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GENERAL SITES
The Offshore Echo's magazine site contains details of
the latest issue, a catalogue of offshore-related items for sale, information and audio clips of
DJ theme tunes and, for the brave,
a section devoted to singing disc-jockeys!. There is also a section telling the story of the eighties pirate
Laser and one on the UK's
first, Radio
Caroline.
Paul and Mark de Haan's Marine Broadcasters site
is dedicated to the various ships and marine structures that have been used for offshore radio over the years and contains
many fascinating photos and items of memorabilia.
Monitor Magazine was a fantastically
detailed and well-researched fanzine edited by the late Roland “Buster” Pearson.
Some selected articles from back issues are now available on-line. There is also
a second site
devoted to the magazine which gives some of its history and reprints various articles.
Dr. Martin van der Ven's Offshore
Radio Guide is a treasure trove of pirate news, photographs and links.
The Pirate QSL Cards site
is just that: a collection of acknowledgments to reception reports
together with a number of audio clips.
Pirate Radio
of the Offshore Kind contains histories of all the UK pirates and some fine photographs.
The Pirate's Cove
contains air-checks from various offshore stations from the sixties to
the eighties.
Radio Waves contains a
number of photographs and station jingles.
Industry body the Radio Academy has its own Hall of
Fame, honouring great UK broadcasters of the past and present. It currently includes eight former offshore DJs -
Kenny Everett, Tony Blackburn, John Peel, Stuart Henry, Tommy Vance, Johnnie Walker, Rosko, Adrian Love and Tony Windsor.
For an insight into the history of music radio in Britain, check out
Radiomusicstations.
The nostalgia site Sixties City has a very good
section on pirate radio.
Alan Milewczyk, “the Pole with Soul” has been running Al's
Soul Shack for some time. There used to be a small section on offshore radio but now it is growing. The first section to be added is on offshore programmes
and recordings available on the internet. In the future he plans to add a guide to offshore radio web sites and an Offshore
Charts section which will include the majority of the 1970 RNI charts. A much longer term project is the digitisation of
his twelve scrapbooks of offshore cuttings and notes.
Soundscapes is “an online
journal on the history and social significance of media culture.” There are numerous
interesting articles relating to British and continental offshore radio in English, Dutch
and German.
TV Cream, as the name suggests, is mainly
concerned with vintage television but this highly entertaining site also has sections devoted
to “other aspects of popular culture - films, magazines, radio, soft drinks
and decrepit foodstuffs.”
The Vintage Broadcasting
site has some great nostalgic audio clips and memorabilia from BBC and commercial radio stations
as well as a number of offshore recordings.
The Wireless Waffler currently blogs at wireless-waffle.blogspot.com. His old site, containing radio history, memories and reviews
can be found at wirelesswaffle.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.
The Anorak Nation is a message board for radio news, anorak
discussions and links.
There are a number of pages and groups relating to offshore radio on Facebook including
offshore radio,
offshore radio in Scandinavia,
Pirate Radio,
Principality of Sealand,
Radio Caroline,
Radio Caroline North - fun and free for all,
Radio City 299 metres - The Tower Of Power,
Radio North Sea International,
Radio Sutch Appreciation Society,
Radio 270,
Thames Estuary Maunsell Sea Fort Knock John,
We Love The Pirate Stations and
Wonderful Radio London 266 metres.
Your web-master is there too.
SPECIFIC STATION SITES
The UK's first and last pirate Radio Caroline has continued broadcasting, legally, via satellite
and the internet from studios on land. This official site, run by general manager Peter
Moore, tells the history and has the latest news. There is now also a sales page run by The Radio Caroline Society offering CDs, DVDs, and promotional clothing.
All profits go towards the upkeep of the Ross Revenge, Caroline's last ship.
www.rossrevenge.co.uk is a site
devoted to Radio Caroline's last ship, the Ross Revenge. It contains plans, pictures,
history and a wealth of technical information.
The late Jim Murphy operated a fascinating Caroline North Tribute Site. Sadly he died before completing entries on
all his colleagues but it does contain biographical details of some of the DJs and excellent
photographs, many taken by Jim himself while working on the ship. The contents of the site have
now been rescued and made available again by Chris and Mary Payne of the Radio London web site.
