Radio Caroline 1970's:

This station is by far the most famous and oldest of the mainly short lived offshore radio stations, which broadcast from the high seas, off Europe. There is no end of offshore radio enthusiasts who have produced web pages on the history of this world famous radio station..

Recordings 791125 were recorded in Scotland on a Sunday evening when the 50kw transmitter was in use, and resulting reception was quite good for much of the time. There is a bit of skywave fading, but in general listenable to anyone who used to tune in back then. The recordings for example from 790420, 790427, and 790428 are recordings made in Scotland at night with inferior recorders and during inferior reception periods, but are unique, in the fact they have not done the rounds.

2020 saw the 40th anniversary of the final broadcast from the Mi Amigo.  We recently found a handful of historic short recordings in our collection from the 10 days before the Mi Amigo sank in March 1980.  They were recorded near Blackpool and have the usual night-time fades and interference etc. which we all experienced in those days of listening to AM. The dates were estimated from the Caroline Roadshow promotions which have been extracted as shorter separate files. On the last recording, 16th March 1980, the Caroline Roadshow advertised date was after the Mi Amigo had sadly sunk.

Some tapes and recordings have come from various sources.

AW - Andy W
AC - Andy C
JP - John P
KB and GH - Ken and Gary of DX Archive
Bonnie - Web site, now off line and recordings not available anywhere to our knowledge. A few repeated on here.

Radio Caroline 1980's:

In 1983 when the Ross Revenge came into the North Sea, there was a feeling of triumph amongst the listeners and fans. But on the programming front, there was a real feeling of disappointment and missed opportunity. I may seem a big fan of Dixie Peach, because of the number of recordings below, but I really did not like him at the time. I still don't. The recordings were made because our favourite station had returned, and because of some misguided sense of loyalty. There is such a lot of the dreaded Peach and his sorry efforts to turn our beloved album station we had known in the late 70's into some kind of a reggae outfit. But these are historical recordings and never copied anywhere before. My own tapes were recorded here in Scotland, maybe around 350 miles from the ship, under skywave conditions, but at that time of night, the channel was usually very good, as you can hear.

Also from the ROSS REVENGE, the radio ship which still survives to this day, a set of unique recordings never before circulated, from the SW frequency of 6210, and 6215. There may be more of these to come. All taken from old reels, recorded on 7" triple play tapes at slow speed, giving six and a half hours per track. Hence we have some long continous recordings here.

In 2012, a collection of long recordings made by Steve West have been uploaded. There is around 10g worth of Caroline and Laser. Most of the Caroline material seems to be from around 1990. These are from Steve's old reels, recorded around 160 miles from the ship.

Unfortunately some of his earlier mp3 transfers have been made using exceptionally poor bitrates. But that said, these are unique recordings from that time of Caroline's life.

On the 40th anniversary of Radio Caroline returning from the Ross Revenge, we have added several recordings from the first couple of weeks, including some tests and first official programme. In the early days, the format was mainly music, with little chat.  There were also no commercials or jingles for a few weeks.

The Santander navigation booklet from the Ross Revenge
issued in 1983 whilst the ship was being fitted out in the port.