Offshore pirate radio.

[Michael Booth 7,364]

This is a video of Peter Antony doing a live programme on Radio Luxemburg in 1985 and towards

the end Stuart Henry, in a wheelchair, is shown as he prepares to take over the airwaves.

There's also a lot of good stuff on the added videos at the end.

[zachariah 2]

In the late 60s and early 70s I was lucky enough to have an aunt who owned a hotel in Chapel St Leonards and was even luckier to be able to spend all the school holidays there up to the age of about 15.

The main pirate radio station I remember from those days was Radio North Sea International, which I believe was broadcast just off that coast somewhere. Some nights the reception was better than others. On bad reception days I would listen to Luxembourg or the American Forces Network.

Another pirate station which springs to mind, albeit much later was Laser 558, which I think broadcast on the same frequency as North Sea International, but I could be wrong.

[dgbrit 258]

My dad would give me a hell of a thrashing for killing the batteries on the radio all night , I would put it under my pillow & fall to sleep with the sound of the Drifters or Ike & Tina Turner etc.

[barclaycon 569]

RNI went all round the houses as far as frequencies go.

It started off on 186 meters - right at the edge of the AM dial, but it was prone to shipping interference and you got a lot of morse code breaking through. They then tried a bunch of frequencies - including 244 meters which was very close to Radio 1.

The government jammed it for a while until the ship returned to being off the Dutch coast.

Eventually they settled on 220 meters where it stayed until closedown in 1974.

RNI had very powerful transmitters and was bristling with aerials. It simultaneously broadcast on AM, FM and Short Wave.

Laser 558 when it appeared in 1984 was way up the other end of the dial. It didn't have the power of RNI, but was on a fairly clear frequency and got good coverage throughout Europe.

Both stations were great to listen to. Laser especially gave the music industry a good kick up the arse. I know for a fact that they were responsible for a lot of new material appearing in the charts.

Now that we have loads of stations you'd think that it would be easy to find something worthwhile to listen to!

(Don't get me started!)

[zab 47]

There is an internet version of RNI still running and feturing some of the old dj's at - http://www.rni.vze.com/

The site is fairly naff but the programmes are fine, just scroll down for the links.

[Oztalgian 3,269]

Recently watched the movie "The Boat That Rocked" - well worth watching, the story of a fictitious pirate radio station in the 60's

I did not know that under the terms of issue of your "Wireless License" it was an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act to listen to unauthorised broadcasts which probably included those of Radio Luxembourg and almost certainly all the "pirate" stations.

 

Hands up all of you that broke the law!

[catfan 14,793]

I certainly, it was much better than the BBCs offerings.

[AfferGorritt 868]

Good to look back at old posts (well before my time on here). Autumn nights. Tranny on the bonnet of Pete’s Dad’s car. Caroline or London. Our “gang”. Relationships formed, sometimes, as in our case, for life. Happy days!

[colly0410 1,181]

52 years today since the pirate radio stations went off air. They said there were no wavelengths on medium wave for them, yet a few years later in the early 70's the BBC local stations fired up, then the local ILR stations fired up all on medium wave.... The medium wave band is almost empty nowadays, mind you it's full of mains born interference from CFL's/routers/digital TV's & whatnot last time I checked...

[Willow wilson 894]

Good memories of those days. Here's a couple of reminders for me from '64.