If you are a radio fan, you may know much about pirate radio era, there is masses of information on the internet.  But here is a brief history:

Lord Reith

From the 1920's the BBC had been providing quality, informative and educating programming, in accordance with the Reithian principles.  What the BBC did not provide however was a regular output of popular music from the 'Hit Parade'.  Despite this Britain was rapidly changing in character and, to borrow a phrase for Prime Minister Harold Wilson, 1960's Britain was "burning with the white heat of technology" and young Britains in their the teens and twenties were shaking off the dour image of the post war ways days and a new swingin' and groovy youth culture was evolving, together with revolutionary new styles in pop and rock music. 

At the forefront of this swinging' musical revolution were bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and young consumers seemingly could not get enough of this hip new music but BBC radio, which had remained almost unchanged since the end of the war ¹, played very little from the current Hit Parade and had only one programme per week dedicated to such material.  The only real outlet for listeners to hear all the new records was Radio Luxembourg and many British listeners tuned into Radio Luxembourg (The Great 208), but that was only available in the evenings and the signal would often fade or become distorted as the night time propagation changed and listeners had to endure regular periods of poor reception, even though the Luxembourg transmitter used a million watts of power.  Nevertheless it was extremely popular because it played continuous popular hit music and was great fun to listen to.

The other big problem with Radio Luxembourg was for the recording artsits themselves because Radio Luxembourg operated a system of 'Payola' where by only the artists signed to major record labels that would pay a fee to the station would get their latest records heavily promoted.  So a sistuation existed whereby the BBC played very few records at all from the Hit Parade and Radio Luxembourg operated the restrictive payola system, and this constantly frustrated the managers of new artists and pop groups.  Without a contract with a big record company there was little chance of obtaining enough airplay to develop the careers of new artists.

Caroline

Ronan O'Rahilly was one manager frustrated by the BBC / luxembourg problem.  O'Rahilly represented Georgie Fame and he saw that offshore 'pirate' radio stations had been set up in Scandanavia.  In 1958 Radio Mercury began transmitting to Denmark and Radio Syd and Radio Nord transmitting to Sweden from boats bobbing around in the North Sea.  In 1960 Radio Veronica commenced transmissions to Holland from a boat called the Borkem Riff initially in Dutch and later in English from 1961 with programmes supplied by the Commercial Neutral Broadcasting Company (CNBC).  The English programmes only lasted for a short time however, as they raised no advertising revenue, but the idea of an English offshore radio station had been set in O'Rahilly's mind.

Ronan decided that he could establish his own station, and purchased a vessel called the Frederica which he fitted with studios, a 165ft radio mast and two 10kW transmitters at his family's port in Greenore, Southern Ireland.  Renaming it the MV Caroline, after John F Kennedy's daughter, in the Easter of 1964 he dropped anchor 3 miles off the coast of Felixstowe, and therefore in International Waters and beyond British law, and commenced broadcasts as 'Radio Caroline 199'.  The actual frequency was 1520 KHz, which was expressed as a wavelength of 199metres.  Do you remember the Radio Caroline bell?

Radio Caroline employed some the greatest DJ's who became very much loved household names.  Those names include: Roger (Twiggy) Day, Simon Dee, Johnnie Walker, Keith Skues and Roger Scott.  Radio Caroline was so popular that within months of going on air the station had more listeners than BBC radio.

Shortly after Radio Caroline commenced programmes she was joined by the MV Mi Amigo carrying the station 'Radio Atlanta' on 201metres (1493 KHz).  Radio Atlanta and the Mi Amigo had also been fitted out in O'Rahilly's port in Greenore in a deal done between O'Rahilly and Radio Atlanta's Australian owner Alan Crawford.  Radio Caroline was the more popular of the two stations and they soon merged.  In July 1964 Atlanta was renamed Radio Caroline South and changed wavelength to 259m (1187kHz) using 30kW, while the MV Caroline sailed to Ramsey Bay, continuing to broadcast as she went, where she commenced duties as Radio Caroline North. 

The address of Radio Caroline North was Box 3, Ramsey, Isle of Man.

