Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Blog Logs - pirate radio


This morning's edition of Blog Logs, begins with a sampling of logs from this weeks Free Radio Weekly newsletter. Thanks to editor Ed Insinger and George Zeller for his logging contributions of activity from the July 4th holiday weekend.
Gayle Van Horn

Joe Wood, one of my regular contributors, has reminded readers that The Crystal Ship has announced that due to a real estate issue, they will be leaving the air within two months. It also sounded like they would not be back on anytime soon, or ever.

All times UTC

Logs

Grasscutter/Sunshine Radio
6924.9USB, 7/5/08 from 1810 tune-in to 1900 sign off. Rock music with ID’s including: “You are listening to Grasscutter & Sunshine Radio on 6925 upper.” Gave Ontario mail drop and Yahoo e-mail addresses. Ended with George Harrison's tune "It Don’t Come Easy,” then off the air. SIO=353. (Insinger, NJ)

Radio Free Speech
6925USB, 2331-2338+, 7/3/08. Fire & brimstone religious item to holiday traffic report from the Radio Free Speech1 Eye in the Sky. Earl Pitts commentary. SIO=2+52+ (Frodge-MI)

Sycko Radio
6925.6USB, 6/28/08, Sycho Radio, 0030-0040, Jun 28, English, 6925.58 USB SINPO 35344. ID at 0030 0032 "I guess this CD doesn't like me so I will try something else." Comment about the feedback Lots of ads for Commander Bunny for President Good. (Rohde)

The Crystal Ship
5385.5AM 07/2/08 01:25 SINPO 35443 with "We want the world & we want it Now" with fog horn effect into Russian anthem sung in English. (Ragnar-MI)

6700 0128-0305+. Independence Day, 2008. English. Great show by Mr. Poet. Music by REO Speedwagon, Styx, Steely Dan, and many others. Lots of martial music as befits the Holiday including some nice sets by a Fife and Drum Corps. There were fewer political items than in the past. S9+10/very good // 5385.5 S9/good. (Wood, TN).

WBNY
6925USB 06/30/08 23:24 SINPO 25333. Commander Bunny July 2008 show, Pro Pirate Radio music, descriptions on how to tune your receiver to another station. (Ragnar-MI)

Wolverine Radio
6925USB, 0118-0124, 6/29/08. English, Joan Baez?0118 ID Wolverine Radio. 0124 ID and then off the air. Great signal here tonight, SINPO 55434. Good signal. (Rohde)
(Source: Free Radio Weekly # 647)

Additional pirate logs

Radio Free Speech
6925USB 2319-2357* 7/3/08 SIO=141+. Bill O. Rights w/4th of July special program. Very weak and thus little program content copied. Usual "O Francis Scott Key" parody version of USA national anthem at close. (Zeller-OH)

The Crystal Ship
5366 AM // 6700 AM 0000-0149 7/4/08 SIO=343//242. Patriotic march mx by band, Yankee Doodle, and similar music for the first half of the show. The second half was rock mx, mainly by the Doors and Dave Clark Five. Unusual reception conditions. Usually I don't hear any more than a het on the 6700 freq, but during this bcst I could get audio on both freqs. You're a grand old flag toward the end. (Zeller-OH)

Wolverine Radio
6925USB *0153-0256* 7/5/08 SIO=343. Interval signal of a guitar riff "Help Me 1-2-3," into a prgm of rock mx. The music was fairly obscure and I did not recognize the tunes. Off for one minute at 0203 and for three minutes at 0236. No ID until close, when OM gave the ID with an echo effect. I know that this one is actually Wolverine Radio, but I always mention that the diction in the IDs make this one sound like Long Range Radio to me. (Zeller-OH)

Sunshine Radio
6925USB 1800-1809 7/5/08 SIO=141/242-. Weaker than usual with a progam of rock music. The show probably went past 1809, but the signal dropped even lower and it was unusable after that. (Zeller-OH)

WJPL
6925USB 1940-1951* 7/5/08 SIO=141/242-. A ditty at first, and then into a parody of a New York City call-in talk show on the radio. Discussion of bad taste. Caller argues with male host, saying that if we need commercials to advocate for safe sex, then the targets of the commercial are so stupid that it is hard to say how they function. Another "bright" (?) caller went to the New York Public Library and was pleasantly astonished to discover that they had a computerized card catalog listing all of the books that were in the library. Freq mentioned repeatedly as 91.9. I list this as tentative, since I had the ID as WNTI or similar, but Yoder and others on FRN convinced me that this was really a replay of an old WJPL show from New York. Poor level, but somewhat audible most of the time. (Zeller-OH)

Hour of Slack Relay
6925USB *2321-2327* 7/5/08 SIO=242-. A very odd prgm from the Hour of Slack. Large swaths of the population are going to be arrested and shot, including lesbians, Jews, the retarded, anybody smoking a cigarette, and Michael Jackson. Exempt from the executions will be the followers of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, who are the "normal" ones. If it were not clear that this was a parody, it would have been disturbing content. No ID of relaying station. (Zeller-OH)

WTCR- 6925U 0227-0326* 7/6/08 SIO=343. Prgm of rock and reggae music from the 1900s. Bob Marley, Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds, and other artists. Used usual slogan of Twentieth Century Radio. Belfast address. (Zeller-OH)

Chris the Pirate Radio Critic
6925USB 1423-1454* 7/6/08. This one broke the record set less than 24 hours earlier for the worst pirate show in the history of radio. Discussion of the issue of outing the identity of pirate radio opeators. Rock tune "Breaking the Law" played repeatedly. Criticism of lowlifes living in trailer parks. Mentions of a handful of alleged pirate operators by name. (Zeller-OH)

Radio Appalachia
6924.8 AM 2221-2337+ 7/6/08 SIO=433/411. Started out w/an OM playing various banjo tunes, apparently in a studio. Then, into a very confusing lengthy segment w/short snips of numerous different rock tunes. Then back to another banjo segment at 2324. Clear ID at 2329. Severely QRM'ed by another loud AM signal creating a bad het on this one, ending copy after 2337. No maildrop address announced. (Zeller-OH)

Kracker Radio and Radio Jamba International
6925USB 0128-0154 7/7/08 SIO=232-. Yet another worthless broadcast in the genre of profane attacks against specific individuals. It is hard to tell if the IDs were genuine, but they were definite IDs at 0130 and at 0154. Threats against other DXers. I find it hard to believe that Kracker would lower himself to bcsting material of this nature, so perhaps this was somebody else using a phony ID. It is hard to say one way or another. But, this was the third time in 24 hours that the record was broken for the mostworthless and damaging pirate bcst in history. Gave address of Smolinski for reports, an obvious phony announcement. We could use much less of this sort of thing on the pirate bands. (Zeller-OH)
(Source: Free Radio Weekly # 647)