The Radio London site continues its unending task of
tracking down offshore favourites of the past. This regularly updated site also tells the story of the more recent
Radio London restricted service broadcasts and has a database of Fab 40 charts from 1965 to 1967, all
supplemented with fascinating items of trivia. They have also incorporated Jempi Laevaert's
Stonewashed Collection
site, listing the Caroline Countdowns.
Fans of Yorkshire's one and only offshore station should check out the Radio 270 Tribute Page and there are some great pictures of Radio Scotland, taken by one of the station
engineers at www.rossrevenge.co.uk/scot/scot.htm.
Svenn Martinsen (alias Derek Burroughs Jr.) has written a fascinating and extremely detailed study of the
five radio stations that were based on the mv Olga Patricia: Radio England, Britain Radio, Radio 355 and the
two Dutch outlets Radio Dolfijn and Radio 227. It can be found on his Northern Star web site.
Not a pirate as such, Radio Geronimo
was a free-form music station that hired late night airtime from Radio Monte Carlo for a few
months during 1970. Run by The Move's manager, Tony Secunda, and Rolling Stones producer
Jimmy Miller, it was a prime example of hippy capitalism but sadly the money ran out. Geronimo
did, however, produce some great programmes during its brief existence. Two of its DJs later
joined up with the Caroline organisation to create the equally short-lived, but fondly
remembered, Radio Seagull. Web-master Chris B is very keen to find recordings of either
station to add to his site.
Alan Bailey has written a history of Radio Luxembourg called 208 - It Was Great. The book is available
for £10.70 from his web site.
The site also contains photos and studio quality audio from ‘the station of the stars’.
Offshore Echo's Radio Forts site contains photographs and memorabilia of the stations
based on the anti-aircraft forts in the Thames estuary.
Project Redsand is campaigning to
save Red Sands Fort, the war-time anti-aircraft installation in the Thames estuary that
housed three offshore radio stations during the sixties.
The Gnometech
site has a history, map and photos of the Thames forts and you can see how they look now
at www.gulbekian.plus.com.
Roy Bates, the owner of Radio Essex and Station BBMS, moved to another Thames
fort, Rough Towers, when his pirate days were over. He renamed it Sealand and declared
it an independent state. There are a couple of web-sites devoted to this tiny
man-made country: www.fruitsofthesea.demon.co.uk/sealand and
www.sealandgov.com.
PERSONALITIES
Former seventies Caroline disc-jockey, Norman Barrington, has split his long-running web site into two halves.
normanb.com is devoted to his radio career while his other, see
below, displays his passion for jingles.
Former Radio London Breakfast Show presenter Dave Cash has a web site at www.davecash.co.uk covering all aspects of his long and successful broadcasting career.
Former Radio England “boss jock” and Caroline South breakfast DJ, Roger Day can now be heard on BBC local radio
in the south of England. He has a web site at http://rogerday.co.uk.
Ad Roberts is a disc-jockey who worked on Radio Caroline's Dutch sister stations during the seventies and
eighties. He has a web site www.adroberts.net devoted to his
career and his interest in country music. There is also a section of the site compiled by his old Caroline colleague
Andy Archer. It contains pictures from the
‘Class of 74’ reunion and Andy's diary from that year.
Many former offshore broadcasters turned to television announcing after their time at sea. There used to be an excellent
web site called The Continuity Booth which contained details of many of them. The contents of this site have now
been absorbed into The TV Room +.
Johnny Lewis was originally heard on Radio Caroline as ‘Stephen Bishop’ in 1979.
Since then he has gone on to enjoy a long and successful broadcasting career. He has a web site,
Rounds And Sounds, devoted to this three main
interests: beer, golf and radio. It includes some great photos taken on board the mv Mi Amigo.
Lion Keezer was a Dutch DJ on Radio Caroline during the seventies. His web site has some great, high quality, photos of Radio Caroline, Radio Northsea International, the
Voice of Peace and Radio Veronica.
Bart Steenman was a DJ on Radio Monique, a Dutch station which shared the mv Ross Revenge with Radio Caroline during
the eighties. His blog contains photos and audio from his
time at sea.
Sheridon Street was an engineer on both Caroline ships during 1967. He even got to present
some shows on Caroline South (as Keith Street) when the DJ team was a man short.
Now living in northern Thailand, he has posted some fantastic pictures from his offshore days on his web site:
www.hs0zee.com.
