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Part 1- Radio Europe Int

Starting this issue FRS Goes DX will be regularly producing features related to the SW stations in the 1970s & 1980s. We are lucky to have a few contributors who were already active in SW free radio DX-ing in those days and thus are able to write a couple of interesting general articles and/or station portraits. Don't expect a series in chronicle order; it will be a collection of separate stories reminiscing "the good old days". 

...........One of the first stations I remember as a 12 year old Pirate Dxer was Radio Europe International. At the time in late 1974 my receiver was simple Grundig portable, either a Concert Boy or Yacht Boy, I can't remember which, but the REI signal was always a powerhouse at my location in the West of Scotland. The station first signed on August 8th 1974 using 6225 kHz with test transmissions being pre recorded by the famous Mike Knight of Radio Jackie. After several weeks of tests the station officially started on September 29th 1974 at 13.02 UTC with live programmes. Presenters on the stations included Chris Patricks (OP), Robin Johns and Mark Roger. The latter was to become a good friend and broadcasting colleague of mine some 8 years later. The station followed a pattern of fortnightly broadcasts on Sunday afternoons usually on 6225 kHz and always with live pxs. One feature of the station was the announcement of a telephone number in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire to which listeners could give reception reports and have their name mentioned on air. This instant means of contact was unusual for a short wave pirate in those days and proved to be very successful. I can remember trying the number several times and getting a continual 'busy' tone. One listener said he had tried 20 times, and then rang the operator who tried 11 times without any success. Such was the popularity of the station. Letters poured in to the mailing address in Havant, Hampshire from all over Europe. Despite using a mere 17 watts of power REI was providing good reception for most of those Dxers who wrote.

REI operated in conjunction with a station called Radio Copernicus, who followed the same fort nightly schedule on 6235, but using a different transmitter and coming from mobile locations. This station followed a format of "Radio news, views and comment", as this would suggest the station’s hour long programme was interesting listening for Pirate Dxers. REI usually signed on not long after Copernicus closed, no doubt in order to keep its listeners. I always remember that Radio Copernicus had quite a weak signal at my location, certainly confirming that different rigs were in use. Obviously a station with good signals and a regular schedule was going to attract the attention of the authorities and REI was no exception. The station signed on as normal on November 24th with the usual good signal. I remember though that the signal on that day was suffering from a lot of interference. REI then started frequency hopping to avoid what was now considered to be intentional jamming. Chris Patricks was heard to condemn the culprits live on air, but to no avail. According to the operators of REI this jamming was the responsibility of the GPO! Ominously on December 1st the operator received phone calls at home, apparently from Post Office officials, trying to bribe him to go on air. The calls were timed at every three or four hours until midnight. Of course the operator denied everything! However it was decided to take precautions for the next scheduled broadcast on December 8th and so a mobile transmission was planned using the Radio Copernicus rig. REI signed on at 11.50 UTC after the Copernicus programme. I remember that day being surprised because the signal was so weak compared with the previous weeks. It didn't take the authorities long to find the site and at 12.12 the station was raided by eight (!) Post Office men, and one Policeman. After questioning they found the 17 watt transmitter, crystals, cassette recorder and cassettes. Warrants were then obtained for both operator's homes in the search for evidence. At Chris Patrick's place nothing incriminating was found but the officials took photos of his studio, saying it wouldn't be there much longer! However at the Copernicus OP's house, listeners' letters were found and even floorboards were lifted to find evidence. The court case was in March 1975 and amazingly enough no broadcast gear was confiscated, not even a cassette, but fines did total £ 275. It was planned to restart transmissions after the court case but various problems prevented this. REI did make it back for its first Birthday show on the 28th September 1975. The only other time I heard REI programmes was in September 1976 when the same old programme tapes were broadcast over KOL Europe as a tribute. I remember Mark Roger, who some of you will know better as Paul Graham, telling me that he used to travel by train from his home in the Midlands up to South Yorkshire on a Saturday afternoon. After a few beers that night, get some sleep, up early for a hearty breakfast, and then prepare for the REI broadcast. A pirate's life was a happy one! Paul also remarked on the amazing amount of calls received for those broadcasts. People talk of World Music Radio, ABC Europe, Valentine etc. when discussing the greats of SW pirate radio. Although it was short lived, for me Radio Europe Int. certainly is in there with the best.  

(Compiled from information in Free Radio Focus & personal memories.)

Part 2 Memories of SW pirates

Starting in issue 137, FRS Goes DX is regularly producing features related to the SW stations in the 1970s & 1980s. We are lucky to have a few contributors who were already active in SW free radio DX-ing in those days and thus are able to write a couple of interesting general articles and/or station portraits. Don't expect a series in chronicle order, it will be a collection of separate stories reminiscing "the good old days". In this first 1996 magazine Dave Anderson is reminiscing; what many of you do not know is that Dave is the person who founded Scottish Weekend Music Radio...

I first started listening to short wave pirates in September 1973 using a Grundig portable, which covered 49 and 41 metres. Of course the first station heard was RNI on 6210 kHz, which had a very good signal in the West of Scotland for most of the daylight hours. The DX Programme on a Sunday morning with AJ Beirens was a must for anyone interested in pirate radio. I had read in SIRA, which was one of the leading Free Radio magazines of the time, that landbased pirates operated just next to RNI in the 49 metre band. I wasn't quite sure at the time what this was all about but I persevered and one Sunday morning after RNI goes DX I received a station playing old Offshore tapes around 6230 kHz. This turned out to be Radio Gemini who I later found out were on every Sunday from 10.00- 11.00 with pretty good signals. My regret now is that I didn't send for a QSL card, as this was my first landbased pirate reception. Mind you at that time I didn't know what a QSL was! A few weeks later I was listening to Gemini when the programme tape suddenly stopped and an announcement was made to the effect that transmissions were ending due to the presence of certain individuals at the transmission site. This turned out to be none other than Eric and co the result of which was the famous Radio Gemini court case. Radio Gemini did continue a few times a year as opposed to weekly broadcasts and have been transmitting until recently.  

I can remember quite clearly listening to Radio Atlantis in July 1974 on 312 metres when Andy Anderson announced that the station was also on short wave 6225 kHz. Great I thought, now I will be able to listen to them all day just like RNI. I couldn't quite work it out the next day when RNI was booming in as normal, but no sign of Atlantis! I thought that maybe my radio had gone a bit wonky, not realising at that time that Atlantis were on low power if they were on at all. The test only lasted one day. I searched for them for about a week. 

Another highlight I remember was listening to a QSO between Westside Radio, at that time operated by Doctor Don and BBMS whose operator Gary Stevens can still be heard on short wave. Anyway, the two lads were chatting away normally saying how good it was to have such inter station co-operation. Don was making his last call when he decided to give out both station addresses. First he gave out his own, then the BBMS address, only what he did was give out Gary's home location where the BBMS broadcast was based! Gary came back to the apologetic Don stating in no uncertain terms how irresponsible the good Doctor was. Then Gary's mother appeared on air to give Don a bollocking before BBMS left the air to move all the gear out! Serious at the time, but good Sunday afternoon entertainment on reflection. Funnily enough Westside and BBMS never QSO'd again! 

When you think back its funny how naive you can be as a young Dxer. For example in September 1976 the famous German pirate Radio Valentine announced on their first regular first Sunday broadcast that they were now broadcasting from a ship the MS Amsterdam. I really thought that these guys took a ship out to sea to broadcast for 4 and a half hours once a month. And when they were raided a couple of months later, I was amazed that the authorities had mounted a raid in International waters. Of course I later found out that the raid took place not in International waters but just within Belgian border!

Another highlight was hearing my first American pirate, namely the Voice of Syncom. I had missed the Radio Confusion tests in 1980 and was now in March 1982 living in Ireland and working on Boyneside Radio. Imagine my surprise when tuning the old Grundig portable and hearing quite a strong signal on 6225 kHz announcing as Syncom. At first I thought it was a relay because this was around 08.00 UTC but they also announced 7375, which lo and behold was also coming through. I sent off a detailed report and indeed both transmitters were located on the East coast of the USA, the 48 metre rig a mere 20 watts and the 41 mb outlet was 40 watts. I was amazed by this and still quite sceptical but I actually met the Syncom operator some years later, who remembered my report and assured me that the transmission was from the USA. It was Syncom's last broadcast and some five transmitters were on the air simultaneously!

My final memory for this time was in the mid 80s when my wife and I were visiting Jack Russell at WMR during a live broadcast. Jack was doing the usual phone in, when suddenly a voice breaks in on the line saying

"Do XXX and XXXXXXX want cabbage with their dinner?"

Jack kept pretty calm and in only a slightly raised voice said "Yes they do" then in a matter of fact he announced "That was the WMR mother there, now back to our caller......" The dinner menu had been broadcast across Europe! 

I hope you have enjoyed sharing these Free Radio memories, there are lots more stored somewhere at the back of my head and with any luck I will dig them out in the future...

Part 3… Pirate Radio Mysteries

There are probably many reasons why people enjoy listening to Pirate Radio. Certainly one aspect which attracts listeners is the mystery of it all. To hear signals coming from a secret location, often many miles away, makes tuning the bands all the more enjoyable. Most stations like to have contact with listeners and send verifications for reports received. However, there have been some stations over the years that have remained secretive for whatever reasons and it is some of these stations that I intend to look at in this and future articles.  

If you cast your mind back to 1975, I wonder just how many people remember hearing a station called Radio Revelation. As far as I am aware of, it only made one transmission on October 5th using 6210 kHz with strong signals in most listening locations. The 30 minute programme consisted of a farcical interview between top psychiatrist Dr Shrink and his patient Mr Cabbage! An address was announced in Perpignan, France for reports but anyone who sent a letter had it returned by the Post Office. Now I don't know if Pirate Dxers were a more serious minded lot in those days but a story circulated that this station was operated by the GPO, which was one reason why all mail was returned! Maybe it didn't occur to them that it was a station messing around and no doubt the reason why the letters were sent back was that the address never existed. Mind you, in those days hoax stations were few and far between, who knows what kind of stories the likes of Wee Guy Radio would have sparked. To this day I don't know who produced and broadcast this programme, maybe somebody reading this might have the answer! 

In early 1979 a station called Sounds 79 appeared on the 48 metre band with mainly QSO broadcasts, but very occasionally playing continuous music with jingles. The station was heard most Sundays talking to the likes of Radio Utopia and Radio Zenith but also made excursions down to the 6.6 MHz Echo Charlie band. Also around this time the ultra right wing political broadcaster Radio Enoch was a regular on the pirate bands. With its format of extreme views it soon became the target of the authorities but also the Free Radio stations who felt it was endangering their existence. There were several rumours circulating as to who was behind Radio Enoch, one of which was that it was the guy operating as Sounds 79. Certainly at the time I for one noted a similarity between the voice on the QSO station and the main announcer on Radio Enoch. This theory simmered for a little while until one day the pirates could take it no longer and accused Sounds 79 of being behind the political station. Well, to say he denied it vehemently would be an understatement. In fact just to reinforce the point he was later heard to jam the Enoch transmissions. Thus the rumour was dispelled...or was it an elaborate operation by Sounds 79 to disassociate himself and restore his credibility with the Free Radio stations? I tend to think he was innocent. There is a strange footnote to this one. One of the stations whom he talked to on Echo Charlie once told another operator that the Sounds 79 guy had an experience with a UFO and since then had gained some special powers! In fact whenever this station called him, no matter what time of day or night he would always reply. Maybe his special powers will draw him to this article and we can solve the mystery of Sounds 79 who disappeared towards the end of 1979, and he was never heard of again. Maybe that UFO came back looking for him! 

Also in 1979 there was a mystery of a more straightforward nature. For years there had been rumours of there being transmission equipment on Sealand. Well, in 1979 the stories began to get stronger to the point where people were reporting hearing transmissions from the tower by that summer. Late at night, transmissions were monitored on the off channel frequency of 1238 kHz. These transmissions consisted of continuous pop music without any announcements or jingles. What made the transmissions have that offshore sound was the fact that the records used to slow down sometimes as if a generator was being used. I heard these transmissions at least once and can confirm that they did take place but from where...who knows! There were suggestions that it might have been an Italian landbased pirate or a station from Algeria, certainly the signals was from a Southerly direction. One thing is for sure. It wasn't a test for Radio Sealand. 

The final mystery for this time is one which thankfully was solved. During the late 70s and into the 80s transmissions were heard on medium wave and on 48 metres from a station with two distinct characteristics. One was the announcer tried to disguise his voice by putting on an accent and secondly any mailing address announced was valid but no replies were ever forthcoming. I heard this station for the first time in 1977 on 227 metres calling itself Radio Landora and claiming to broadcast from International waters. Did I believe it...well of course! Next he was on 48 metres as Radio Berona Int. again claiming a watery location, this time with an address in Jersey. Over the years he appeared sporadically as Radio Landora or Radio Belinda to name but a few. Always with an address but never verifying reports to eager DXers. A friend of mine heard a transmission around 1560 kHz in the late 1980s from a station called Radio Breffni Int. playing traditional Irish music. The voice was familiar and there and then the pieces fell into place. There was QSO station mainly on Echo Charlie called Japan 5 who was located in the Irish Republic. This was the voice on Radio Breffni Int., which was the same as all those other stations. He was asked during an on air conversation if he was indeed the person behind the various stations. He neither confirmed nor denied the accusation, which really said it all. Where is he now...Who knows! Probably retired to the Caribbean after cashing in all those IRC's.  

That's all for this time. I have enough mysteries to fill at least another article, but perhaps you would like to take part. Let me know of any pirates that have left you wondering and who knows we might just be able to solve it. Sources used were Free Radio Focus, Radio Viking DX World.