And thanks go to...

In what is a final final post on my blog dedicated to UK-based shortwave free radio stations of the 1990s, it is only fair that I thank those who have given encouragement, honest appraisals, and nuggets of information which have filled in the gaps of my memory, and helped bulk out posts with data that hitherto I was unaware of.

Firstly, Paul at the thorough Shortwave DX Blog and Pirate Memories Blog for his emails and inclusion of my efforts within the list of blogs which he follows, therefore broadening the admittedly limited reach of what is a niche within a niche, within a niche. 

The emails of Kai Salvesen have in particular been a source of great interest and help, the content of which often mirroring my own experiences and emotions precipitated by the 1990s free radio scene.

After many years had passed since I was a member of the British DX Club I was pleased to make contact with Tom Read, someone I remember as a free radio expert during the 1990s and a frequent communicator with many of the scene's operators.

Still going strong and one of the last bastions of quality talk-based free radio on shortwave, Matt Roberts of the Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC) has on occasions helped steer the blog away from conjecture and assumptions into the calmer waters of factually correct information, whilst reading my words both from the perspective of a current broadcaster and one who did so as XTC and initially Radio Mutiny 'back in the day'.

I have also enjoyed stepping back in time by exchanging emails with the legendary Jack Russel of Weekend Music Radio and Trevor Brook, operator of Radio Fax - a station that existed on a rich diet of speech-based programming and took the fight for official recognition to the very top. It was also good to hear from Dave Norris formerly of Radio Blackbeard and Galaxy International, who can periodically be heard on Buzz FM and the Melton Mowbray-based community station The Eye 103 - as can Paul Stuart, once upon a time of Galaxy International and the enigmatic Station Sierra Sierra.

Thank you also to Mike Barraclough for giving readers of the Free Radio Forum the heads up about my blog.

My apologies to those I have inadvertently overlooked, and thanks to all who have read my at times rambling and discursive words. I would like to think there was more mileage in the blog, but sadly that is not the case. It was always going to be a difficult task to wring more and more out of what was a finite subject stymied by drawing on memories, a lack of hard copy material, and a relative dearth of online research material.

If though anything substantive and unique comes to light(or memory), I will be more than happy to revisit the subject. As ever, your comments, memories, and corrections are most welcome, and will be replied to expeditiously. 

We may meet again, who knows, but for now it really is goodbye. 

Redux: Shortwave 'Pirate' Radio in the time of Covid-19 provided much needed entertainment and reminiscence

FIRST PUBLISHED A YEAR AGO ON A DIFFERENT PLATFORM AND IN THE WAKE OF MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS, THE FOLLOWING CHRONICLES AN ALMOST ENFORCED REINTRODUCTION TO UK-BASED FREE RADIO ON SHORTWAVE DURING A LENGTHY PERIOD OF CONVALESCENCE. 

REPRESENTING THE FINAL POST OF AND A FITTING CONCLUSION TO THIS BLOG, MY WRITING STYLE AND THOUGHTS MAY SLIGHTLY DIFFER FROM MORE RECENT POSTS, BUT THE OVERALL MESSAGE REMAINS CONSTANT: THE 1990s WAS A GOLDEN PERIOD FOR FREE RADIO, PARTICULARLY IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE DECADE, BUT ITS RISE, DECLINE, AND FALL VERY MUCH MIRRORED SOCIETAL CHANGES AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS THAT HAVE MADE LISTENING TO AND BROADCASTING ON 'GOOD OLD SHORTWAVE' SOMETHING OF A DYING ART, AND ARGUABLY A SOMEWHAT TWEE PASTIME. 

MANY THANKS TO ALL WHO HAVE VIEWED, CONTRIBUTED, AND COMMENTED. ALTHOUGH THIS IS TECHNICALLY THE END, I STILL WELCOME ENGAGEMENT WITH ANYONE WHO LISTENED AND CONTRIBUTED TO THE RICH MOSAIC OF 1990s FREE RADIO, AND THOSE WITH A GENERAL INTEREST IN HOBBY PIRATES FROM ANY ERA. 

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Aged in my early teens in the Autumn of 1990, little could I have known that randomly tuning around the international shortwave bands on a basic analogue radio one Sunday morning would spark a hobby that has, albeit intermittently, endured to this day.

Already moderately aware of what could be heard using just a bog standard wireless and built in telescopic antenna, I was nevertheless surprised that Sunday morning to hear British(and Irish) accents and contemporary pop music in one specific area, the 48/49 metre band, approximately between 6100 - 6400 Khz. These 'stations' sounding more as if broadcasting from my neighbourhood than over the international broadcasting spectrum transpired to be pirate, or Free Radio operators, to correctly moniker the scene's preferred title.

The early days of UK pirate radio activity inevitably went hand in hand with offshore broadcasting, including the pioneering and most famous exponent of its genre, Radio Caroline. As broadcasting from ships was in reality the preserve and luxury of the few,  transmitting from bedrooms, garden sheds, and out in the field, the latter seen as the least likely location to be detected, became the norm for hundreds, perhaps thousands of UK-based FM and shortwave stations. The three stations I first heard that October morning were to be no exception.

Of the tripartite of stations - Ozone Radio International, Radio 48, and Live Wire Radio - I became great friends but sadly lost contact with 'Mr. Live Wire'. Powering out a strong and stable signal which reached North America, this English-based operator became for many years a firm favourite amongst free radio aficionados for his initial broadcasts on the 6.6 MHz 'Echo Charlie' band before migrating to where most of the action lay on 48 and 76 metres, with also some notable broadcasts in FM mode on 15 MHz.

My interest in free radio continued to grow. Once it became apparent that these three stations were but the tip of the iceberg I dedicated my weekends, in particular Sunday mornings, to hearing, and contacting, as many operators as possible. Some great listening ensued, from the likes of Weekend Music Radio in Scotland, to Radio Confusion and its nominal successor Subterranean Sounds based in the south of England. With as many if not far more shortwave operators located in the Netherlands but relatively few elsewhere in continental Europe, I all of a sudden became a correspondent at 14-years of age with exotically sounding stations like Radio Orangutan, Ozone, and in the years to come Radio Fusion from Sweden, and the French-based Radio Waves International.

As my teenage life progressed and atmospheric conditions made listening at times in the mid-1990's almost impossible I increasingly dipped in and out of free radio, as did some of its higher profile operators. Some disappeared for good; others, like Live Wire Radio concentrated on medium wave broadcast amongst the many Dutch operators around 1636-1660 Khz and nighttime 3 MHz programmes. Perhaps it was often forgotten by listeners lamenting an absence of their favourite stations but operators too also have lives, relationships, and changes of circumstances just as we all do.

The early to mid 90's undoubtedly contained a golden generation of UK shortwave free radio stations, or, perhaps as a relative youngster had I been taken in by the notion that everything was better in the past, at least compared to our current technologically advanced but spiritually and morally bereft era? This isn't though a hagiographic depiction of life as it was, merely to paint a pejorative picture of modern life. Quite simply, be it a crop of footballers, pop groups, or free radio stations, clusters of those bound together by a shared passion and/or skill do without rhyme or reason inexplicably occur in tandem. It is not for us to ask why - there often isn't an answer - but to simply enjoy a period of time all the more fleeting before it eventually flies too close to the sun or circumstances get the better of it.

As atmospheric conditions fluctuate on a daily basis - something that has happened time immemorial - the one constant that hampered operators and listeners alike was an inexorable increase in background noise, electrical interference - call it what you will. The proliferation of electrical devices within households and subsequent everyday normalcy of handheld telephones has made conventional listening with a radio and longwire antenna a thing of frustration for those in built up areas.

The advent of Software Defined Radio(SDR) now enables listeners to hear stations wherever SDR receivers are located. Should for example an individual audience member based in Manchester find online an SDR located in Sweden, he or she can then hear the shortwave bands as if they were sitting back with a coffee and cigar in Stockholm, or wherever in Sweden the remote receiver happens to be based. Should a report be filed to the station its operator will then know that he is being heard in Sweden, albeit by a listener based in the north west of England. Is this cheating? Maybe, but if it helps keep the art of shortwave free radio alive I view this as one piece of modern technology that hasn't completely unromanticized the notion of the one man band, homebrew operator broadcasting from where, who know where, to be heard on a laptop or smartphone instead of more traditional equipment.

The current Covid-19 outbreak has for me been a twofold issue. Locked down, quarantined, call it what you will and what the population are having to endure is of course a problem for all, not just me. I also though succumbed to novel coronavirus, which heralded some dark, uncertain days before my eventual but slow recuperation took effect. This, and the generic lockdown has given me plenty of time to think, rest, fret, but also dip my toe back into the world of free radio.

Although sounding very different to its heyday I have enjoyed rolling back the years, both from the simple act of listening and being frustrated by trampolining conditions and stations that fail to identify themselves, but also hearing several operators that I haven't done so for years, or those who I have happened across purely because of my incapacitation.

A QSL card is a written confirmation from a station that the listener indeed heard its output, and something which became collectible in all sphere of radio listening. As a youngster I received by default many QSL cards from stations throughout the UK and overseas, including mainstream broadcasters Voice of Vietnam, Radio New Zealand International, and the Moscow-based Radio Peace and Progress. I never per se wrote to free radio operators as a QSL-hungry listener but more as a novelty of corresponding with the otherwise mysterious and faceless who took calculated or otherwise risks every time the rig was switched on.

This form of verification nevertheless found its way back from station operators to my mailbox, although sadly my archived collection has long since bitten the dust. Having though made contact during my Covid-19 hiatus with several UK and Irish stations, revisiting the 'back in the day' novelty of receiving QSL cards in real time has engendered strange feelings of nostalgia, but also those of simple enjoyment which in the grand scheme of modern life has become far more difficult, even to the point of ridicule.

Here are some of the recent QSL cards received during my enforced convalescence:

Radio Pamela's operation by free radio legend Steve Most predates even my earliest interest in the pirate scene. Although a periodic broadcaster Pamela has seemingly gained a new lease of life and can be often be heard, as 'she' was this morning, on 6940 Khz in the 43 metre band.

As one of the original 'classic' pirates of the golden 90's era, The Xenon Transmitting Company, or XTC, was first known as Radio Mutiny before adopting a more abstruse name squarely in keeping with the station operator's identity - Tommy Teabags. I have at times gone several years without hearing XTC, whose broadcasts prior to the pandemic were limited to bank holidays. As can be seen in the above QSL XTC has once more made several very welcome appearances on the 48 metre band, with special Lockdown Special shows! As the years catch up with us all and maturity casts a depressing but necessary shadow, Mr. Teabags has now reverted back to the less outlandish sobriquet of Matt Roberts, who first identified himself as such during the early days of Radio Mutiny.

The third QSL is also a fellow UK station of Pamela and XTC. Despite broadcasting since the mid-90's operator Steve St. John has only been heard by your correspondent perhaps on a dozen occasions, with atmospheric conditions and technical problems precluding good, or any, reception of Pandora's broadcasts. Despite approaching his 70th birthday the ever-chuckling Steve has recently been putting out some belting signals on 6322 Khz and can credit the technical expertise and advice of Live Wire Radio's former operator with such vastly improved signal and modulation.

Although present at various times during the last several months on the 76 and 48 metre bands, as well as 5.8 and 6.9 MHz, I hadn't previous to last week had the pleasure of officially hearing Radio Parade, another UK-based station. The obvious distinction I can make between Parade and most, if not all other free radio stations, is a particular fondness by Alex, the station operator, to broadcast instrumental, classical, and niche output. The power used and broadcasting setup, combined with the slightly higher frequencies favoured often results in Parade being barely audible in the UK, or at best heard via the North West Ireland Kiwi SDR remote receiver or that based in Arvika, Sweden. Identification is usually confirmed by sporadic canned announcements, although piano concertos and instrumental pieces act as ersatz and distinguishable points of reference.

It is impossible to say whether my rejuvenated interest in free radio will continue once fully recovered from my own brush with Covid-19, and that the strictures of lockdown have finally been loosened. It is certainly not a foregone conclusion to assume the pirate scene will always be there but in one guise or other, the 48 metre band will remain a constant to the many or few for some time yet. Fluctuations in quality and quantity of stations and atmospheric conditions are a given, but a resurgence in listening using conventional and/or SDR technology will hopefully encourage those operating to continue to do so, and perhaps too a new breed of operators to take the hobby into the next generation.

7th October 1990

Notwithstanding an absence of now long gone hard copy logbooks and my erstwhile QSL card collection, I have always been sure that the first time I heard free radio stations from the UK on shortwave was the 7th October 1990. And so it has been proved.

In the last three months of compiling a blog which has relied upon the fleshing out of my memories with what limited online resources there are that pertain to the 1990s hobby pirate scene, and complemented by some useful information from free radio contacts, I have been surprised by the otherwise poor response from those reading my thoughts. Now, there can be several reasons for that and although they may be subjective, there can be little doubt that a substantial amount of time has passed which in theory could accommodate those 'getting into' the hobby and then out of it, with still a decade or two in between respective denouements and the present day.

Despite seemingly exhausting the 1990s UK shortwave scene in my previous dozen or so blog posts, there has subsequently been several flashes of inspiration which have led me to upload further thoughts; whilst undoubtedly a finite subject that can be done to death and more or less has been so from at least my perspective, a fresh seam of information from 'back in the day' has come to my attention, and is developing into being a tremendous resource. 

My previous post detailed a memorable day of listening thirty years ago, on April Fools' Day 1991. I was fortunate to be able to marry up my memories of the day with archive material which included that published by FRS Goes DX, a free radio mainstays during the 1990s prior to the advent of what has become an era dominated by digitisation. Published through Archive.org I and others who have perused the aforementioned periodical and others of its genre are indebted to the individual or people who have taken considerable time and effort to upload their own archives to the website, without which this otherwise forgotten resource would never have come to light. 

There will I am sure be boxes of free radio publications in lofts up and down the land, but until they reach the light of day online information will remain hard to find and be more or less conspicuous by its absence, almost to a point where if I didn't know otherwise it seems it must first be declassified before being released to the general public only after an x number of years have first elapsed. 

The FRS Goes DX publication that included loggings from the 7th October 1990 unequivocally confirms that it was indeed that day when I lost my free radio virginity; a tripartite of stations which kicked off my interest in shortwave pirates, Radio 48, Live Wire, and Ozone International were indeed present on the 48 metre band at some point that morning, along with broadcasters such as Weekend Music Radio, Radio East Coast Commercial, Orion, Pamela, and Midlands' Music Radio which on that occasion I missed but would go on to hear on countless occasions during the next few years. 

What has surprised me from viewing the loggings for October 1990 was just how few stations there at times were on 6 MHz. Other frequencies, primarily the 41-metre band and 11 MHz were far more popular in that era than they are now, but the subsequently preferred by many 76-metre band had not at that point gained favour. UK-based stations were though evident in far greater numbers than recent times, and although quantity didn't always equal quality, for at least the first half of the 1990s I would have to say on balance that it actually did. 

For those among you who like to reminisce without descending into lachrymosity the Radio Magazines section on Archive.org will bring back a few memories, and perhaps also engender some 'how did I not ever hear that station?' feelings which from my own experiences I call the Total Control/Nitrozone Effect, for reasons that are self-explanatory. Such archives also conjure up 'whatever happened to...?' sentiments about the many station operators who dropped out after so many tuned in. Therein lies one of the inherent mysteries of free radio, and its protagonists behind countless stations from the last six decades. 

1st April 1991

How ever you slice it, 30 years is a long time in anyone's life. To be looking back on UK-based hobby pirates from that length of time ago is undoubtedly unusual if only for its own sake, but where and how they figured within the patchwork quilt of my life at the time, and to varying extents since, has very much been the basis of my blog.

To undertake this project simply to give my slant on the shortwave free radio scene of the time would have been insufficient reason in itself, but the early 1990s represented some of the most influential and tumultuous years in my life to date. The overlap of an outstanding period for music a few years either side of 1990 with free radio certainly resonated at the time as it still does to some extent today, but my stumbling across of pirate radio would not have had the same effect upon me if it had been in a different era, perhaps even a different year, as its unique selling point captivated my life as much as the football and music scenes of the time, and the discovery of the pluses and minuses associated with teenage relationships with the opposite sex. 

A symbiotic existence of  the constituent parts of my life was held together by one area predominating when perhaps another fell short of expectations and desires, which would be commonplace in the ephemeral worlds of sporting success and musical mastery. Free radio would also at times frustrate, as it only ever could if by that point one was so immersed within it, but the relative joy and dejection of hearing, or not as the case may be, stations that became favourites would neatly mesh in with the ebb and flow of teenage years, although I perhaps did not think of it like that at the time. 

The April Fools' Day of 1991 has brought back many memories for me, including how my rapidly burgeoning interest in shortwave free radio had manifested itself. It was a wild, windy, and wet Easter bank holiday Monday in the UK, and I was staying at my grandparents' house during part of the school holidays. How much radio had become part of my life only 6 months after first hearing pirate stations on the 48 metre band was demonstrated in the way I turned my grandparents' library/second sitting room into a radio shack, complete with a long wire antenna projecting from my Russian-issue Venturer 2959 multi-band analogue receiver that actually came as standard with a shoulder strap - the irony being it was anything but a easily portable radio even with this unorthodox appendage.

Despite my grandparents' house being in a semi-rural location compared to my then anything but rural place of residence, reception conditions had never in the past been what I hoped them to be. Perhaps I had previously just been unlucky, or that I expected too much from what was an extremely modest and at times frustrating piece of listening equipment. Either way, I didn't expect a great deal of listening success on April 1st thirty years ago, but fortunately that proved to be unduly pessimistic. 

In the absence of my now long gone logbooks, I am indebted to a copy of FRS Goes DX from the 22nd April 1991 recently sourced online to jolt my memory of the stations heard that public holiday. To say it was memorable but I couldn't otherwise have recalled those broadcasting that day without the Dutch-based publication sounds rather counter-intuitive but in my defence it has of course been thirty years, but I always knew it to be a significant day of listening, as born out by the loggings from that day.

As with most of the defining moments and facets of my teenage years, a Venn Diagram could be drawn as to how the individual influences tied in with each other. That my listening post was at the home of my late and much missed grandparents' isn't lost upon me, but neatly dovetails as a microcosm of the fluctuating emotions that reverberated from such interdependent memories of the time. 

My abiding recollection of the day was hearing Wee Guy Radio, a spoof 'station' operated by a well known Scottish gentleman whose presence on shortwave was synonymous with the 1990s shortwave hobby pirate scene. With little compunction bound up in an astute ability to mimic, gently mock and even deride several other free radio operators of the time, Wee Guy's yearly appearances were as brief as they were entertaining through an ability to subtly and blatantly point the finger at those who took themselves too seriously, and where extremely minor celebrity had gone to several heads. It was though the harmless and gentle satirizing of the late Norman Nelson of Radio East Coast Commercial as Norman Nesquik of a West Coast equivalent which has stayed with me, along with other more derogatory caricatures of those whose blushes I will spare. 

Elsewhere on 48 metres that day, Weekend Music Radio(funnily enough...!), Live Wire, Radio Confusion(later Subterranean Sounds) and a Mike Wilson(Bogusman)-inspired Radio Orion were also heard, along with fellow UK-based broadcasters Rocket 48, Radio Stella, and Midlands' Music Radio. Not only was this a day for quantity, there was no lack of quality within the output of the aforementioned - which more or less came as standard. To have so many listenable stations vying for attention during one morning reflects just how different the scene was then to what it has become today. 

It is unfair of me to say that the forthcoming Easter bank holiday Monday is not worth the effort of tuning in, but as the aforementioned leviathans of the 1990s slowly drifted away into semi or permanent broadcasting retirement, those of a similar calibre or who showed signs of having the potential to take up the mantle have generally been few and far between, and increasingly conspicuous by their absence. 

As with any decade the 1990s branded the most impressionable growing up in that era with an imprint which whilst not defining the road subsequently travelled in later life, certainly had a guiding influence on lives which in my case make the decade, especially its early to mid-years, so memorable for their own sake, but often depressing when contrasting like for like with today and the emotions engendered that will, just like the familial and radio protagonists of the time, never return.

It is said that comparisons are odious but if conditions and circumstances allow, only the Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC) of the stations that have that unique listenability so commonplace in the 1990s but now which are more or less absent, lost, and/or unavailable has the potential to be heard this forthcoming Easter Monday. That though is through arriving at the rather unrealistic conclusion that all who listen to free radio or have previously done so demand the same things from it as I once did. To many who tune in today the output on offer will be entirely to their taste and represent an exciting alternative to the homogenized mainstream. When though you can remember the glory days of one's own listening, and which now seems like a half a lifetime away, that is because it actually is, representing changes in taste, technology, and the importance or otherwise free radio plays in the lives of its listeners. 

There is no way of returning to the past but unearthing the FRS Goes DX publication was to me akin to an archaeological find from another age. When reminiscence goes beyond fondly remembering the past into territory of deriding the present, it is there where it must stop. There is a always a time to remember, but also one from which to move on. Being able to recognize the boundaries between the two is the difficult part.