NAPRS

NAPRS (North American Pirate Relay Service)

NAPRS was founded in the autumn of 1992 by dead Chicago DXer Richard T. Pistek. Actually, the Operator used his name to memorialize this hobbyist who reportedly committed suicide following the death of his mother. (Note: Another story was that he committed suicide because of poor QSL returns, but who really knows why someone commits suicide?)

Since NAPRS was a dedicated relay station they never produced any original programming, although occasionally they would air a “best of” program featuring clips of the stations relayed over the past year.

The first station NAPRS relayed was Radio Azteca in late September of ’92, and they continued to relay Radio Azteca through October of 1996.

Many, many stations were relayed. Just to name-drop: Radio Esoterica, The Voice of Juliet, K2000, Partial India Radio, WREC, Mystery Radio, and the list goes on. NAPRS was also one of the first stations (along with WREC) to relay EuroPirates in North America, including Radio Titanic International, Heavy Dude Radio, Radio Doctor Tim, and many others.

NAPRS was probably the most active domestic pirate station during 1994-95. The station used both AM and SSB modes, although later in their life it was more SSB. By sometime in 1995 the NAPRS signals began to become weaker, drifty, and less frequent, and it was thought that Dick’s transmitters were getting old and unreliable. The last recorded broadcast from NAPRS was in October of 1996.

NAPRS was always an excellent verifier and, at one time, issued award certificates for verifying a number of stations relayed by them.