It's been another busy year on shortwave with plenty of pirates from around Europe switching on their transmitters to entertain us.
The weekend remains the time when you are likely to hear the most activity although during the week there's often stations on the air - particularly around late afternoon into the evening.
From the UK, regulars like Weekend Music Radio, Radio Pamela, Radio Pandora, Merseyland Alternative Radio and XTC continue to broadcast, while last year also saw the return of a station from the 1970s - Radio Corsair. The operator made broadcasts as Corsair and also Radio Overdrive.
A new station is Radio Dead who has been heard on both shortwave and medium wave. In the true pirate spirit, he plays banned records, such as those by Judge Dread, and plus off-beat comedy clips. Another new station was Radio Badger, who was heard in the 49 metre band, on 6040 kHz.
There are still many stations which seem to be no more than the radio equivalent of Spotify, with non-stop music and jingles - not the most exciting stations to listen to.
But it is good to see that there are stations that take the time to put programmes together and will interact with the listeners, via email messages or the pirate chat group.
As always, the most pirate activity continues to come from the Netherlands. The power used varies from a few watts up to a kilowatt or more. There are a number of entertaining stations such as Contikenzo, Monique and, of course, Johnny Tobacco.
I've totted up the shortwave stations I logged in 2025. Last year a total of 144 pirates were heard, compared to 131 in 2024. Of these 82 were from the Netherlands, 21 from the UK and eight from Germany.
Some were regulars heard throughout the year while others only made one or two broadcasts during 2024. I haven't counted relays of internet or licensed stations.
Here's the country breakdown with 2024's figures in brackets:
- Netherlands 82 (72)
- United Kingdown 21 (19)
- Germany 8 (8)
- Ireland 6 (6)
- Finland 2 (5)
- Italy 4 (4)
- Greece 2 (2)
- Spain 2 (1)
- Belgium 2 (1)
- Ukraine, Belarus, Czech Republic, Russia, Portugal, Poland, France, Hungary: 1 each
- Unknown 5 (8)
For a list of the stations I logged on shortwave last year click
HERE
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The medium wave scene remains as busy as ever. Radio Blackbeard is on most days on 1494 putting out a great signal while from Ireland Energy Power AM is a regular or 1440 or 1431. A new station from Ireland heard recently was Klas AM.
Above 1611 kHz are the Dutch pirates. You can see a list of medium wave pirates logged in the Netherlands by Assen DX on his blog. He logged 239 stations last year, up slightly from 2024.
