After nearly 103 years of faithful service, Canada’s shortwave time station CHU will cease transmissions on June 22, 2026. Operated by the National Research Council (NRC), the station has been a reliable source of official Canadian time since 1923.CHU broadcasts automated time signals 24 hours a day on the frequencies 3330 kHz, 7850 kHz, and 14670 kHz. The transmissions include spoken time announcements in both English and French, derived from highly accurate atomic clocks.
For many radio amateurs, shortwave listeners, and people in remote areas, CHU has been the primary way to obtain exact time for decades.The closure fits into a broader trend in which shortwave technology is being replaced by modern alternatives such as GPS, internet time servers, and mobile networks. According to the NRC, shortwave broadcasts are no longer necessary for distributing official time.
My own QSL from CHU Ottawa
The announcement has caused disappointment among radio hobbyists worldwide. CHU was regarded as one of the oldest and most stable time stations in the world, comparable to the American WWV. Many of us have the CHU QSL card showing Sir Sandford Fleming, the man who proposed the introduction of standard time zones on the cover.
”Listeners can still receive the station until June 22, particularly at night and in the early morning hours when propagation conditions are favourable. After that, silence will fall on the familiar frequencies. An iconic piece of radio history will be lost.
Apologies for the fact that I’m not posting as much as I used to. But we are in the final stages of building our new house and that requires a bit of attention. In April conditions were poor. Mid May they were good, but none of the Peruvian MW stations I heard replied.
So here we are. Eagerly awaiting the Sporadic E season. So I start scanning the FM band. And while I missed the first opening of the year as I was travelling earlier today, I discovered what I already sort of knew: 3 meter pirate stations are still a big thing here in the north east of the Netherlands. When I was 17 (almost half a century ago) I had my own 3 meter station as did many of my school friends. After school we tried to make contact with 1 to 10 Watt transmitters.
In the western part of the Netherlands 3 meter radio doesn’t exist anymore. But here on the country side in the province of Drenthe it is still a big thing. Radio as such is a big thing when I go by all the antennas I see here driving around.
Today I received “Club Roma’s en de Zender Dwerghut” vanuit Klazienaveen, the Netherlands, 18 kilometers from here. These stations are far more powerful than the 1 to 10 Watt stations we used when I was young. I heard reports from 50 kilometers away. And a year ago I heard an FM station from Weiteveen (you can see the village bottom right on the map above) on my previous QTH in Woerden, a distance of 150 kilometers, and in superb quality.
And unlike us these stations broadcast full stereo with RDS data included:
As the stations are illegal a contact address is difficult to obtain. Usually they broadcast a mobile telephone number which you can use to contact them using Whatsapp or SMS. Which is what I did for Club Roma’s and Zender Dwerghut. You might receive a brief reply, but more likely your reception report will be mentioned on the radio:
My report confirmed on the air via Club Roma’s and Zender Dwerghut on 94,5 MHz
A very colorful eQSL from KLAS Radio, an unlicensed station broadcasting from Ireland on 1233 kHz. Power is 500 Watts, and presumed location is Sligo. 1233 kHz is one of the mediumwave frequencies that are nearly empty these days, and it competes with two equally low powered stations from Italy only.
Radio De Vliegende Hollander (“The Flying Dutchman”) from Meppel, The Netherlands, can be heard quite well here in Coevorden on 1467 kHz. No surprise as the distance is only 37 kilometers. This LPAM station is broadcasting with 50 Watts, slightly lower than most Dutch LPAMs. At my previous QTH in Woerden I was never able to receive this station, as Radio Paradijs from nearby Utrecht was dominant. The first time I heard this station was on a clip my friend Arild Skalmeraas sent me to help with the station identification. Which means that Radio Vliegende Hollander already made it to Norway!
In the audioclip below you can hear the Radio Paradijs ID at 14 seconds, and much louder, the Radio De Vliegende Hollander ID at 22 seconds: “Dit is Radio de Vliegende Hollander, AM 1467 kHz, vanuit Nederland. Wil je meer informatie over ons, surf dan naar www.radiodevliegendehollander.nl . Radio de Vliegende Hollander te horen op AM, 1467 kHz, vanuit Meppel brengen we je het laatste nieuws”
Radio De Vliegende Hollander ID
My reception report sent to 1467am(at)radiodevliegendehollander.nl was answered by Koert who is the station owner. Koert happens to be a member of the VERON as well as the Benelux DX Club, just as I am. And therefore maybe no surprise that reception reports are awarded with a beautiful old school QSL card. Big thanks to Koert!
Old school QSL card from Radio De Vliegende Hollander (which is Dutch for Flying Dutchman)
Fully detailed QSL card for Radio De Vliegende Hollander
I tried this one two years ago earlier, but without success. But maybe Radio North has a new QSL manager in Chrissy, who was so kind to confirm my report via radionorth846mwads(at)gmail.com with a very nice fully detailed eQSL.
