Back in October 2009, Wireless Waffle brought to your attention the HF (short-wave) monitoring data produced on a quarterly basis by the ITU. Within these reports were a number of short-wave pirate stations and the original list of stations brought a lot of interest from these stations, both to see who had been 'caught' and to see how close the ITU had gotten to identifying their exact location. Based on the e-mails that were received following the article, it seems like some had hit the nail a little too closely on the head for comfort.

To see how the ITU were getting along, and who had been spotted more recently, a trawl of the montoring reports from January to June 2010 has been conducted and the results presented below. Those stations whose name is shown in CAPITALS were directly identified by the monitoring station concerned. Those in lower case have been identified using the various on-line blogs that report pirate reception.

Date	Time (UTC)	Freq (kHz)	Monitoring Station	Location	Station
03 Feb 10	0600-0600	4025	Berlin, Germany	UK	Laser Hot Hits
23 Feb 10	0000-0630	4025	Tarnok, Hungary		Laser Hot Hits
23 Feb 10	1830-2359	4025	Tarnok, Hungary		Laser Hot Hits
21 Apr 10	1830-2400	4025	Berlin, Germany		Laser Hot Hits
02 May 10	0600-2359	4025	Rambouillet, France	0W10 52N01 (Baldock, UK!)	Laser Hot Hits
23 May 10	0000-0630	4015	Tarnok, Hungary		Laser Hot Hits
16 May 10	1900-2212	5814.7	Rambouillet, France	0E17 52N45 (King's Lynn, UK)	Radio Telstar South
16 May 10	0700-0915	5815	Rambouillet, France	6E11 52N30 (Zwolle, Netherlands)	Orion Radio
27 Jun 10	0630-0820	5820	Tarnok, Hungary		Orion Radio
11 Apr 10	0854-0908	6203	Vienna, Austria		Radio Scotland International
09 Feb 10	1048	6210.2	CCRM, Belgium	Netherlands	MISTI RADIO
10 Jan 10	1818-2246	6220	El Casar, Spain	11E24 44N27 (Bologna, Italy)	Mystery Radio
20 Jan 10	1812-2350	6220	El Casar, Spain	11E24 44N27 (Bologna, Italy)	Mystery Radio
30 Jan 10	2002	6220	Baldock, UK	10E0 43N50 (Pisa, Italy)	MYSTERY RADIO
28 Feb 10	1100-1137	6220	Vienna, Austria	11E0 44N0 (Prato, Italy)	RADIO MARABU
06 Mar 10	1800-2350	6220	El Casar, Spain	11E24 44N27 (Bologna, Italy)	Mystery Radio
21 Mar 10	2012-2355	6220	El Casar, Spain	11E24 44N27 (Bologna, Italy)	Mystery Radio
06 Apr 10	1852-1917	6220	Vienna, Austria	Italy	MYSTERY RADIO
10 Apr 10	1900-2359	6220	El Casar, Spain	11E24 44N27 (Bologna, Italy)	MYSTERY RADIO
13 Jun 10	1730-1800	6220	Klagenfurt, Austria	12E0 43N0 (Perugia, Italy)	Mystery Radio
14 Jun 10	1700-1900	6220	Rambouillet, France	10E43 43N45 (Prato, Italy)	MISTERY RADIO
15 Jun 10	0700-0800	6255	Rambouillet, France	Netherlands	Cool AM
19 Jun 10	1530-1645	6374.1	Rambouillet, France	4E13 51N59 (Den Haag, Netherlands)	Radio Baken 16
09 Feb 10	0944	6299.2	CCRM, Belgium		RADIO RAINBOW
30 Apr 10	1918-2005	6375	Vienna, Austria	Netherlands	Radio Relmus
09 Feb 10	0914	6376.6	CCRM, Belgium	Netherlands	RADIO DUTCH WING
20 Jun 10	1015-1600	6399.9	Rambouillet, France	1W45 51N21 (Marlborough, UK)	Laser 558 relay
11 Mar 10	1815-2200	6870	El Casar, Spain	9E7 45N18 (Milan, Italy)	RADIO PLAYBACK INT
11 Apr 10	1500-1700	6959.9	Rambouillet, France	4E39 51N41 (Breda, Netherlands)	Radio Jan Van Gent
03 Jan 10	0800	7610	El Casar, Spain	Italy	RADIO AMICA
10 Apr 10	0600-2115	7610	Rambouillet, France	12E56 43N55 (Pesaro, Italy)	RADIO AMICA
11 Apr 10	0530-0600	7610	Rambouillet, France	12E56 43N55 (Pesaro, Italy)	RADIO AMICA
10 Apr 10	1247-1407	7610	Vienna, Austria	11E30 44N30 (Bologna, Italy)	RADIO AMICA

Please be assured that it is not our intention to name and shame these stations in any way, nor is the Wireless Waffle team opposed to hobby broadcasting (for want of a better word) but we do believe that the stations concerned should be aware that their location may not be as secret as they had hoped.

The question of how accurate these measurements are is a good one. The level of concern that seemed to arise from the previous list suggests that they may be relatively good. However, let's take a real example. There are 10 measurements relating to Mystery Radio. Of these, five different locations are logged. The map below shows the position of these loggings.



The distance between the closest of all these measurements is around 20 miles (32 km). It is possible that this is the best resolution that some of the monitoring stations can achieve. At this kind of resolution, a ground-based receiver would be unlikely to hear the transmitter. Ground wave signals would not travel this far, and it is the ground wave signal which is required for a person on the ground to be able to 'home in' on the location of a transmitter.

So should pirate radio stations be concerned about being tracked down as a result of the work of the ITU. From the evidence above, it seems that this data alone is probably insufficient to allow a station's location to be identified in one simple move. However, if you are running one of these stations and the location which is shown is more accurate than those for Mystery Radio - and certainly if its within 5 km at which point a man on the ground would be able to track you down - perhaps it's time to up sticks and find a new site!