Radio Metallica Worldwide (Pirate Radio): June 4, 1997

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Dan Greenall, who shares the following recording and notes:

Broadcaster: Radio Metallica Worldwide (pirate) June 4 1997

Date of recording: June 4, 1997

Frequency: 6.955 MHz

Recption location: Thamesford, Ontario, Canada

Receiver and antenna: Panasonic RF-3100 and longwire antenna

Mode: AM

Notes: Here are three recordings of Radio Metallica Worldwide, a powerful shortwave pirate station that was widely heard all over North America and beyond during the late 1990's, using AM mode on 6955 kHz. These clips are from 1997 and were made in Thamesford, Ontario, Canada.

Listen to Doctor Tornado forget the zip code to his Blue Ridge Summit mailing address, claim to be broadcasting from a vessel in the Atlantic Ocean, use his voice reverberator mike, and send greetings out to other pirate radio stations. He certainly provided plenty of entertainment value for his listeners.

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The Voice of the Voyager (Pirate Radio): August 20, 1978

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Gavaras, who shares the following recording and notes:

Voice of the Voyager pirate shortwave radio station transmission starting with interval signal, opening with "We will Rock You/We are the Champions," introductions of staff including RF Wavelength, AF Gain, Disco Dan, Disco Dave and others. Broadcast included The Minnesota-Ohio Corporation Mystery Theater: The Heath Heresy, Nighttime Melodies, beer reviews and more. August 20, 1978 on 5,850 MHZ at 0355 UTC. 100 watts.

The Voice of the Voyager had been broadcasting on Saturday nights for about eight months. One week later on August 28, 1978, a yellow car pulled into the driveway of the house where the Voice of the Voyager had been broadcasting from and two official-looking men got out and walked up to the front door. They flashed credentials identifying them as being from the St. Paul, MN office of the FCC. Since R. F. Wavelength held a ham license for the address, he had no choice but to admit the men to the house. At first, he denied all knowledge of the Voyager but it soon became clear the FCC knew all about the station and had definitely traced it to that location. R. F. Wavelength finally admitted to being behind the Voyager and with that confession the atmosphere immediately changed. The FCC agents became quite friendly, and told the operators how they managed to track down the station. The Voyager operators were surprised to learn the FCC had planned to bust the station during the previous weeks broadcast on August 20, but that plan was aborted when the Voyager left the air earlier than usual. A special monitoring van had been brought in from the FCC’s Chicago office to help trace the station’s location.

More information and some of the background posted above: https://sites.google.com/site/napiratehof/2010-inductees/voiceof-pancho-villa

Broadcaster: The Voice of the Voyager

Date of recording: 8/20/1978

Starting time: 0355 UTC

Frequency: 5.850 MHz

Reception location: Minneapolis, MN area

Receiver and antenna: Sony ICF-5900W with whip antenna

Pirate Radio WFDR: December 24, 2020

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Matt Todd, who shares the following recording and notes:

A shortwave pirate radio station calling itself WFDR which broadcast on Christmas Eve December 24, 2020 at 2259UTC on 6920 kHz.

The broadcast was as follows:

- Franklin Roosevelts Christmas Speech in 1942

- Winston Churchill Speech

- Christmas Music

Date of recording: 12/24/2020

Starting time: 2259

Frequency: 6.92 MHz

RX location: Hugo, MN

Receiver and antenna: Sdr Play with a wire loop antenna around the perimeter of the attic

Mode: Single Side Band

Purple Nucleus of Creation (HF Pirate Radio Station): October 27, 2001

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Adam C. Smith, who shares the following recording and notes:

This recording was made on 10/27/2001, 0009UTC, 6928kHz USB with my Grundig 800 and 100’ wire. The Purple Nucleus of Creation was very strong and bizarre…. Maybe relayed by KIPM back in the day.

Adam also shared images of The Purple Nucleus of Creation’s amazing and intricate QSL card:

UNID Shortwave Pirate: December 31, 2013

On New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2013), while band scanning, I tuned to 6,955 kHz around 22:15 UTC, and  heard a relatively strong pirate station.

For at least 51 minutes, this unidentified pirate played various percussion music, much of which sounded like recordings of live drum circles. I never heard an ID during the broadcast, nor did anyone on the HF Underground board.

Listen for yourself: click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below.

The Voice of Alex Radio Show

This past weekend, I recorded a number of pirate radio stations; one of them was The Voice of Alex Radio Show: a tribute station for a girl whose life was taken by a drunk driver in 2011.

I recorded The Voice of Alex Radio Show on 6925 kHz upper side band on March 10th, 2013, around 23:30 UTC.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

WMPR

For your listening pleasure: 32 minutes of pirate radio station, WMPR.

I recorded this broadcast of WMPR on 6.925MHz AM on February 17th, 2013 at 10:00 UTC. You'll note that this recording sounds a little "brighter" than a typical shortwave radio recording.  This is due to the fact that I widened the AM filter to match the bandwidth of WMPR's signal (about 17 kHz!).

Click here to download the MP3 of the recording of WMPR, or simply listen below:

True Classic Rock Radio

Last weekend, I caught a shortwave pirate I'd never heard before: True Classic Rock Radio. Well, at least I'm pretty confident that's their name. When I first heard their ID I couldn't confirm it, but when I passed the clip to my buddy Andrew, he nailed it.

Funny thing is, when I go back and listen to the station ID now (check it out around 17:30, and then again at the end of transmission) it sounds so obvious.

This short broadcast includes some great classic rock and ends with Hendrix. I didn't note the exact time they began to broadcast, but I heard them on between 3:00-4:00 UTC, on 6,925 kHz AM, December 8, 2012. Click here to download the mp3 directly, or listen through our Archive.org player: