Party Vibe

@dubstep_joe 474705 wrote:

What exactly is this? An illegal/unregistered radio broadcasting station?

its for listening to transmissions. He does not have any transmitting equipment (although it is not hard to get a license from Agentschap Telecom). Everything he does is perfectly legal and above board – (he’s even got a callsign NL6777 it is useful for reception reports) although he does monitor military comms anything which is sensitive would be encrypted, and the views of most Communications Ministry engineers are that chaps like him are a useful asset to Europe and the World.

he lives in Breda (where Tiësto is also from!) which is near a lot of tidal rivers which feed into dikes/gates where (similar to Essex) there is great risk of small vessels running aground, fouling anchor or becoming fast to telecoms cable. But many EU countries have downsized their marine radio monitoring because they privatisted the telecoms company, and do not listen as much on the VHF radio channels. Also there are lots of old folk flying old aeroplanes about like Biggles

This is the Dutch KPN (Post Office Telecommunications) closing down their VHF and HF station at Schevenigen in 1998 (this is now mostly done by the Coastguard, as the telecoms companies no longer pass link calls into the main system as everyone has GSM and satellite phones on board ship.

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Alle schepen, alle schepen, alle schepen,
Dit is Scheveningen Radio, Scheveningen Radio, Scheveningen Radio
nu volgt het laatste bericht. na 94 jaar maritiëme radiocommunicatie zal Scheveningen Radio vaandag 31 dec om 1500 utc zijn diensten beëindingen. STOP

All ships, all ships, all ships
This is Scheveningen Radio, Scheveningen Radio, Scheveningen Radio
last message folllows. After 94 years of maritime radiocommuincation, Scheveningen Radio will cease services today at 31.12.1998 at 1500 UTC. STOP

This would be the VHF listening watch position (VHF normally only works in your country) as she is speaking in Dutch (for HF the language used is English). What she also would do is listen out for a MAYDAY or PAN PAN call for ships in emergency.

But nowadays most countries no longer have someone listening on cans, but on loudspeaker on Channel 16. Worse, here in Blighty our Coastguard Control is being shifted to Dover or Southampton from Essex! There is supposed to be this system called GMDSS which sends automatic GPS coordinates but if some poor buggers vessel is pooped and the batteries drowned their main radio and GPS might not work so they might be using a handheld without GMDSS.

In these cases is often chaps like Eric what can pick up the call, dial 112 and keep these sailors out of Davy Jones’s Locker! They also notice sources of interference such as foreign jamming from Soviet countries (this stuff still goes on) and atmospherics (sunspots etc).

it is Dutch; and one of the first things I learned – Schevenigen is on the border area with DE – the accent is easier for German speakers to understand (I was able to learn German for a bit in high school and some more from the Internet even in the late 1990s – I only started with learning Dutch since 2008)

On the kids programme Die Sendung mit der Maus they sometimes show “Käpitan Blaubär” at the end who speaks German but in a “North Sea Coastal” accent and reminds me of the DJ’s on the pirate radio station in that area :laugh_at:

@iliesse 985586 wrote:

can u just explain in a few words whatisthe guy doing exactly or can do plz GL? I BEGAN TO LISTEN ,BUT WISH TO UNDERSTAND A BIT BEFORE I SE THE WHOLE WHAT IS GO ON:sign0085::sign0009::sign0092::sign0027:

he can listen to all the communications of ships and aircraft (as well as radio amateurs).

in the EU and UK you are allowed to do this (and even encouraged by the Communications Ministry); on the condition that if you hear a distress call and it is not immediately being dealt with you call 112 and pass on the info. There is other stuff like weather transmissions and even secret code signals from the Russians!

Ths remains a popular hobby within Europe although perhaps more so in NL, DE, DK and UK as they have more coastal areas – in CH and AT it is preferable to be up a mountain (otherwise you won’t receive many signals).

Those CB radios with stronger output power and different transmission type (SSB) are now legal to use in UK and Germany although Switzerland is unusual in Europe for being extremely strict about radio equipment (considering how much else is permitted there!)

A lot of professional grade equipment I use for work is not licensed by the BAKOM (I do wonder if it is so folk have to by the really expensive stuff like Ascom, Swissphone etc which are all sold by CH companies).

Unfortunately the CB frequencies are now nearly unusable due to bad interference from other electronic equipment especially that which transmits computer network data over the mains electricity wires. Even if you are up a mountain you cannot escape that, as if only one person in the village has this bad equipment the signals can end up transmitted across every overhead power line for 20-100m. (This is also bad for the people using the computers as others could even spy on their data!)

To use any stronger power or different frequencies you need the radio amateur license which you have to take an exam for – the first level is not difficult but you cannot build your own equipment and have to use less power than the CB radio nor can you use your portable equipment in another country.

Some countries combine the first two levels of the license but you need then to know some of the difficult maths.

For all the exams you now also have to travel for a couple of weekends to some place many km from anywhere; where as well as the exam some Opa’s teach you how to do things you are likely to have already known for a few years; and sometimes also how to transmit with the morse key even though its no longer an international requirement (the reason was that you would recognise SOS-signals at sea, but modern ships have VHF and satellite comms for this).

It is not quite as bad as it sounds but they only do these exams once or twice every year in unusual locations which is inconvenient for busy younger people and is why less people do it for a hobby nowadays even if they work as a professional in the electronics industry.