TAPES AND MEMORABILIA
Over the years East Anglian Productions/Jumbo Records produced all manner of books, tapes, videos and CDs relating to
offshore radio. Although the company has now ceased trading, a number of their CDs are still available through Amazon,
including the 3 CD set The
Wonderful Radio London Story, a CD compilation of Radio London promotions and tapes
Production Masters 1964-67
and the massive six CD set The Radio Caroline Story.
The magazine Offshore
Echo's (see above) also offers an impressive range of items.
The old Caroline Movement used to sell cassettes of offshore recordings. Their
catalogue has now been taken over by GJB Sales and a list of the
available tapes can be obtained by sending an addressed C5 envelope, stamped to the value
of 41p, to Tape Offer, P.O.Box 46, Romford, Essex RM7 8AY.
Disc-jockey Bob Le Roi sells a number of CD documentaries,
mainly about the fort-based pirates, from his site www.bobleroi.co.uk
Pirate Radio Sales offers a wide range of books, videos,
CDs and memorabilia. Now under new management.
Allan Krautwald sells MP3 CDs of offshore recordings. Each disc contains approximately 23 to 25 hours of programmes.
The CDs costs £5.99 each plus postage and packing, payment made via PayPal. Full details from
www.offshoreradio.dk.
The Medium Wave Circle offers a couple of double CDs
in MP3 format which may be of interest although they cover a later generation of offshore radio. One features Radio
Caroline during 1983-1987, the other Laser-558 1984-1986. Each costs £9 or €15, including
postage and packing, and can be ordered via the web site or from: Medium Wave Circle, 59 Moat Lane, Luton LU3 1UU,
United Kingdom.
Members of The Offshore Radio Archive share recordings of British and Dutch offshore stations. The annual subscription
of €15 pays for the server from which tapes can be downloaded. Members get at least
four hours of offshore radio recordings added to the database each week.
Ray Andrews has kindly supplied a number of the
air-checks on The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. He is interested in trading recordings
of offshore stations from 1964 to 1974 and would like to hear from anyone with tapes to swap.
Chris Baird has also generously provided recordings. He is especially
interested in trading tapes of Radio Luxembourg and can be contacted
here.
Jim Nantz is an American who started listening to the current incarnation of Radio Caroline
via the internet. Although he had never heard the station during its maritime days, he became fascinated by the history and
asked people to send him their offshore recordings. They did, and he set up a web server to host them. Jim has now passed
the day to day running of this audio treasure-trove to Ray Robinson who has added to it substantially, as well as
archiving the output of the current Radio Caroline. There is now an amazing catalogue of airchecks available to download
from azanorak.com web site.
JINGLES
One of the best jingle sites is operated by Norman Barrington. He
was a disc-jockey on Radio Caroline during the seventies and has another site devoted to his offshore career, see above.
If you want to buy or swap jingles, check out Jingleweb. It is a Dutch site but has pages in English as well.
Most of the jingles used on offshore radio were produced by Pams of
Dallas and you can hear a number of samples on their site. An American fan called Steven M Geisler has a section of his
Steve's Radio & Railroads web site
devoted to jingles.
NON-UK PIRATES
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame only includes English-language broadcasters who
were heard in Britain but there were a number of other countries where offshore radio flourished and some excellent
web-sites that tell their stories:
The Swedish and Danish offshore stations pre-date their British counterparts and there are a number of fascinating
sites devoted to their memory, parts of which are in English: Görans Radiosida is a general site covering all the Scandinavian stations. There are also
specific sites devoted to Radio Mercur,
Radio Syd and
Radio Nord. A second, bilingual, Radio Nord
site is at www.radionord-story.com.
Swedish radio fan Ingemar Lindqvist has been operating The Radio Archives web site in his own language since March 2006
(Swedish home page here) and has now
begun work on an English language section. Both
parts contain a number of interesting and unique recordings including some of British offshore stations.
Europe's longest-lasting offshore station was Radio Veronica and there is an excellent
Dutch language site celebrating it at www.norderney.nl.
After its offshore days, the Veronica organisation developed into a wide-ranging media empire and now has a web site
(in Dutch) dedicated to the history of the station at www.veronicastory.nl.