The Caroline stations were amazingly successful, and this prompted many other stations to join them.  Radio  London (Big L) was perhaps the largest and was established by MD Philip Birch on 12th December 1964 and broadcast from the MV Galaxy on 266m (1137kHz) with a powerful and clear 50kW Ampliphase transmitter and wonderful Amercian jingles produced by the PAMS jingle production house.  Radio London employed great broadcasting names including Kenny Everett, Dave Cash, Tony Windsor, Ed Stewart, Tony Blackburn, Tommy Vance, Tony Brandon and, later, Kieth Skues who had left Radio Caroline.  Big L was not just a radio station, it was a highly professional and slick business and marketing organisation that ensured that programmes would have the widest possible audience appeal and be attractive (and innoffensive) to potential advertisers, thereby generating maximum revenue.

Radio London became even more successful than Radio Caroline South, having an audience of nearly 10 million at its peak in 1966, while Radio Caroline South enjoyed the company of around 2 million listeners.  The combined audience for Radio Caroline North and South was around 9 million listeners.

Screaming Lord Sutch

There were other radio ships too:  Radio 270 arrived in November 1965 on 270m (1115KHz) from the vessel Ocean 7, broadcasting off the Yorkshire coast;  Radio Scotland was swinging to you on 242m off the Ayeshire coast, from the a converted lightship called The Comet, from new years eve 1965;  

Swinging Radio England/Radio Dolfijn broadcast from 3rd May 1966 from the MV Olga Patricia (later renamed the Laissez Faire) with 55kW on 355 meters, later moving to 227metres medium wave:  The MV Olga Patricia was shared with Britain Radio, which used the 355 metres wavelength and which later changed its name to 'Radio 355'.  

Apart from the pirate ships, some enterprising organisations established their stations on old wartime forts off the Essex coast.  One such station was 'Radio Sutch'.  Screaming Lord Sutch (the pop singer whose real name was David Sutch) of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, established this short lived station on the Shivering Sands fort.  He had been a parliamentary candidate in John Profumo's Stratford upon Avon constituency.  He believed in commercial radio and since the British government would not legalise it, on the 25th of May 1964, shortly after Radio Caroline went on air, he set up Radio Sutch as a protest and used it as an organ for his own self publicity!

Radio Sutch used 197 metres (1542 KHz), but it was not a professional sounding station and suffered many technical faults. In September 1964 Sutch's manager, Reg Calvert, took over Shivering Sands fort and Radio Sutch, changed the station name to 'Radio City' and the wavelength to 299m (1034kHz).  The format was changed to a mainstream Top 60 with much wider appeal with a much more professional sound.

Radio Invicta was another fort based station, commencing programmes on 29th July 1964 from the Red Sands ack ack forts in the Thames Estuary on 306m (985Khz). It broadcast from 6am to 6pm when the signals were swamped by Radio Algiers.  Invicta had a small but regular audience but closed in February 1965 , the Red Sands forts were taken over by KING Radio which used 238m (1289Khz).  Subsequently 'Radio 390' owned by Ted Allbeury took over KING in September 1965.

Radio 390 used 773 KHz from a 35 KW transmitter, the most powerful of the fort based stations and which provided a very robust signal. The programmes commenced on 25th September 1965.  Radio 390 marketed itself as the housewives choice playing 'sweet music, in a style more akin to The Light Programme than the brash style of Radios Caroline and London.  Radio 390 was also a very professional sounding station with wide appeal amongst its target audience and as such became very popular.

Tower Radio was set up by Eric Sullivan and commenced programmes on the 22nd October 1965 from the Sunk Head Tower fort using 236 metres (1268 KHz) - "Get A Fix On  236" was their slogan.  Meanwhile Radio Essex used the Knock John fort from 27th October 1965, these transmissions were on 222m, with only 200 watts it was most definitely a local station.  It later changed identity and became BBMS (Britain's Better Music Station).

The 1960's saw the wide adoption of the transistorised radio set, commonly called 'a transistor',  between them all these stations had a vast number of these transistors tuned away from the BBC and into the hip, new, swinging, fun, sound of offshore pirate radio.  At its peak, the offshore pirate stations commanded an audience of around 20 million listeners, with a larger audience share than the BBC at the time!

