Wolverine Radio

I was tuning around 7 MHz tonight and ran across a strong single-sideband signal with music playing. It was the shortwave pirate station Wolverine Radio. This one is heard fairly regularly and seems to have good coverage over eastern North America. But obviously no one knows where the station is located. Details of the reception:

• Wolverine Radio, 6945 kHz in SSB from 0125 to 0245 UTC. This was the last 25 minutes of their broadcast. Good signal, playing music that all seemed to be related to marijuana. No talking except for occasional "Wolverine Radio" IDs in a computer-generated voice. Then there was the sound of an SSTV (slow-scan television) image being transmitted, after which the station went off the air.

I recorded this and have posted the recording to archive.org. 

Mediumwave Loggings, Including a Pirate Station

I'm still up in Harrowsmith for the Labour Day weekend. I logged three mediumwave stations today, two of them new and one of them a radio pirate. Receiver: Kaito KA-1103.

• WCKL, 560 kHz, Catskill NY, at 0357 UTC (11:57 p.m. EDT Sept 4) with fair signal. "Family 560" playing nostalgia music. This station is 1 kW daytime, 43 watts at night. If it really was at the night power, then this is a good catch. Relog - logged once before in Toronto.
• WLIE, 540 kHz, Islip NY, at 0359-0402 UTC with poor signal. ID on hour, also with slogan "South Asian Radio". 2.5 kW day, 220 W night. New to overall log.
• Pirate, 1710 kHz, 0405-0410 UTC. Talk in Haitian-accented French and Caribbean music. Signal coming from south east. Very weak but strengthened at times to listenable levels. This is likely to be one of the French language pirate stations known to transmit from Boston, MA and operated by people in the Haitian population there. New to overall log, and only the second pirate ever logged on 1710.
  

This brings the overall mediumwave count to 967 (counting the pirate).

FM: Islamic Prayers on 87.9 MHz

Today I came across an unlicenced radio station at the bottom end of the FM band, on 87.9 MHz. As soon as you hear a station broadcasting on 87.9 you know it's an unlicenced station because there is only one station in North America licenced to broadcast on this frequency (10 watt KSFH in California).

An unlicenced station is not necessarily transmitting illegally. It is legal to broadcast on FM without a licence at very low power but the range is very limited - a few tens or hundreds of metres at most. That's how those little "talking house" or business broadcasters, and those tiny FM transmitters you can buy for use around the house or in your car are legal.

Stations that transmit illegally are usually called pirate stations. In most big cities, unlicenced stations operating at illegal power levels appear occasionally on empty frequencies. That's what I think I heard today.

Details: 87.9 MHz at 02:40 to 02:56 UTC (10:40 p.m. July 28 local time). Fairly good signal. No talking or announcements. It was broadcasting what I think were Islamic prayers - sounded like a solo voice half-singing in Arabic. Went off air at 02:56.

I googled for information about this and found two references from a year ago in Glenn Hauser's DX Listening Digest about an Islamic pirate station in Toronto on 87.9:

• DX LISTENING DIGEST 10-12, March 26, 2010: "On Air: ON, Toronto, 87.9, a pirate with prayers in Arabic from the Scarborough Muslim Assocation at the Jame Bakr Siddique Masjid, heard at 74 km. Industry Canada has been notified (FMedia! Final Issue 2009-2010 via DXLD)"
• DX LISTENING DIGEST 10-16, April 22, 2010: "87.9 - Islamic prayers and talk, in mono, seems to originate from the city's northwest quadrant, perhaps in Etobicoke, Brampton or Mississauga. It carries well over a large area, despite adjacent 88.1 CKLN in downtown Toronto. I am guessing something in the order of 50 watts."

I count pirates in my log counts, so this brings the Toronto FM count to 152 and the overall FM count to 373.

Update for July 2010

In addition to the things I've already posted about for July, here are some of the highlights from my radio logbook for July 2010:

1. 128.8 MHz, July 5 at 0225 UTC: Logged Toronto Pearson Airport Departures - Air Traffic Control working aircraft departing the airport.

2. 132.8 MHz, July 5 at 0232-0240: Heard various aircraft in contact with Toronto Pearson Airport. This is a frequency for incoming aircraft.

3. Logged W1AW, the ARRL HQ station in Newington CT, transmitting Morse code practice bulletins on several frequencies. July 9 at 0249 UTC on 3581.5 kHz, July 13 at 0245 UTC on 1802.5 kHz, July 14 at 0222 UTC on 7047.5 kHz, and July 15 at 2346 UTC on 14047.5 kHz.

4. Logged various amateur stations on the HF bands.

5. Heard various shortwave broadcast stations. Nothing new.

6. Heard a pirate radio station on 6925 kHz on July 14 at 0240 UTC. He was playing music, but no ID was heard and he disappeared after a few minutes.

7. Heard New York Radio (air traffic control for NYC) on 6586 kHz working various aircraft. This was on July 14 at 0415 UTC.

8. On July 24 I managed to hear CBC Radio from Kingston, 107.5, on my car radio. This was in the morning when I was down at the Lake Ontario shore.

9. Did some listening for local utility communications on VHF.

Radio Ronin Shortwave

One aspect of radio DXing that appeals to some listeners is the search for "unofficial" stations - stations that operate without a licence in defiance of the rules that govern broadcasting in their home country. These are usually known as pirate radio stations. I don't normally go looking for these, but when I hear them I log them. In North America these stations often operate around 6925 kHz on shortwave.

On July 1, I caught a broadcast by one such station, Radio Ronin Shortwave, from 0210 to 0224 UTC. The signal was poor but I was able to copy it. They were playing oldies pop songs from the late 60s and 70s by bands like the Moody Blues, ELO, and the Eagles. There were also IDs and an email address to contact them at (radioroninshortwave@gmail.com). The station appeared to go off the air at 0224. Shortly after that more pop music was audible, but I think it may have been a different station - Radio Ronin was in AM mode and the subsequent signal was SSB.

Another example of the amazing variety of signals you can find on the radio bands.