ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 28

May 2005
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

Non number station news

The Hebrew language broadcaster continues to put a strong signal into the UK in the evenings on the out-of-band frequency 6,973 kHz, a part of the spectrum much favoured by number stations. Continues with a mixture of chit-chat, local music and a fair sprinkling of British "oldies". Most unlikely track heard in recent weeks was "I want to be straight", by the late Ian Dury and his backing group the Blockheads, heard a few weeks ago, I bought this myself in the early eighties on vinyl, on the "Stiff" label if I remember correctly. Bit of a surprise to find that this spin-off of the London pub-rock scene made it as far as Israel.

Welcome return of an old favourite;- a chance tuning around on the afternoon of the Easter Monday public holiday, 28-March-05, found some voices from the past on 3,940 kHz, namely "Radio Free London", heard at 1430 UTC, 3.30 PM BST. Sounded like the same personalities which used to be heard at weekends quite regularly on 5,805 kHz until a few years ago. I thought they had been raided so many times that they had given up. This was a strong signal, S8 to S9 which in daylight might suggest that the ground wave was being received; much stronger than any stations in the 80 metre amateur band a few hundred kHz lower.

[Tnx PoSW]