Peter's DX Corner

"It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on" - Marilyn Monroe

Tag: London

QSL Radio Argus 1440 kHz

April 1, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Radio Argus is a pirate station based in the UK, broadcasting on shortwave 48 meter band, but recently also heard testing on 1431 and 1440 kHz. I was made aware of this station by Henry Poelman via the Benelux DX Club Facebook group. I heard them in the night between Sunday and Monday, 01:00 and 04:38 h UTC (no trace of Radio Regional from Italy). The program consisted of rock music presented by a male ID. After 2 hours the program was repeated as I heard the same songs again. Signal strength was not great, SINPO 24332.

Bert Bridges sent me a brief “thank you” email, stating that my reception report was useful as they were testing on various frequencies. And invited me to suggest a song to be played on the radio.

I’m not an expert on British pirate stations, but sources on the internet state that the transmission on 1440 AM might come from the London area with 20-40 Watts of power.

Gold 1548 kHz off air end-September

August 17, 2023 / / 4 Comments

Other Gold mediumwave stations closed already in June this year. Gold 1548, servicing London from the Saffon Green transmitter, will follow end-September (source: Ydun’s Medium Wave Info).

Before the merger of many independent local radio stations in the United Kingdom this was the transmitter of Capital Radio. With 97.5 kW this station was significantly more powerful than other ILR stations and easy to receive here in The Netherlands. The higher power probably has to do with the size of the London area and the urban environment.

In the 1980s I had a lot of fun chasing the different ILR (and BBC) local radio stations. The stations all had their own local identity and studios and hadn’t merged into larger conglomerates yet. Below you can see the Capital QSL I received in 1980. Had it been a post stamp it would have been a collector’s item given the apparent misprint of the frequency. Truth be told, I regularly get confused with the 1458, 1485, 1548 and 1584 frequencies myself.

My QSL from Capital Radio 1548 in 1980

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