Free Radio Cafe: Pirate Radio On Shortwave & FM

I have been thinking:
The Sun spots are picking up
The 11M band is getting a good amount of DX
The 11M Shortwave Broadcast band is a wasteland....

Has anyone considered playing around up there?

Export CB's will reach down there, unmodified
RF Power is Easy to be had (thanks to all the lip-cutting cb'ers)
Antennas are quite compact...

Break, break, break,

break, break, break.

This is Harelip One,

Harelip One,

do you read me,

over??

And Your Point Is?

You must not be aware of the II Meter Broadcast Band, below the 11 Meter CB Band...

The 11 meter band is wide open, and currently, propagation isn't bad, and one could get world wide very easy.

As far as "bang for the buck", I believe that 11 meters offers some of the best:
Inexpensive Transmitters (High Level AM Modulation, not "Downward Modulation" found on current Amateur Transmitters)
Inexpensive Amplifiers (Class C (Cheap AM amps), Class AB (Better SSB Amplifiers)
Short Antennas available from Radio Shack, or stupid easy to build,easy to conceal, and easy to vertically polarize for a better take-off angle for distance...

One would just need to gain listeners.

Of course, the naysayers will scream "Lost CB'er!" (See retarded post above), but there IS a broadcast band there around 26 Mhz.... and it is very underused...


I am currently setting up a SuperStar 3900 to run AM mode with a Palomar 225 (Class AB) amplifier. That should get a nice 150-200 Watt Modulated AM signal out. and an audio bandwidth of 70Hz to 9-10kHz easy

And a 1/4 Wave Ground Plane Antenna for 26MHz is a simple 9' vertical with 108" ground radials... $25 at Radio Shack for a 102" stainless whip, a short 3/8-24 threaded adapter about 6"-7" long, 4 wire radials and a simple 90 degree metal mount to anything upright...

Well, I have not left my idea for dead, but my plan has changed a tad...

The Superstar I had slated for this project has developed a few issues... no problem...

I picked up a Stryker SR-655HPC. it covers the required freqs easy, and is pretty set up for some decent audio, using 0.1uf bypass caps through out the audio chain.... and did I mention it will do a modulated 70 watts stock?

should do pretty well....

Hi, it seems okay but I want to make such activity in Australian cafe, possible here?

Jbird22 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 19, 2025 4:19 am

Hi, it seems okay but I want to make such activity in Australian cafe, possible here?

Go ahead and post 11-meter activity in the Australian forum if that's where it is. That's fine by me.
viewforum.php?f=18