René van den Abeelen is a Dutch radio presenter. He has two fascinating web sites. Renevandenabeelen.net has many pages devoted to Radio Veronica with lots of pictures and some old
Super 8 movies shot in the seventies. There is also material about two other ships, RNI's Mebo II and Atlantis's
Jeanine. At his other site radioships.com you can buy tin miniatures
of radio ships. Two are already on the market, number three is imminent.
When “Swinging” Radio England closed down, it was replaced by a Dutch station. One of its disc-jockeys,
Look Boden (who also kindly contributed some of his photographs to the DJs' photo album)
has set up his own cable station called, in memory of his offshore past, Radio 227.
The Radio Heritage Foundation site describes itself as
“sharing the stories of Pacific Radio”. If you are interested in radio from Australia, New Zealand or anywhere
in the Pacific, this is the site for you. It has lots of memorabilia and photos from the days of New Zealand's only
offshore station, Radio Hauraki.
LAND-BASED PIRATES
Ireland has enjoyed a flourishing land-based pirate radio scene for many years.
The excellent DX Archive
contains air-checks, photographs and station details of many of them as well as
audio clips from some UK maritime stations.
Also recommended is Irishpirates.com
which contains a number of interesting air-checks from different Irish stations.
The excellent Dublin-based Phantom FM used to be a
land-based pirate. After many years, the station won a well-deserved license and can be heard
in Dublin and the surrounding area on 105.2MHz FM. Steve Conway, a Caroline DJ of the eighties, presents the
Sunday evening request show.
Radio Eric celebrates the British land-based pirate
radio scene of the sixties, seventies and eighties with an extensive archive of recordings.
AMERICAN AND CANADIAN TOP 40 RADIO
The pirate stations borrowed many of their ideas from trans-Atlantic Top 40 radio.
To hear how the originals sounded, there are a number of highly recommended sites.
The Reel Top 40 Radio Repository
will keep you entertained for hours.
The Rock Radio Scrapbook
has an immense range of American and Canadian recordings.
So does airchexx.com.
Northeast Airchecks
concentrates on stations broadcasting in the north-eastern USA.
Radio Timeline.com
contains a number of American airchecks including some of Howie Castle, better known to Caroline
listeners as Bud Ballou, and dozens of links to other sites of
interest.
As well as these general sites, there are a number devoted to individual radio stations. Here
are just a few that are recommended:
 Two sites are devoted to WLS, Chicago. See also below. |
 KHJ, Los Angeles, the home of the original ‘boss jocks’. |
 WOLF, Syracuse, New York. |
 WMCA, New York, the home of the “good guys”. |
 WRKO, Boston, the home of Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsberg. |
 “Tiger Radio” WQAM, Miami. |
 WLS, Chicago, the “big 89”, home to Larry Lujack and Dick Biondi. |
 CKGM, Montreal, Canada. |
 WKBW, Buffalo, New York. |
 KLIF, Dallas, Texas. The “Big D” that inspired our own “Big L”, wonderful Radio London. |
 New York's legendary WABC, home of the “All Americans”. |
 WFUN Miami, where SRE's Ron O'Quinn was ‘Jack Armstrong’. |
RADIO NEWS
John Burch, formerly of the Caroline Movement, operates a non-premium rate phone service, the Jaybee
Newsline, which has all the latest offshore-related gossip and news on 0844-5760-199. It is updated
every few weeks.
John's former colleague in the Caroline Movement, Geoff Baldwin, publishes Radio Review (& TV Flashback)
magazine. Now over 190 issues old, it reports and analyses what is happening in the world of radio - both licensed and
unlicensed. A six month subscription costs £25 from P.O.Box 46, Romford, Essex RM7 8AY. To receive a free sample copy,
send a stamped self-addressed envelope to the same address. See the web site for further details.
STREAMING AUDIO
The Oldies Project offers non-stop music from the sixties
and seventies. They go beyond the obvious hits and play tracks you may not have heard for years. They run down the Big
L Fab 40 of exactly 43 years ago every Sunday morning at 11am (with a repeat the following Wednesday at 6pm).
For a full countdown of every chart and loads of fascinating information about the tracks check out www.biglfab40.com.
Offshore Music Radio plays those classic sixties and
seventies records that you loved on the pirates but which seldom get airplay now.
If you you operate a radio-related web-site and wish to link to The Pirate Radio Hall of
Fame, feel free to use the banner at the top of the page. Please let us know if you have added a link.