There are several ways to find out how well you were heard. One way is to watch the hobby newsletters and publications for loggings of your station, this requires patience because even the fastest newsletters will take a few days or weeks to arrive; the magazines can be as much as three or four months behind. Hobby publications are a great place to see what is going on and who is doing what. I would highly recommend the ACE or Pirate Pages as a good source for keeping up with the pirate scene. But when you have worked hard to achieve a good signal, you really need some hard data that will tell you what you are doing wrong and right.
The best way to obtain this information is from the people who listen to you. Pirate Radio listeners collect cards that verify that they have heard your station (QSL cards). Most listeners in exchange for one of your cards will provide a fairly detailed report of your signal as well as comments about the programming content. From these reports you can determine where you are heard the strongest, how well your audio was understood, and what your listeners like to hear. This is information that commercial radio stations pay a fortune to find out.
How you get these reports is not easy. You cannot give your home address or phone number on the air, and using any address that is local to you will lead the wrong people to you. The most logical option is to use a maildrop, the idea is simple. A mail drop is operated by a person who wishes to support free radio and will act as a forwarding point for your mail. This means that you will have to expose your identity to some one else; however the operators of the major mail drops are extremely secure and are trusted by hundreds of pirate stations. In order to obtain the services of a mail drop you will first need to contact the operator. They will in turn advise you of their rules and ask you for pertinent information such as where you want your mail forwarded to and the name of your station, etc. Most operators have a few rules that they expect to be followed; some require that you announce that the listeners send three stamps to pay the cost of postage to the pirates address and back. Most drop operators operate their drops for free, your respect of his time is important, he is doing you a great service and you should do as much as possible to make it easier for him. During your broadcasts you will announce the address of your drop with any specific instructions such as, "send a detailed report and your comments on the show, with three stamps". The listeners will prepare their reports and send them to your drop operator. He in turn repackages the reports and mails them to your address. You will then reaview the reports for accuracy , prepare whatever you want to send to the listeners and mail them with appropriate postage to the mail drop operator. He will then mail the responses to the listeners. This is a great way to gain listeners.
The pirate radio community is surprisingly well informed; a station that does not respond to listeners reports will soon be known to all and notice a sharp drop in listener response. However a station that verifies reports with reliability will be well liked by the listeners and will likely see an increase in mail coming into their drop. The bottom line is, if you don't plan to verify listener's reports, don't ask for them.
When you get your reception reports don't just gaze over them and throw them out, you can get a lot of good information from them. Look at where your signal is strongest; according to the design of your antenna does this reflect what you were trying to do? If someone says that you sounded distorted, was this because you were over modulated? Or did you use too much echo? Look at what type of radio the listener has; if it is a cheap low end radio you can expect his signal to be less than the guy with the mega-buck deluxe model. Did he use a good antenna ? Or did he hear you on the radios whip antenna? Notice the time that you were on the air; does it seem that certain times of the night some of your listeners report a lot of static? Do certain frequency choices get better reports?
Many pirate stations keep a detailed log of information from reception reports, some have maps with marks or numbers on them reflecting the best reception areas, times and frequencies, some pirates have found that they can target a certain area by choosing the frequency and time dictated from the information they have compiled. If you are trying to entertain your listeners, use their comments about your programming to choose the parts of your programs that seem to attract the attention of your listeners. Although opinions vary widely, you can tell if you are getting your point across. If you broadcasted a commentary on the" homeless" and your listeners thought you said "homesick", you may want to review the method in which you presented this subject. Could you be talking too fast? Is your background music too loud? Or were the band conditions just too noisy? Some listeners will misunderstand your message no matter how clear it is made.
Your QSL can be hand made or professionally printed, but don't be too worried about getting a professional look. Some of the most creative QSLs are often hand drawn on a plain piece of paper.
Listeners always like a little station information such as transmitter power and the type of antenna used. Some stations include a station information sheet that gives a technical description of their station. Samples of station QSLs are provided throughout this book.
Some listeners will add to their reception report by including a tape recording of your show so you can hear for yourself what the signal sounded like. A good way to reward the listener for providing you with this is to return the tape with a copy of the program recorded from your studio master. Radio Airplane,often randomly sends tapes to listeners,this is possibly because they just liked the report, or they just want to encourage more letters. The way you respond to your listeners is totally up to you. Be sure to have fun with it and remember that it is important that you just respond.
Some of the CURRENTLY ACTIVE PIRATE MAIL DROPS
P.O. Box 452, Wellsville NY 14895
P.O. Box 109, BlueRidge Summit, PA
P.O. Box 146, Stoneham, MA 02180
P.O. Box 293, Merlin, Ontario NOP 1WO
P.O. Box 605, Huntsville AL 35804
P.O. Box 17534, Atlanta GA 30616
(may not accept new stations)
P.O. Box 40554, Washington DC 20016
(not very active)
Always remember to write to the Mail drop operator and obtain permission before announcing
an address on the air. All drops listed may not be accepting new stations, you must inquire
with the operator to assure availability.