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Its great that we all have fond memories of the pirates, however when I asked Stevie Merike what life was like on board, his reply was "cold and celibate!" They did a great job making us feel good though!

The jingles, the likes of which we had never heard on British radio before, mostly came from PAMS and Jam jingles in Dallas, and had been used for a number of years on American stations.

There were also the "home made" ones, eg DLT voicing "Going back in time on the sounds of the nation, its a Caroline flashback" and who could forget his intro for his lunchtime show, uused with "A touch of brass etc"....."From Radio Caroline South, its the Dave Lee Travis show!"

Jonny Walker also instantly memorable with his theme "Because Theyre Young" by Duane Eddy.

Funnilly enough, some time back, I was invited down to Stringfellows nightclub, and Tony Prince, (The Royal Ruler!) who was in chatrge of the Disco Mix Club (DMC) announced on the mic about our soon to be born child, incidentally Tony Blacburn was there, but I found him rude, and despite him once being a favourite of mine, I soon changed my mind!

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Another one that I met and worked with and found to be incredibly rude Bruno Brookes

!bored2!

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Another one that I met and worked with and found to be incredibly rude Bruno Brookes

!bored2!

I bumped into him when I went up to Radio Aire to see my old mate (sadly departed) Peter Tait, he seemed a bit "off" and I recall Peter mentioning that he wasnt overly liked.

I think his problem was that hed been a "star" on Radio 1, and was now having to do local radio.

Back to the Blackburn thing, everyone doing dance music on air, was invited to Strinfellows, and there were guys from record labels whose job it was to plug the new stuff to radio jocks, Dave Pearce was one, as well as working on the then pirate Kiss 100.

Dave and I had previously worked together, and indeed had been out to dinner, so, when everyone was socialising and having a generally good time, I spotted Dave with blackburn, and as lots of folk were taking pix, I thought id get one of the two of them, and just politely asked them to smile for the camera, only to be "knocked back" by Blackburn, who accused me of being rude, and couldnt I see that they were talking!?!? FFS, everyone else was accomodating and pleasant, but not him. No wonder Tess left him!

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talking of radio.....what grinds my gears is local radio bleeding over stations i want to listen to....GRRRrrrr makes me sooo...

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For those interested in watery radio, you might be interested in the return of Swinging Radio England, not sure how long it's for - it's to mark the anniversary of the Marine Offences Act and the shutdown of the pirates in '67.

The link is here - http://www.nowthatsradio.co.uk/

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  • 4 years later...

talking of radio.....what grinds my gears is local radio bleeding over stations i want to listen to....GRRRrrrr makes me sooo...

Are you sure it's the radio stations and not your radio??? Poorly designed radios or radios that need realigning will cause that problem. We are talking AM here btw. It's called "imaging".

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That youtube video looks like it's from the Isle of Man Caroline exhibition from a few years back.

That state of radio today is depressing. Music is at a low point and radio stations seem to all sound the same.

DAB wasn't the revolution that was promised.

I find myself listening to speech radio most of the time.

As for local radio, even the BBC seems to be killing it. Plans are in place to have the same programme on many BBC local stations throughout the country at certain times of the day!

In the 60's we all thought that commercial radio on land we be a great thing, but then we assumed that they would all be like the Pirates but clearer.

No wonder we wallow in nostalgia.

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Just got back from a very enjoyable evening at Westminster Library - a small exhibition and also a chat with Roger Scott (Essex, 270, 390, Caroline, RNI), Paul Burnett (270, Manx, Luxy, R1, Capital), Guy Hamilton (Essex,270), Ian Daimon (Big L, ILR) and Mark Wesley (Essex, 270 Radio Scotland, Luxy, RNI).

More nostalgia - I know!

Some interesting observations:

Pocket transistor radio's were the iPods of their day.

Record sales were never higher.

Music and radio was important to people's lives.

45 years on and we are still talking about it.

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I was a "Big L" fan myself (Radio London, that is), but needed an old tube (valve) radio, and an antenna all the way down the garden to get decent reception!

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Yes, so was I.

Big L was definitely the best of the Pirates, but remember the dreaded religious programmes ? (Garner Ted Armstrong et al).

That was the time that you normally went wandering to get back to some music. Fortunately you usually didn't have to go far - there were lots of other stations close by.

The reception in Notts wasn't too bad if I remember rightly. Certainly better than the BBC. Even when Radio 1 started the reception was still pretty poor - particularly at night time.

Great days though. Fantastic stuff to listen to.

Just off at a tangent, after the Pirates had gone and Radio 1 had started to become established, remember the Radio 1 Club gigs in the Market Square?

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I remember listening to one of the radio stations, despite jamming transmissions.

Wikipedia says:

in 1970 the government of the United Kingdom decided to employ a jamming transmitter to drown out the incoming transmissions from the commercial station Radio North Sea International, which was based aboard the Motor Vessel (MV) Mebo II anchored off southeast England in the North Sea..

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I remember that too Mick. It was quite dramatic, but then again RNI seemed to have a lot of drama attached to it.

There was one weekend during the jamming where they tried to change frequency every hour to avoid the jamming signal.

And remember the Kees Manders incident where he tried to take over the ship - and it was heard live over the air.

Also, Radio Veronica bombing the Mebo 2 and it catching fire.

Truly, Pirate Radio!

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On 20/09/2012 at 3:24 PM, barclaycon said:

And remember the Kees Manders incident where he tried to take over the ship - and it was heard live over the air.

 

I actually listened to this live as it happened [RNI]. I even made a reel-to-reel tape recording of the occasion.  Alas, the tape disappeared along with other stuff during my divorce.

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The "Dial" on my Murphy transistor radio.  Note the station name in the centre of the "Bandspread":

 

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For anyone who is interested: Radio Caroline still transmits from both ship and onshore studio.  Monthly weekend transmissions live from the ship go out to air via Manx Radio's 20Kw AM transmitter on 1368KHz and the studio transmissions via the internet. They are also on DAB radio in Glasgow Birmingham, Brighton, Glasgow, Norwich & Portsmouth. Radio Caroline has finally been granted a broadcast licence to transmit on 648KHz at a power of 1KW.  Programming is currently under development and should begin before Xmas.

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  • 2 months later...

Been listening to Radio Caroline on 648 not a bad signal picking it up on my old grundig radio plus its pretty good on my car radio but its just carrying the main Caroline internet service..the format is album tracks mainly rock so not really my thing..they do have a Caroline Flashback service which I prefer at least when they can be arsed to have a DJ on..continuous music without anyone speaking is boring..Roger Day does a good show at 4pm weekdays and Ron Brown also on Sunday at 10pm..sorry Caroline..53 years to get a licence..would have hoped for something a bit better and more entertaining!

pete c

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