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.