Hello everyone,

Gads, it's been ages since I've been here on USENET. I guess radio
has taken priority over the 'net... to totally paraphrase/alter some
movie line, (Blazing Saddles?) "We don't need no stinkin' Internet!"
Radio is so much more fun. But, you already know that. This
computer-thingy is just a tool. Radio Rules.

Anyway, I am a pirate radio fan, and have been for over 20 years now.
Somewhere packed away in my radio memorabilia from yesteryear are QSL
cards from pirate stations that were on the air back in the '80's. I
seem to recall that the main pirate HF frequency back then was what is
now WBCQ's 41 meter frequency: 7415 kHz. Or is my old brain too far
fried to remember that far back? But I do remember it was far out.

To the subject of this post: on Christmas Eve I heard some station
identifying itself as "Station Sierra Papa" making brief announcements
following some really excellent pirate broadcasts. And I mean
excellent. Cool tunage. Cool announcers. Man, it was just like the
"good old days". Anyhoooo, Station SP was promoting 2-way
communication between pirate station operators and anyone interested
in outlaw radio in general, it seemed. Being the Radio Outlaw
aficionado that I am, I couldn't resist writing down the frequencies
he suggested: 13.555 MHz USB, 6.670 MHz LSB, and 3.475 MHz LSB. Just
in case, ya know.

Well, last night... actually earlier today UTC, my wife and I were
finishing up supper and I had the 6 MHz frequency on the '706 MKII and
had the MFJ tuner all set up with my 40 meter dipole just in case
someone would happen to call CQ or something. Lo and behold, I heard
someone! "Did you just hear a station calling someone?", I asked my
wife. "Yeah, I think so.", she replied. So I mozy'ed over to the rig
and grabbed the mic. "QRZ? Is there a station on this frequency?"
Nothing. So, I tried again. "QRZ? This is Dark Star Radio73, is
there someone on this frequency?" Much to my delight, XM562, Duke, in
Ontario, Canada came back to me. Signals were iffy at first, but the
band began to favor us (I'm in southern-central U.S.A.) and shortly
the signals were peaking well over S9, with each of us running 100
watts. Fun stuff! Duke said he was going to post information about
the QSO on the FRN. What's that?

So here's the deal: y'all pirates wanna do a little 2-way radio fun?
I've heard that there are some 2-way conversations taking place on a
couple of the more well-known pirate broadcast frequencies, which is
cool. You know; no rules, etc. But wouldn't it be better to keep the
pirate broadcast frequencies open for broadcasts and have the 2-way
pirates and radio outlaws use other frequencies to chit chat? Just a
thought.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Spacey contemplations?

73 de Starsky -- Dark Star Radio73

Listening U.S.A. daytime: 13.555 MHz USB
Listening U.S.A. evenings: 6.670 MHz LSB
Listening U.S.A. nights: 3.475 MHz LSB
All above monitoring subject to propagation variations.
(And when I'm not elsewhere in the HF spectrum doing
other things. .... .. )

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:08:59 -0600, Darkington 'Starsky' Starr
wrote:

Duke said he was going to post information about
the QSO on the FRN. What's that?

http://www.frn.net/vines