Dutch 35cm band pirates

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grafter
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by grafter »

The Dutch will pirate anything, it's in their blood. They also use FM on 23cm and since the closure of VHF TV a few stations have appeared on 65-70MHz mimicking the East European OIRT band. The latest band scan I have for 35cm is from a couple of weeks ago during tropo and all received in Grootegast.

20.20 859.8 cleanfeed ... BBC dialup S9
20.20 829.25 BBC TV carrier S9 plus 30dB!
20.30 858.20 Katinka S7
21.45 859.90 Unicum S9
22.00 858.00 Eksjunn 9 plus 25DB
22.00 859.50 Cassanova S5
22.00 859.90 Unicum 9 plus 20DB
22.05 857.00 Deelex? S9 plus 5DB
22.05 860.00 DMC? S4
22.20 859.50 Cassanova S9 plus 45DB
22.30 861.60 Atletico S9
22.40 859.30 Disco Sound S8
22.50 856.60 AR S9
22.55 861.30 Commodore S7
22.55 856.30 Albatros S7
23.00 860.00 DMC S7
23.20 856.40 South westertje S9 plus 20DB
23.20 856.20 AR S6
23.30 858.55 Royal .. S5
23.40 865.90 Downtown .. S9 plus 10DB
23.50 865.20 Barracuda S3
00.05 861.10 olde pirate with Anita S9 plus 10DB
00.30 861.30 Commodore S9 plus 40DB
00.35 866.00 Diamond S8
00.50 859.30 Disco Sound S9 plus 20D, S9 with 1W, S7 with 100mW, S3 with 50mW
01.10 860.70 TRi S9 plus 40DB
01.10 861.00 Contact hours S7
01.10 857.30 Vento .. X S9 plus 20DB
01.30 856.20 AR .. S9 plus 5DB

By 02.00 hours the conditions moved from the southwest so the signals disappeared, from west continued to go well. Commodore went on to S9 plus 40DB, the old pirate from the south east remained hard with S9 plus 20DB.

It was a busy evening and great fun!
my friend grafter, seems like you are using a very offensive tone in the reply.
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by bigbloke »

Hi Timb,

When I was last in Sorento which was ...ew....what was I doing? ACTS projects....1998??
I took a IC-T8E handheld and my Sony 2001D.

Band II overload - took out everything I could hear, even HF

Also a lot of >1GHz scanners have their first IF around 860-940 MHz (you'll notice many of the early AORs
didnt cover the TV band because of picking up the local oscillator) I would therefore expect it was down to
the mixer being swamped rather than 860MHz activity

regards

BB
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by bigbloke »

Appreciate that I should probably have asked this long ago...but for some reason it didn't occur to me
back then.

Grafter

What receiver were you using please ? and did it have RDS ? given that without RDS pirate stations are notoriously
difficult to specifically identify.

Just that I've never seen a receiver for that band with such a capability , and it tweaked my curiosity bone! ;-)

regards

BB
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by timb »

thanks BB, makes sense.
Don't Holland use Channels 22 & 23 for DTT?
you'd think that pirate comms around 487mhz would kill the tv

re: rds on 860mhz :
i used to use a D100 converter feeding an rds tuner for getting rds off strange freqs.
best contact on PMR (0.5watts only): 21.5 miles (Congleton to Junction of A54/A556 near Kelsall 06/03/2011)
Best Contact on LPD (10mW only) 14.2 Miles (Congleton to The Roaches 18/04/2011)
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hal8000
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by hal8000 »

Are any Dutch stations still transmitting on these frequencies?
Also have they been received outside the Netherlands?

I get plenty of Dutch Pirate on Am 1636kHz Radio Baroness etc
but not heard anything on 23cm.
I think it would take much more transmitter power on 23cm or Sporadic-E
to receive these stations.
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by NoName »

Nice to see that even 'overseas' our activity is noticed :mrgreen:

I'm also 'one' off those pirates and our goal is to DX in WFM on the 35cm band,
with good conditions even 100mW is enough to cover the whole off the Netherlands.
We mainly use old professional pager equipment from the USA (PA,preamp,low pass filters)
and/or modified analoge cellular basestations.

All in stereo and if you want with RDS, for reception we use homebuild dowconverters (to
normal FM-band) or receivers like ICOM/AOR. (IF out to normal tuner)
Some even use heavy soundprocessing equipment like Orban or Omnia...

The average antenne is a 28elements yagi and for the 'extreme' some use 4 off these stacked.

35cm is a kind off replacement for 60cm due to the DVBT network in the Netherlands (60cm is
kind off dead)
We are awere that we are in the middle off channel 69 from the DVBT band but this channel isn't
used in the Netherlands, allthough the last months with extreme conditions we had some problems
with DVBT signals from Denmark...

