Radio Kiribati was a fairly regular visitor to my radio room in Korea on shortwave on 14917.7 kHz. Although the station no longer uses shortwave it still broadcasts on medium wave and FM.

It was assigned the call letters T3K1. I understand that it was a relay for residents in outlying islands.

I don’t know for which broadcast or station this was verifying.  It is the only Merlin Network QSL card. Nice looking QSL card nonetheless.

It occurred to me that recording and writing down program details while driving might seem unsafe to some of you who may be reading my blog and Facebook posts. So, I would like to explain what we did. It was a team effort. One of us, usually my wife Becky would drive while I did the recording. The process consisted of finding a station, turning on the recorder, and writing the frequency, station, and the time the recording started on a note pad. That way one of us was always focused on driving and the other person could deal with the radio station. I would listen to the recordings later to pick out specific program details. It worked out well, as we were able to hear and record dozens of stations while driving.  We even recorded stuff inside the tunnels in the Swiss Alps.

In Europe and in Korea, I mostly used a white-colored Panasonic radio-cassette recorder. (I don’t know the model.) It had dual cassette capability for dubbing. It got a lot of use until one day the motor in it failed. That was a sad day because it has been a good friend.

These days I use CC Crane Witness to record stations. If the signals are strong enough, I will record them just using the unit’s radio. If the signals are weak, I use the car’s radio. I wired an “auxiliary” output from the car radio speakers, and feed the audio into the Witnesses line input.  I have to watch the audio level or it can get distorted.  It works, and that is all that is important.

This QSL card verifies my reception of World Mission Radio via famous Radio Caroline on board the ship Ross Revenge. However, the name of a station or broadcaster does not appear on the card. So, a little detective work is required to determine the name of the station.

The first obvious things on the card are the mailing address and the phone number. A web search reveals that they match the address and phone number of The Johan Maasbach World Mission Foundation in The Hague. Hmmm, a possible connection. Further investigation reveals that in the late 1980’s, this missionary foundation broadcast programs using Radio Caroline’s transmitter on the ship Ross Revenge. So we have it.

The station is called a pirate station because it was unlicensed.

World Mission Radio first signed on the air on 1 May 1988, and was closed down on 18 August 1989 by Dutch and British authorities. The format was Dutch and English religious programming. A successor to this station called Maasbach Radio streams programming from the web site www.maasbachradio.com

You can read more about this broadcasters at http://www.offshoreradiomuseum.co.uk/page424.html

I feel fortunate to hear and verify this station even though its name does not appear on the card.

Austrian Army – Training Transmitter

Schulungssender Österreichischen Bundesheeres

Weekend Music Radio – The Voice of Scotland

This QSL holds a special place among my favorites. One evening, while studying at BYU in Provo, I tuned my Realistic TRF to around 1622 kHz and stumbled upon what seemed like a meeting. As I listened, I caught mentions of Big Bear Lake. On a whim, I sent a reception report to radio station KBBV in Big Bear Lake. A few days later, I received this letter in the mail. It’s puzzling because I’m not aware of any stations licensed for this type of service on this frequency. Typically, the X-Band (1610-1700 kHz) is occupied by regular broadcast stations.

I’m uncertain how to categorize this station. It seems like a utility station but also functions somewhat as a broadcaster. If you have insight beyond Mr. Vern Thompson’s explanation, I’d love to learn more.