The Mighty KBC: July 28, 2019

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Tom Laskowski, who shares the following recording and notes:

Last night I took advantage of a clear Saturday night to head out to my favorite "dark sky" astronomy site south of Bourbon, Indiana to do some stargazing. I took my 5" telescope along with my favorite "accessory", my newly cleaned, aligned and recapped RF-2200. While waiting for sunset and darkness I recorded one hour of The Mighty KBC's Giant Jukebox and followed that up with a recording of three hours of Toronto's CFZM "Zoomer Radio and their weekly program Saturday Night Bandstand. While not SWBC, listening to Zoomer is a great way to spend a Saturday night under the stars. There is some fading and a strange growling noise which I believe was caused by having my digital recorder too close to the radio. Also some thunderstorm static can be heard from storms which popped up near the end of the recording. Both recordings were made with either the RF-2200's whip antenna for KBC or the internal ferrite swivel antenna for CFZM. Enjoy!

Broadcaster: The Mighty KBC

Date of recording: 7/28/2019

Starting time: 0100

Frequency: 9.925

Location: Bourbon, IN

The Mighty KBC: October 17, 2015

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who notes:

Live three-hour-long recording of a transmission from the The Mighty KBC on 17 October 2015 beginning at 23:00 UTC on a frequency of 7395 kHz from a transmitter at Nauen, Germany, operating at 125 kW and beamed to North America. This was the first regular Saturday night transmission by KBC using this new frequency following a test on 26 September 2015.

Reception was good with negligible interference and only occasional fading. The recording starts with "It's Radio, But Not As We know It" presented by Dave Mason followed by "The Giant Jukebox" presented by Eric van Willegen ("Uncle Eric"). Both programs feature mostly "oldies" pop music with commentary and announcements in English with some announcements and commercials in Dutch.

The broadcast was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with its built-in telescopic whip antenna indoors in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada, in AM mode with 5.0 kHz RF filtering. 

The Mighty KBC: September 26, 2015

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Richard Langley, who notes:

Live hour-long recording of a test transmission from the The Mighty KBC on 26 September 2015 beginning at 23:00 UTC on a frequency of 7395 kHz, likely from a transmitter site in Europe. The Mighty KBC uses a transmitter at Nauen, Germany, operating at 125 kW for its regular Sunday UTC broadcast.

Reception was very good with negligible interference and only slight fading. The program ("The Giant Jukebox"), produced and announced by Eric van Willegen ("Uncle Eric") originated from Ede, The Netherlands, and consisted of pop music and announcements including requests for reception reports.

The broadcast was received on a Tecsun PL-880 receiver with its built-in telescopic whip antenna indoors in Hanwell (just outside Fredericton), New Brunswick, Canada, in AM mode with 5.0 kHz RF filtering. 

The Mighty KBC: May 24, 2015

The Mighty KBC broadcast via the TitanSDR Pro

For your listening pleasure: three hours of The Mighty KBC.

This broadcast was recorded on May 24, 2015 starting around 00:00 UTC on 9,925 kHz. I used the TitanSDR Pro hooked up to my large skyloop antenna to capture this recording; in truth, the signal was so strong it could've been easily received on a portable here in eastern North America.

Use the embedded player below to listen to the recording. A download link has also been provided for your convenience:

The Mighty KBC: October 18, 2014

Sunday, October 18, 2014, I tuned to The Mighty KBC on 7,375 kHz, starting at 0000 UTC. The KBC signal out of Europe was blow-torch strength here in North America.

DJ "Uncle Eric" begins the music mix with one of my favorite songs by The Kinks: "Lola."

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. Please subscribe to our podcast to receive future recordings automatically.

The Mighty KBC: July 27, 2014

Sunday at 00:00-02:00 UTC, I tuned to 9,925 kHz to listen to The Mighty KBC.

