin. There were other pirates that were fairly regular, such as the very political Voice of Tomorrow, The Crystal Ship, Voice of Laryngitis, Secret Mountain Laboratory, Samurai Radio and many others. Some of these pirates would also be good verifiers sending out QSLs either using dedicated open mail-drop addresses or on rare occasions responding to loggings of the stations in DX bulletins. There was a great publication by George Zeller called The Pirate Radio Directory, which was first published in 1989 and listed all the pirate stations that were reported the previous year. You might be able to find one of the editions on eBay.

@tvnut, your 87.9 pirate was most likely the Czech/Slovak language rock station Radio Eurostar that started broadcasting sometimes in August 2002. They used to broadcast from the Harlem Ave/Irving Park Rd area and they claimed they were legit broadcasting in conjunction with the Czech and Slovak Rock fest that was held in August 2002 in Yorkville, Illinois. They continued broadcasting well after the festival ended. I was hearing them as late as September of 2003. They were getting out very well. I used to listen to them on my drive to work from the NW side of Chicago all the way to Lincolnshire, Illinois.
 
CADXER said:
They have been around as long as I can remember. I rarely tune to SW these days, but back in 1980's, 1990's if you ventured to the 6900 - 7000 kHz range you would run into them. Halloween used to be a good day to try for them as that used to be a popular day for the pirates to broadcast. One pirate station that you would almost certainly hear on Halloween was the Voice of the Purple Pumpkin. There were other pirates that were fairly regular, such as the very political Voice of Tomorrow, The Crystal Ship, Voice of Laryngitis, Secret Mountain Laboratory, Samurai Radio and many others.
Click to expand...
What did Voice of Laryngitis sound like?
 
I heard another pirate on 6935 back in 2024, here's one recording of B Side Radio

B Side Radio 6935khz AM Wed Mar 20, 2024.MP3

drive.google.com drive.google.com

Mix Radio around 12200

Mix Radio International 12203khz USB Sun Mar 5, 2023 0151UTC.mp3

drive.google.com drive.google.com

Another pirate on 6935 but i dont have a name labeled for it

6935khz 0309UTC Sun Nov 24, 2024.mp3

drive.google.com drive.google.com

This one was interesting.. a station playing the Russian anthem over and over:

9310kHz USB Pirate with Russian National Anthem 0519UTC Feb 3, 2023.mp3

drive.google.com drive.google.com

This is YHWH 7475khz, from somewhere in the California desert

YHWH Pirate 7475khz Wed Dec 20, 2023 0307UTC.mp3

drive.google.com drive.google.com

someone on 7305, presumably a ham, with jazz music

7305khz Jazz Pirate Tue Mar 14, 2023 0327UTC.mp3

drive.google.com drive.google.com

all heard live and recorded here in Alaska
 


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