Radio Caroline/ Other Pirate Radio Stations

[emily1890]

does anyone else here find pirate radio really interesting?

I love it. I love hearing about the diffrent stations (in particular radio caroline), and love jingles/ adverts from that time.

I just listened to a programme on BBC sounds about what happened to the me emigo (caroline's ship), and it's facinating.
their is also the radio ship, (music and jingles from the time), and from their their's a link to a whole virtual museum on pirate stations- facinating

[andy-hughes]

It was an amazing time.

I am old enough to remember the hey-day of pirate radio, it was exciting and so different from the staid stuffy BBC.

Interestingly, people with hazy memories always blame the Tories for scuppering pirate radio, it was actually Tony Benn in the Labour government of the time who produced the Marine Offences Bill and got the broadcasts and the ships outlawed.

[douglas9401]

Yaaaaarrrrr.

[Semwah]

And there's a website where you can listen/download dozens of recordings from actual programmes from Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s.

[andy-hughes]

Can we have a link Semwah?

[emily1890]

sounds interesting. I know I'd be interested in that myself

it's so good people are keeping this part of history alive

[Bobbisox1]

My sister lived in Whitstable and if my memory serves me right, RC was anchored off the Kent coast in the 60s around 1965/66 I recall with DJs like Tony Blackburn , Stu ( Stupot Henry) ,Dave Lee Travers and Kenny Everett who all migrated to Radio One when it opened, I loved visiting my sister, lying in bed listening to songs like Summer in the City and actually looking across seeing where it was being played , I’m sure AH will confirm or deny it was off the Kent coast but I’m sure it was

[burlyshirley]

I remember Radio Caroline well and used to listen to it all the time !

[Ken4155]

Radio Caroline provided the background music for me late on in the evenings while stationed in Hohne, West Germany in the mid-70s. The BFBS station got quite boring around that time of night but RC came to the rescue. Though, if memory serves me correctly, the reception wasn't that brilliant and quite a few trips to the 'dial' were needed whenever a favourite tune came on.

[Radagast]

I used to listen to Radio Caroline on an old valve radio using the washing line as an aerial. You can still listen:
https://carolinestreams.weebly.com/

[mushroom25]

in the mid seventies in east anglia, the radio where i worked was tuned to Radio Mi Amigo, because coverage on the then 247m of radio 1 was so appalling, being of low quality, and frequently interrupted by the Radio Tirana "trumpet" interval signal -
Mi Amigo broadcast mainly in Dutch, but the music was mostly UK or US.

[Mozz71]

Caroline is still going now. I listen to them via the RadioPlay app. They have a great daily feature called Top Fifteens, where a listener picks an hour's worth of music from their online database and takes over the music from 9-10am. I've got a list "in production" at present.

I used to listen to Radio Luxemburg in the 80s. Don't know if that counts as a pirate station or not.

[Ken4155]

^
Having just read that, Mozz, i now realise i was talking out of my rear end earlier. It was Luxemburg we squaddies listened to back in the day - or rather, back in the night. I don't think Caroline broadcast in the evenings.

[Semwah]

Google AZANORAK and follow the link(s). Enjoy!

[andy-hughes]

Mozz - // I used to listen to Radio Luxemburg in the 80s. Don't know if that counts as a pirate station or not. //

It doesn't.

Pirate ships broadcast from outside the twelve-mile-limit of British Territorial Waters, which meant that did not need a licence, which would not have been granted to them anyway.

[Mozz71]

In fairness Andy, Caroline wasn't around for a lot of the 80s when I was a teen, what with the first ship sinking in 1980 and the second being damagwd in the 1987 storms.

[Canary42]

I was living in Norfolk when Radio Caroline came along - good reception and we listened to it on our Trannies all the time.

Good old days.