Radio North is broadcasting from Redcastle, Ireland with 3 kW. The station is unlicensed. And I know this led to annoyance with Dutch LPAM stations as they have to pay quite a hefty fee for their license allowing them to broadcast with 100 W max, only to find that a relatively high powered unlicensed station is causing interference on a frequency allocated to the Netherlands. It was one of the reasons why Album AM went off the air. MCB from Alphen aan de Rijn has taken over operations on 846 AM since.
I listened to oldies, but at 0300 h UTC they brought a Gospel broadcast from father John Morrison. These are heard quite often on Radio North. Chrissy had to print my email for him, as father John is old school and doesn’t have email. Below a brief clip of my reception:
A month ago I already thought I’d received Energy AM on 1440 kHz, but it turned out to be Radio Argus. But this time I received them in reasonable quality with a full ID. Energy AM is an unlicensed station from the Dublin area in Ireland, active on weekends. They used to operate on 1395 kHz (as you can still see in their logo), but since late last year they switched to 1440 kHz.
Energy AM confirmed my report via Facebook Messenger and provided some details:
Peter,
It was indeed Energy AM you heard last night on 1440 khz .
We were running 425 watts into our T antenna 20 metres vertical and 33 metres of horizontal.Slight loading at top of vertcal 7 turns.Transmitter isa Hercules 1 kilowatt but not running more than 500 watts as any more power cause local breakthrough interference on a smoke alarm.
We also use a D&R mixing desk, Rode mic, technics sl 1200 turntable ,Tascam cd 401 mk2 cd player ,and a dell PC with playout one radio program. audio is processed with orban digital am optimod. If you require any further information i would be happy to forward it to you.
Thanks for your reception report from all at Energy Am.
Below you can hear the jingle with the “Energy” identification:
UPDATE: as I noticed they still had their old frequency in the logo I made a new one. And got a nice “Thank You” in reply:
The NBD io group organizes a Co-ordinated LIstening Event (CLE) every month. As a huge fan of something that is a bit of a contest, a bit of a personal challenge, I like these a lot. More importantly they help me to improve my set-up which is why I try to participate most months.
CLE’s always have a certain goal. In CLE299 for example, you had to pick an azimuth and try to receive as much beacons along that line. CLE311 required you had to “build a pyramid”. And CLE309 was all about logging up to 8 stations from each Maidenhead square. In this one, CLE327, the aim was to select 10 frequencies ahead of the event and then log as much beacons as possible.
So the making the right selection was critical. Obviously you do that by checking on which frequency you logged the largest number of different beacons in the past, ideally beacons that you have a fair change of logging again. But I just moved to a new QTH, and worse, I only have a loop pointing 90/270 degrees at my disposal, whereas in the past I switched antenna directions for an optimal result.
My Results
But hey… all for the fun of it. In the table below you can see my selection and my results. Now I can only receive these weak signals at my noisy QTH using Pskov, a software tool that basically tries to detect cyclic signals. If it recognizes one, it cuts an SDR recording (I used recordings of an hour) in pieces of exactly that cycle length and stacks them on top of one another to improve S/N ratio. To limit the amount of data processing I listened between 299 and 420 kHz only.
The previous event of a similar nature was CLE306 two years ago when the aim was to log as many NDBs on 8 preselected frequencies. Quite a few NDBs closed down since, so we were allowed to pick 10 frequencies this time. But obviously the CLE306 results provided a good starting point.
As you can see in the table above I managed to log 32 stations in CLE306. Based on my results I made the following selection for the new event: – Two frequencies, 348 and 330 disappointed me in CLE306 big time. So I excluded them for CLE327. – Two frequencies, 351 and 410 were not selected in CLE306, but during that event I logged 5 NDBs. So I included them in CLE327. – And to bring the selection to 10 frequencies I added 316 and 368 as I logged quite a few NDBs on these frequencies in the past.
Again, note that the number of logs in the past are not the only number to go by. Some logs are really rare or once off UNIDs. Some NDBs are located at a larger distances to the north or south, which given high solar activity right now or my limitations with the antenna orientation might provide a difficult catch.
My result in CLE327 was 33 beacons in total. With 3.3 NDBs per frequency quite a bit lower than in CLE306 which resulted in 4 NDBs per frequency. Conditions in that one, which was held in July, were not much better, so I blame my fixed antenna direction for that.
In hindsight, if I had picked the right frequencies, I could have scored 40. So the selection was not too bad. My newly selected 397 let me down with only one log for unknown reasons. Conditions to the Balkan were not bad, as were conditions to the UK and south of France. Maybe I should replace it with 380 next time.
For reference: the average score for participants from Europe was 43, with the top dog scoring 65!