With good conditions i receive the BBC link on 859.80Mhz here in the middle off the Netherlands
so maybe the other way is possible to...
A normal UHF tv arial and a preamp (beware off intermodulation from GSM) must be enough to receive
something...

Grtzz Mark
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by variant »

Hi All..!!!

I,m pleased to read that there is some curiosity around dx activities in the upper channel 69 in WFM.

This is a pleasent surprise but is also raises a question ..

Has a 860 mhz signal already being received ??

If there are any questions or further need of information , i would be very helpfull..

Kind regards

Variant ... 860 Mhz Northern part of The Netherlands ..

e mail/ msn [email protected]
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by variant »

Great story Noname !!

indeed this band is very good for this kind off dx .



My alias is Variant and i,m a heavy user off this band.
I find a great deal off pleasure in making long distance dx transmission in WFM.
A lot off guys do too !!
I hope my little signal is being picked up over there !!
Iff there is a need for information i would be obliged to help .



Kind regards ..
Variant / 860 Mhz

e mail/msn [email protected]
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by MayhemFM! »

Hi folks!
I'm also one of them :D
For more info please surf to http://www.mayhemfm.com
and don't hesitate to ask if you want some more information about
the set-up, equipment or whatever.

Kindest regards, Gerard, MayhemFM! 856.700 MHz 1.305 GHz
WFM stereo (DSP with StereoTool) and RDS.
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by bigbloke »

I'm also 'one' off those pirates and our goal is to DX in WFM on the 35cm band,
can you guys clear up one point for me please ?

Is this "pirate to pirate WFM voice communications" or "pirate broadcasting" please?...or perhaps both ??

what is not clear to me, as I live on the west side of the UK and only hear
such traffic under lift conditions, is whether you guys will be transmitting WFM
speech to one another (i.e. your 'intended audience' is each other like CB or Ham radio
but in WFM) or whether you transmit "shows" with music & speech
like a regular broadcast radio station.

I can see the point of the pirate to pirate DX voice comms in high quality, but to my mind a
"pirate broadcaster" is usually looking for an audience for his music and programmes? and as this
requires specialist equipment to receive your stations - I was wondering who (if you are broadcasting rateher than communicating) your target audience would be ? not perhaps the average dance music or rock music fan ?? ;-)

regards

tot siens!

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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by MayhemFM! »

BB,

what we do overhere on 35cm and 23cm is communicate, so no broadcast!
We play music for fun and to perfect the sound of our 'station', so experiment with DSP (Orban for the rich, StereoTool for the poor) and add RDS as the finishing touch :D
So there is no audience, perhaps a few HAMs with all-band/all-mode receivers (with WFM) and a few radio-enthusiasts that scan the bands for interesting signals, but no 'normal' audience like on FM!
We like to play music and experiment with this kind of equipment, this is not possible on the HAM frequencies so we use this piece of (nearly) unused space for our hobby ;)

Regards, Gerard, MayhemFM! Papendrecht JO21it
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by NoName »

Hi BB

Indeed these transmissions are mainly voice to voice 'enhanced'
with some music off your own choice, this will give a nice mix off
very different music styles from dance to the well known tearjerkers.
:mrgreen:

We do not intend to transmit for an audience, our broadcasts are mostly
not longer then a few minutes to tell something about your equipment and
or reception of the other station. (then switch-off to listen in reverse)
There are a few that will transmit only music for a few hours but that's mainly
for tests or with low conditions to have some 'activity' on the band.

Other thing is the homebuild part, there is no 'out off the box' equipment so
if you want something you have to do some affort for it.
Considering this we are very close (sometimes even further) to licensed amateurs but we only 'pirate' a piece off none used airwave to enjoy our hobby.

So that's why we are very happy in your interest of our signals, indeed it's
in our blood to pirate everything :mrgreen: but still we are DX stations so
we can't wait for the first to cross the channel...

Grtzz Mark
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by Mark-in-Essex »

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variant
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by variant »

BB

Where only communicating to eachother , no audience .... :mrgreen:


In the old days before the 3 meters radioband was taken over by commercial stations there where two kinds off radio pirate,s in Holland .
The first group was communicating to an audience with music programme,s and so on , the second group where the dx stations , they where only communicating to eachother with music . speech. stereo and so on ..
This group has estabelished itself on the 35 cm band and even higher !!
Far the most are real technicians and the term radio amateur would be appropiate.
I think you,ve got the '' picture '' ?

greetings

Variant 860 Mhz
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Re: Dutch 35cm band pirates

Post by variant »

If things are going as now there ,s not going to be a cnannel crossing ....

grtzzz variant...
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