[HCDX] Shortwave pirate radio preserved at the Internet Archive

["Zacharias Liangas " <greekdx@xxxxxxxxx>]

look at my shack ! 
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Shortwave pirate radio preserved at the Internet Archive

http://www.radiosurvivor.com/2011/11/16/shortwave-pirate-radio-preserved-at-the-internet-
archive/
Posted on November 16, 2011 by Paul Riismandel

Jason Scott is an archivist and historian of computer and internet history behind such great 
projects as textfiles.com, which preserves the wonders of the pre-web internet, as well as 
documentaries on pre-internet BBSs (bulletin-board systems) and text adventure games. 
Appropriately enough, he now works at the Internet Archive, and while catching up on his 
blog I came upon a post about a collection of shortwave pirate radio recordings hosted at the 
archive.

If radio tends to be an ephemeral medium, then shortwave pirate radio is especially 
ephemeral, heard by a very small audience, even if it is scattered across the globe. 
Shortwave pirate listeners tend to be dedicated, and recording airchecks is often part of the 
hobby. However, it´s one thing to record a shortwave pirate broadcast, and a whole other 
thing to catalog and preserve it. Luckily for us an enthusiast who goes by the name Sealord 
did just that, and then digitized the recordings and uploaded them to share.

Radio Metallica Worldwide QSL card

The collection spans the mid-90s through to September 2011. I was pleased to find a couple 
of recordings from a station that called itself Radio Metallica Worldwide, which broadcast in 
the late 90s and mid-2000s. I remember this station well because it transmitted with a 
tremendous amount of power for a pirate and could be heard very clearly across most of 
North America. Back in 1996 and 1997, in my little apartment in Champaign, Illinois, I listened 
to the station many times on my Radio Shack Patrolman SW-60 radio that I´d had since I was 
a kid. Only with lots of effort and patience was I able to pick up any other pirate stations with 
that rig. But Radio Metallica Worldwide came in loud and clear (for shortwave, that is). In the 
October 26, 1997 recording the proprietor, Dr. Tornado, brags of using "10,000 watts of pure 
awesome audio power." If true that would outclass most pirates by a factor of 100 or so. The 
station was so infamous that it merited an entry in Andrew Yoder´s 2001 book on Pirate 
Radio listening.

There´s plenty of interesting listening to be found, even if shortwave pirates tend to be 
unimaginative music programmers, too often falling back on tired classic and hard rock tunes 
that don´t fall too far afield of FM radio standards. And there have been archives of shortwave 
pirate recordings on the web pretty much since uploading audio to the internet became 
practical in the 1990s. In fact, I´m pretty sure I heard my first shortwave pirate programs on 
the internet (in RealAudio!), which then spurred me to try tuning in the broadcasts on the 
airwaves.

Listening to these recordings only makes me wish there were a similar collection of FM and 
AM pirates.
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This entry was posted in shortwave and tagged Internet Archive, pirate radio, shortwave, 
shortwave pirate radio, unlicensed broadcasting. Bookmark the permalink.
? In some places the EAS test wasn´t so successful
Underwriting and Low Power FM: why does the NAB care? ?
One Response to Shortwave pirate radio preserved at the Internet Archive

   1.
      Tim says:
      November 16, 2011 at 4:02 PM

      "shortwave pirates tend to be unimaginative music programmers" << You have to be 
kidding, right? Some of the most imaginative music that I've ever come across has been via 
shortwave pirate radio since I began listening in the 1980s. It has been a big influence on me 
and has turned me on to many artists that were previously unfamiliar to me. Long live pirate 
radio, and the music.
Standard rig : ICOM R75 / 2x16 V / m@h40 heads Sennheiser 
Please read and distribute this 15 year research article http://tinyurl.com/5vzg7e 
Please read my article on SINPO at http://tinyurl.com/yt7qjd
________________________
http://zlgr.multiply.com (radio monitoring site plus audio clips ) MAIN SITE 
http://www.delicious.com/gr_greek1/@zach (all mypages !!)
........
Zacharias Liangas , Thessaloniki Greece 
greekdx @ otenet dot gr  ---  
Pesawat penerima: ICOM R75 , Lowe HF150 , Degen 1102,1103,108,
Tecsun PL200/550, Chibo c300/c979, Yupi 7000 
Antenna: 16m hor, 2x16 m V invert, 1m australian loop 


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