A nice suprise from Iran
And to finish it off. During the event I received this nice signal from Iran. NDB Uromiyeh, almost 3500 km distance:
DX-ing mediumwave pirates is nice because sometimes you have email correspondence with fellow radio enthusiasts. I received Radio Turftrekker on 1638 kHz. Operator Jeroen wrote that he was ‘spoon-fed’ with mediumwave pirate radio as his father is also a mediumwave pirate. As a small child, he was listened in. Occasionally he was allowed to say something on the radio.
But it is also nice because some of the station names used remind you of the heritage of the Netherlands. Radio Markies is an example. And so is Radio Turftrekker. While the next paragraphs are not really about radio or DX, I just enjoyed writing them. Skip it if you want, but if you like it, please leave a comment!
About the name of Radio Turftrekker
A “Turftrekker” or “Peat Puller” was a worker that extracted peat using a scoop with a net attached. Peat was used as a fuel to heat houses before we switched to coal (and Holland what late in doing so). However, with the peat being extracted, deep pools of water formed in Holland.
“God created the earth, except for the Netherlands, for the Dutch did that themselves” is a well-known Dutch saying referring to the polders and reclaimed lands. But what is often forgotten is that the same Dutch first lost almost half their country due to peat extraction.
“Turftrekkers” extracting peat. A picture from 1895 used in schools.
The prime example is the Haarlemmermeer (Haarlem Lake), the polder in which Schiphol (Amsterdam International) Airport is situated today. In the Middle Ages four lakes were formed as a result of peat reclaiming. Additional illegal reclaiming and storms resulted in the collapse of dikes, allowing the lakes to merge into what became the Haarlemmermeer. That lake was so large that it became an inland sea, and with southwesterly storms, it expanded ever further in the direction of Amsterdam.
The collapse of the dike between Amsterdam and Haarlem
The Haarlemmermeer acquired the nickname “Waterwolf” as the water consumed more and more land. A beautiful artwork created in 2024 visualizes this. The Waterwolf seems to be at rest in this statue, as is the Haarlemmermeer.
The “Water Wolf” statue in the Haarlemmermeer. Finally at rest after 4 centuries.
Plans were made to reclaim the Haarlemmermeer as early as the 18th century. However, by then the lake was too large to be drained with windmill technology applied in the Beemster, Wormer, and Schermer polders. And so nothing could be done and devastating storms in 1836 caused parts of Leiden and Amsterdam to flood.
The Haarlmemermeer in 1740, top left the city of Haarlem, top right Amsterdam
But fortunately there was the introduction of the steam engine. In May 1840, thousands of laborers began digging a 60-kilometer-long ring canal and constructing a ring dike with shovels and spades. Three steam pumping stations were built: De Leeghwater, De Cruquius, and De Lynden. On July 1, 1852, the Haarlemmermeer was completely drained, and the development and parcelling of the more than 18,500 hectares of new land could begin.
One of the steam engines draining the Haarlemmermeer
Back to Radio “Turftrekker”. Jeroen mentioned he didn’t have a QSL card. I proposed this design based on the school picture shown above. What do you think?
During the Pirate Hunt 2026 event I was able to log Radio Kristal, broadcasting from Twente, East Netherlands on 1655 kHz.
Operator Jan confirmed my reception with a nice eQSL featuring the offshore radiostation Veronica. The station I grew up with as a child.
Radio Kristal works with a tube transmitter and inverted V antenna. Jan mentioned that he is active for 47 years on AM and his station has been raided by the “Radiocontroledienst” (the authorities) twice.
ZoomRock FM is a new station broadcasting with 730 Watts only on 1242 kHz from Turku, Finland. Despite the fact that the provisional loop antenna that I use at our temporary house is directed east/west, which is not optimal, I was able to receive this station in the first two weeks of April, identify a couple of songs and record an ID. Harri was so kind to reward my reception with a nice QSL. The station shares the frequency with the 200 kW strong Radio Sultanate of Oman. But after 2h UTC that station (listed 24h) is either off air or fades out (I don’t know). Between 2h and 2:30 h UTC ZoomRock FM is audible.
Below a MP3 clip with the “bassy” ZoomRock FM station ID. Poor reception quality. If you want to hear a better recording, you can find one at Hugo Matten’s site.
I had a nice email conversation with Harri, the man behind ZoomRock FM. He told me that he received 130 reports, my report was the 2nd from The Netherlands. On the Facebook page Harri shows his equipment. A neat transmitter, but also an impressive antenna set up as he is apparently allowed to hook up his 2×58 m dipole to a commercial antenna tower.
ZoomRock FM transmitter
ZoomRock FM dipole antenna
It also turns out that Harri is an avid DX-er. Using two virtual SDRs he is trying to receive Transatlantic FM signals. Two YouTube videos show the locations and the stunning scenery:
BDXC : SWL 2262 PRe VERON : NL 14228 If you want to get in touch, just leave a message on one of my posts. Please note that I don't publish email addresses of verifiers which are not part of the public domain. So if you don't see the QSL address, just leave a message and I'll get back to you.
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