Home sweet home.

I cut my radio teeth on Echo Charlie. I have never really used CB, unless you count using legal CB with a licence back in the early 80's as 48 meter broadcast site communication.
When I started back in the mid 70's it was all AM & either homemade TX's or ex Military equipment. But by the early 80's, rich CB'ers were evident on the band with their converted amateur radio SSB equipment & CB language this also brought an increased DTI interest in the band & more raids.
There were a number of get togethers, one of which was raided...I think this was at Crystal Palace, but it's so long ago, don't hold me to that location.
A mixture of raids & the advent of easy HF amateur radio licences (i.e. No CW) Resulted in EC band activity almost completely stopping, but over the past year or so activity has again slowly increased.

Are you talking about the 6.670 operators or the pirate broadcast stations ?

I had a friend that dabbled in FM pirate radio and tried a bit on 6Mhz with a radio that I aquired that fell off my old employers truck heading towards Gabon.

I seem to remember sitting in his parents house watching him playing a bit of music then talking to another station, and the other station would do the same.

He soon stopped broadcasting from home after a local G8 sat outside his house shining a ( what he described as ) search-light into the house in the early hours of the morning.

Happy days.

I started on Echo Charlie (6.6 MHz) & then discovered listening to AM CB on my TRIO QR666 that a neighbour had an identical voice to a regular broadcaster on the 11 MHz. I QSL'ed his broadcast station & we became friends & it was via him I got involved in broadcasting.
I still continued to dabble with Echo Charlie, but became more involved with broadcasting. I had the odd 41 & 48 meter broadcast TX, some where home made 807 self oscillators, some were modified 19 (ex tank) sets.
I also had a TX that was made for me by a BBC Wofferton enginneer that was an 807 & 2X ECC81's as the RF stage & 2X EL84's on the modulation side. This TX was heavier on the battery, but gave me more watts & it was this set that in the early 80's we played with on MW & LW having altered the tuning gangs & loading coils.
And that was while Laser was still at sea & long before Atlantic 252 used LW.
I also ran a well know (at the time,) P O BOX & had a background role in an offshore radio project.
It would be fair to say in the 80's I knew personally (& by that I mean I had the phone numbers & home addresses) of around 90% of the UK HF broadcasters, plus I had contacts at stations like Radio Sunshine in Ludlow, Radio Jackie in London, Sounds Alternative & UK Radio in Birmingham, Radio Kiwi in New Zealand & a few broadcasters in the USA.

Nice, thanks for posting about this.

I seem to recall having a small photocopied book on making SW transmitters for EC, all valve based, I had no clue ( black box operator ) but made interesting reading none the less.

I've started listening over the last couple of weekends around 6Mhz and have heard Radio Merlin International, and Radio Star International, and googling / you-tube to learn more, funny to see a lot of Dutch stations out there, if I read the Dutch forums correctly, the authorities only seem interested in taking down the FM broadcast pirates rather than the SW ones.

Did you ever have contact with a chap called Phil as an EC op ? Think he was down Crystal Palace way one time.

I hear a lot of French ( could be Belgian ) stations on 6.6, and the odd UK/Irish op.

There were a couple of well known individuals in the Crystal Palace area on Echo Charlie. But experienced hands gave as little info as possible that was accurate as the DTI had amateurs monitoring us & listing details & that's the reason why the rich CB'ers caused so much hassle. They lacked the ability to operate EC without drawing attention to us & they also made easy targets which only served to encourage the DTI to think the effort was worth it.
The place to look for info on free radio broadcasting is Alfa Lima Int, if you look at the Forum there will be PX announcement, whilst on info, there is a comprehensive list of bands.
http://www.alfalima.net/index.html
If you are around late Saturday & Sunday evenings then 1600 Khz plus is a good area to listen, as there are lots of Dutch broadcast stations there, 60Cm is also worth monitoring if you can, as is 85 meters.