KBC’s signal was clean and blowtorch strength into North America. Though I used my WinRadio Excalibur to record the broadcast, I stepped outside with my recently acquired RadioShack DX-402 (above) and heard KBC as if were a local station.

As we’ve come to expect, The Mighty KBC’s Giant Jukebox of music has a lot of rock-n-roll and Euro-pop variety, spanning the decades.

This broadcast begins with a tribute to Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 which had a large number of passengers from the Netherlands, where The Mighty KBC is produced.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below. 

The Mighty KBC: March 9, 2014

DJ Eric van Willegen, "Uncle Eric"

For your listening pleasure: two hours of The Mighty KBC, recorded on March 9, 2014 starting at 00:00 UTC on their winter frequency of 7,375 kHz.

As we’ve come to expect, the Mighty KBC’s Giant Jukebox of music has a lot of rock-n-roll and Euro-pop variety, spanning the decades; DJ, “Uncle Eric” knows how to entertain and spin the tunes! Uncle Eric includes Kim Elliott’s digital text modes in this broadcast–if you missed the live broadcast, you can even decode the messages from the recording below.

Click here to download the recording as an MP3, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

The Mighty KBC

The Mighty KBC broadcast again early this morning (from 00:00-02:00 UTC) on their new summer frequency of 9,925 kHz. Their signal from Nauen, Germany was packing 125 kW--it was amazingly strong into North America. As we’ve come to expect, the KBC’s Giant Jukebox of music has a lot of rock-n-roll and Euro-pop variety, spanning the decades; DJ, "Uncle Eric" knows how to entertain and spin the tunes!

You can listen to the full recording below in the embedded player, or simply right click this link and save the MP3 file to your computer.

You’ll notice that Kim Elliott has another installation of digital text modes in this broadcast. Decode these digital modes using Fldigi from www.w1hkj.com. Be sure to check out Dr. Elliott's VOA Radiogram website for full details about this broadcast.

The Mighty KBC

The Mighty KBC broadcast again early this morning (from 00:00-02:00 UTC) on 9,450 kHz. Their signal was quite strong into North America and there was very little interference of any sort. As we've come to expect, the KBC's Giant Jukebox of music has a lot of rock-n-roll variety, spanning the decades.

And as I've mentioned before, perhaps what I love most about The Mighty KBC is their format; it harkens back to the day when my local radio stations had professional DJ's behind the mic, people who loved music and loved their job.  Thanks to Eric and The Mighty KBC for blasting the Giant Jukebox across the planet! I look forward to their broadcast every weekend.

You can listen to the full recording below in the embedded player, or simply right click this link and save the MP3 file to your computer:

You'll notice that Kim Elliott has another installation of digital text modes in this broadcast. At about 01:30 UTC, Olivia 8-2000 will be centered on 1500 Hertz, and PSKR125 centered on 2800 Hertz. At just before 02:00 UTC, images in MFSK32 will be at 1000 and 2000 Hertz, with another image in MFSK16 at 2600 Hertz.

Decode these digital modes using Fldigi from www.w1hkj.com.

The Mighty KBC

Once again, The Mighty KBC broadcast a two hour mix of music to the world on 9,500 kHz. Fortunately, I was able to record the entire broadcast--you can listen below. The KBC signal and audio out of their transmitter in Bulgaria were both excellent. There was very noticeable interference from the clandestine station, Radio Republica, who broadcasts at the same time (00:00-01:57 UTC) on 9,490 kHz.  According to my spectrum display, Republica's signal had a bandwidth of 20 kHz!  At times, I had to narrow my receiver filter to about 6.6 kHz and use a USB sync mode  to keep KBC's broadcast clear.  Still, you can certainly hear some of the noise from Radio Republica in the recording.

Since Radio Republica is broadcast from the US, I'm curious if listeners in other parts of the world (or other parts of North America) had the same problem. If so, please comment!  I'll pass this along to KBC.

You can download the entire broadcast as an mp3 by clicking here, or simply listen in the embedded player below: