The Blackwater Estuary is in the English county of Essex. Despite its closeness to Colchester, England’s oldest town, it is a remote and lonely stretch of water, just down the coast from the busy seaside resort of Clacton on Sea. The small village of Bradwell is an ideal location for a nuclear power station, forlorn […]
Every week in our Radio Survivor Bulletin email newsletter we count down the top 5 stories of the week, along with alerting readers to other important radio stories. Now, here are our top 10 stories in radio news for March, as ranked by unique hits: 50th Anniversary Celebration for Radio Caroline, the UK’s 1st Pirate […]
March 27 is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Radio Caroline, the infamous pirate radio ship that brought rock n’ roll to the UK airwaves and sparked many a pirate radio fantasy thereafter. On that day in 1964 Radio Caroline began broadcasting with a test transmission. Broadcasts Aboard a ship In Liverpool the Mersey […]
Here’s what’s been going on in the world of pirate and unlicensed broadcasting. A Radio Survivor reader tipped us off to this story about a pirate radio operator in the hotbed of South Florida who died installing his antenna. The aerial accidentally hit a power line and he was electrocuted. His death is certainly unfortunate, […]
One of the more interesting permits that Britain’s radio/telecom regulator offers radio broadcasters is short term restricted service licenses (SRSLs for you acronym lovers). They’re reserved for community events, festivals, non-profit offerings, those kind of things. Some noted restricted license holders of the past have included Radio Caroline, Radio Avalon (the Glastonbury Festival), and Takeover […]
On the heels of Radio Caroline’s 47th birthday last week, the New York Times published a story reporting on the outfit’s attempt to garner an actual license to broadcast in the UK. Caroline is pursuing 531 KHz on the mediumwave band (known as AM in the US) which was recently vacated by the BBC. While […]
One of the most famous off-shore British pirate stations of the 1960s celebrates the 47th anniversary of its first successful broadcasts today. Gibson’s This Day in Music Spotlight reminded me of the occasion. As writer MIchael Wright retells, the next day, the 29th, was Easter Sunday and Caroline was ready to officially launch. At 12 […]
Amazon.com Widgets Sunday was the forty-sixth anniversary of Radio Caroline, one of the most famous UK pirate stations of the 1960s, and the inspiration for the recent movie Pirate Radio a/k/a The Boat That Rocked. Those radio pirates were inspired, in part, by the fact that the BBC played almost no rock music, and was […]
