New sporadic hop from The Netherlands and The United Kingdom on CCIR FM band on 3rd of July 2021 has brought new interesting catches, such as Radio Continu (new one for me, very similar to the Dutch amateur stations by its musical playlist). But the most interesting are the Dutch pirate radio transmitters which were highly active that Saturday evening.The propagation was not very stable that day: fair signals with frequent fade-outs and rare fade-ins arrived mostly from the central and eastern part of The Netherlands alternating with numerous usual BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3 giants on 88.1, 88.3, 88.6, 88.8, 89.1, 89.5, 89.7, 90.1, 90.5, 90.8, 91.3, 91.9 and 92.3 MHz. Also a couple of Dutch and Frisian stations from the northern part of the country were audible now and then (e.g. Grunn FM, Omrop Fryslân, etc.), but no any Belgian broadcaster was heard. In some cases, signals were available for only several minutes or even for tens of seconds. I have done SDR recording 15 minutes long without any hope for interesting results.
And here what I found after detailed analysis of my SDR recording:
1. Kampers Piraten Team (tent.) - 87.5 MHz - 16.40 - 16.44 UTC - SNR up to 25 dB - RDS PI: BE35, PS contained "VOOR REACTIES":
Nice retro repertoire, typical for the Dutch unlicensed broadcasters, unfortunately no identifications were heard during the short period of reception.
2. Sirocco en Lawaai Papagaai - 88.8 MHz - 16.28 - 16.43 UTC - SNR up to 26 dB - RDS PI: 884A, PS and radiotext contained: "Sirocco / Lawaai", etc.:
QRM from co-channel BBC Radio 2 at times. Quite active pirate station, already received here on 26th on June 2021.
3. Zuidwester - 90.1 MHz - 16.28 - 16.43 UTC - SNR up to 27 dB - RDS PI: 8FFF, PS contained "-- -t--d:"
Heavy interference from co-channel BBC Radio 2. Similar RDS settings can be found on this YouTube video clip by DX Hunter Z/W Drenthe. "-- -t--d:" appears to be "de tijd:"
4. M en M Formatie (tent.) - 91.6 MHz - 16.28 - 16.43 UTC - SNR up to 29 dB - no RDS was decoded:
Unfortunately, no RDS data was detecoded at all, as stated above, but operator's voice can be heard on my recording. Many thanks to Henri for the help with this one!
5. De Baltazar en Lady - 92.1 MHz - 16.35 - 16.41 UTC - SNR up to 29 dB - RDS PI: FFF6, radiotext: "Baltazarenladyalmelo. RADIOSTREA":
Dutch oldies and more contemporary music. Only a short burst, when the station's signal reached proper level, but that was enough to decode important ID information.
It would be possible to receive even more Dutch pirates on the frequencies above 92.3 MHz indeed, however it is more difficult in Kyiv, because that frequency range is densely populated by local official FM broadcasters. Anyway, it's worth a try one of the next times.
And again, many thanks to Henri, who helped me to identify some of the listed stations. I'm very happy with such a fruitful Es hop! More stations - more experience in identifying Dutch free FM'ers.
RX: Airspy Mini SDR
ANT: 80 mb dipole
