RADIO LOUGH REE |
ARCHIVES WITHOUT CLUTTER |
| Irish Era - Offshore - Landbased - Official Stations - Downloads - Press - Other |
======================================================
|
RADIO LOUGH REE / SLIGO EUROPEAN RADIO These two stations were both short lived and transmitted on shortwave via relay stations. The operator of both stations was Chris Ridley, and he has kindly supplied us with the following facts about these and other ventures in which he was involved. Radio Lough Ree broadcast only two half-hour programmes in the early
1980's, via cassette recordings that were sent to Weekend Music Radio,
the short-wave pirate station in Scotland. Details of the broadcasting
dates, records played etc have been lost forever in the mists of time.
The station was housed in the station owners parents house in Knockcroghery
in County Roscommon. This was only about 2 miles at the most from Lough
Ree, from where the station so obviously took its name. The presenter
on the programmes was station owner Chris Ridley who went on to try
starting a medium-wave station called Radio Albatross on 999 kHz which
after a few test transmissions came to nothing. He also started
Shannonside 100 FM which after a few test transmissions also came to
nothing, and the transmitter was sold on to Longford Independent Radio.
Another
FM station which was a joint venture between Chris Ridley and a Richard
Deignan in Sligo, went as far as having a studio set up above a local
gymnasium, however there was some disagreement between the two partners
about the proposed station name and the type of music it was to play.
Chris Ridley wanted to call the station WJET and play popular chart music
in much the same vein as Radio Nova. Richard Deignan wanted to call
the station another name that has long been forgotten and play Irish
Country & Western music. Richard went on to do this with another
partner, and that station was to be called Westside Radio, which broadcast
on 98 MHz in mono. Chris
Ridley's only other station was another short-wave set up involving sending
a cassette recording to an established short wave station, possibly based
in County Wexford. This station was called Sligo European Radio
which made, again, two highly successful broadcasts lasting one hour each.
Reception reports were received from as far away as Switzerland, Germany,
France, UK and the Netherlands to name but a few. Broadcast dates
were 4th October 1987 and 18th October 1987 with Chris as the presenter.
Below is a photo of the Sligo European Radio studio which was also used for recording programmes for a few other stations that Chris worked on. |
======================================================