Legally the stations were not pirates at all, because they were all broadcasting from outide the British territorial limit and therefore in international waters, beyond the reach of British broadcasting laws.

Shot!

The government was not pleased, but the offshore pirates remained for some years. Some stations suffered with lack of audience and changed ownership and format.  Other stations endured bad weather and severe storm damage,  Radio Invicta suffered the tradgedy of the loss of three lives when a supply boat sank.  Legal actions against the Radio Essex / BBMS station owner eventually forced the operartion off the air.

Perhaps one event, more than any other, spurred the government into action against the offshore broadcasters, this was the death of Reg Calvert, owner of Radio City, at the hands of a competitor, Major Oliver Smedley.  Calvert had been in negotiations with Radio Caroline with a view to take over Radio City, Caroline subsequently delivered a powerful new transmitter to the Radio City fort at Shivering Sands, but the deal collapsed.  A susequent deal with another organisation also fell through, as did a deal with Radio London.

Calvert still had the transmitter that the Caroline organisation had supplied, but had not paid for it.  It was Major Oliver Smedley that organised a boarding party that took over Radio City by force on 20th June 1966, and therefore regained the transmitter said to be worth £10,000.

When Calvert visited Major Smedley at his home in Essex the next evening a fight broke out and Smedley produced a shotgun and killed Calvert.  As the killing was deemed to be in self defence, Smedley could not be tried for murder, and after being tried for unlawful killing he was found not guilty.  Radio City closed on 10th February 1967.

These incidents effectively sealed the end of the offshore stations. Parliament passed the Marine etc & Broadcasting Offences Act which was designed to prevent supply to the ships from the British mainland and to disallow British companies from placing advertising with the offshore stations, thereby effectively starving them off the air.  The Act required that the stations that were still broadcasting were closed down on the 14th August 1967. 

Radio London famously closed down with the final, and wonderful,  record "A Day In The Life Of" by the Beatles.  The Radio London organisation returned to make several licenced RSL broadcasts in the 1990's, and have recently obatained a licence to broadcast from The Netherlands on 1008 kHz from either Flevoland or possibly the disused offshore survey platform, REM Island, which would be a fitting location for their transmitter.

The only stations that disobeyed the law were Radio Caroline South and Radio Caroline North which continued to broadcast beyond August 15th 1967.  As a result of the Act, Caroline could no longer take advertising from the UK so revenue was obtained from European advertisers.  The stations were financially weakened though, and were taken off the air in March 1968 after non payment of tender fees.

One-derful

After the audience successes of offshore radio, the postmaster general, Edward Short,  announced that the BBC would create a new pop channel designed by the BBC with the working title 'Radio 247'.  To make room for the new service the 'Light Programme' lost the use of its 247metre (1214kHz) wavelengths and was renamed 'Radio Two'.  The 247m transmitters were reorganised and handed over to the new wonderful 'Radio One' which launched on September 30th 1967.  The 'Third Programme 'became 'Radio Three' while The 'Home Service' became 'Radio Four'

The new Radio One was modelled on the sound of Radio London and employed many of the old offshore radio DJ's, the BBC even bought an American PAMS jingle package in an attempt to re-create a station with the Radio London sound.  Unlike the offshore stations, however, Radio One was effectively a part-time station initially on the air for 5½ hours per day because of a limited budget and 'needletime' restrictions, sharing programmes with Radio Two up until the 1980's.

Radio Caroline was relaunched in 1972 by some enthusiasts that purchased the old Mi Amigo ship.  It broadcast on 773 kHz (389 meters) from near Sheveningen off the Dutch coast and DJ's included Paul Alexander, aka Paul Rusling, Andy Archer, Spangles Muldoon, Dick Palmerm Robin Banks and Peter Chicago.  The relaunched Caroline later broadcast from the Essex coast until 1980 when a storm drove her into a sandbank where she sank.  774 kHz was used later in 1980 by official Independent Local Radio station Severn Sound in Gloucestershire.

