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:
