Radio Mi Amigo on 6085 kHz: offshore-era oldies from Kall in the Eifel

What you hear

Radio Mi Amigo plays the music of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the way the offshore stations of the North Sea played it: jingles, a presenter with a story to tell between records, requests from listeners, and a general refusal to take itself too seriously. Programmes come in Dutch, English and some German, with presenters who in several cases remember the original ships. On 6085 kHz the station runs from 07:00 to 17:00 UTC every day, so it is a daytime companion rather than a night-time catch, and the identification is "Radio Mi Amigo International".

The sound is small-transmitter AM: clean, slightly narrow audio, and a signal that is comfortable near the transmitter and thinner with distance. It is not trying to be a powerhouse. It is trying to sound like 1974.

Who transmits and why

The name comes from the original Radio Mi Amigo, a Flemish offshore station that broadcast from a ship off the Dutch and British coasts in the 1970s and was wildly popular in Belgium and the Netherlands before the authorities closed the offshore era down. Today's Radio Mi Amigo International is a legal revival run by enthusiasts of that era, with a studio base abroad and an online stream, and shortwave is its link to the old audience. The 6085 kHz transmission comes from the transmitting site at Kall-Krekel in the Eifel, west of Bonn, a small facility that hires out low-power shortwave transmitters to several hobby and commercial stations. One kilowatt is enough: the target is the Benelux countries, western Germany and the nearby parts of France, all within a few hundred kilometres.

When and where to listen

The hours are 07:00 to 17:00 UTC, and 6085 kHz lies in the 49 metre band, which by day is a regional band: the signal is heard well within roughly 500 kilometres of the Eifel, which takes in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Germany and north-eastern France, and fades beyond that. The best hours are the first and the last of the schedule, around 07:00 and 16:00 UTC, when the band stretches a little further; in winter the late afternoon reaches well into Britain, Denmark and Poland. From southern Europe or Scandinavia the station is possible but weak, and from outside Europe not really.

The catalogue mode is AM. Because the power is low, choose a receiver near the transmitter rather than a sensitive one far away; and if a bigger broadcaster sits on 6080 or 6090 kHz, upper or lower sideband with a narrow filter keeps the music clean.

In ShackDeck

The entry sits under Station catalogue → Shortwave broadcast → Radio Mi Amigo 6085. ShackDeck picks a public receiver whose range covers 6085 kHz, tunes it and sets AM from the catalogue, so you need no receiver, antenna or account of your own. Receivers in the Netherlands, Belgium and western Germany give the signal the offshore sound deserves.