Three years later Radio Caroline returned from a different ship, the Ross Revenge, with a powerful transmitter using 963kHz, laterly changing frequencies to 576kHz.  The programmes consisted of an album format during this period.  Radio Caroline continued broadcasting on medium wave, but the station suffred at the hands of the weather and the authorities;  a severe storm felled the massive 300ft mast in 1987, but brave the station was finally taken off the air in 1991 during a armed raid by the UK government.  The Ross Revenge was later relocated to inland coastal waters in Kent and several legal RSL (Restricted Service Licence) broadcasts, licenced by the Radio Authority, have been made from the ship during the 1990's. Radio Caroline continues broadcasting today, but legally, via digital methods on satellite and the internet.

'Laser 558' also joined Caroline in January 1984, from the MV Communicator using a hugely powerful transmitter, Laser 558's fast-paced American 'all-hits' style was a big success and gained an audience of many millions across Britain and especially in the South-East.  The success of these two stations prompted the DTI to use their own ship, The Dioptric Surveyor, to try to prevent supplies from reaching the radio ships and force the pair off the air.  This human effort did not work though, and it was mother nature and the gales of the 6th November 1985 that eventually took Laser 558 off the air, when the ship lost anchor and drifted helplessly until rescued by the coastguard.  Laser did come back on air about a year later, but was weakened and eventually ceased broadcasting after many technical troubles in early 1987.

In 1969 came Radio Jackie, which was to become one of the finest pirate radio stations of its time.
 
The Smallest

There is also a story about what may arguably be the worlds smallest pirate radio station.  The station was called Radio Liveridge, it broadcast every Sunday in the early 1980's on a frequency of 97.5 MHz.  It is this frequency that lends the numbers 975 to this site and coupled with the author's intitials provides the site name - MDS975.  So there's your answer - and here's another question, "What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?"

[¹ The Second World War 1939 to 1945]

40th ANNIVERSARY OF OFFSHORE RADIO
CELEBRATED BY THE BBC

The BBC celebrated the 40th anniversary of pirate radio broadcasting from the seas around the UK in great style with special programmes from the 10th to 17th of April 2004 as radio station BBC Essex handed over its medium wave frequencies to "Pirate BBC Essex" broadcasting from lightship LV18 anchored off Harwich and recreating the fab sounds of the pirate stations from 1964 to 1967. 

DJ's involved in Pirate BBC Essex included pirate radio veterans Tom Edwards, Keith Skues, Roger (Twiggy) Day, Pete Brady, Paul Burnett, Mike Ahern and Dave Cash and the project helped raise money to convert the vessel into and educational centre and visitor attraction.  Pirate BBC Essex made use of the BBC Essex medium wave transmitters at Chelmsford, Manningtree and Southend, all of which could be heard outside the Essex and East Anglia region.  To make the historical broadcast available worldwide the BBC also aranged a live RealPlayer feed via www.bbc.co.uk/essex/pirate

Everyone involved in the event certainly worked very hard to provide the best radio station of 2004!   Roger Day sent an e-mail proclaiming the event to be a most enjoyable success, which it undoubtably was.  Tom Edawrds also sent an e-mail saying how much he enjoyed appearing on his Easter Sunday show.  You may like to E-Mail Tom Edwards, he'd love to hear from you.

The programmes were really excellent and provided a feel for those listeners to young to remember just how some of the ship born pirate stations sounded and, no doubt, brought back some fond memories of the sixties for those in the audience who could remember the likes of Radio 390, Radio Caroline and Radio London.

It was interesting that it was the BBC that took it upon itself to provide an outlet for the celebration of the 40th anniversary of pirate radio as it was 1960's BBC Radio that was in the firing line of these stations at the time.  Ironically the event was almost comletely ignored by UK commercial radio, an industry that would probably have not been born without the experience of the pirate radio era!  SAGA Radio was an exception and did devote a day to recollections of the pirate stations of the 1960's.

Well done to the BBC and everyone involved in the Pirate BBC Essex broadcasts!

BBC Essex is on 103.5 & 95.2 vhf/fm and 729, 765 and 1530 am/medium wave as well as DAB digital radio in the Essex area and can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/england/essex/index.shtml.