Laughter is the key to longevity for Radio Pandora's chuckling Steve St. John

The hook line in the 1991 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark(OMD) track Pandora's Box posits that its subject, silent movie star Louise Brooks, was 'a long, long way from where she'd want to be'. Now, if there can ever be a tenuous link between this seemingly obscure reason behind one of the early 1990s most memorable pop tracks and shortwave free radio stalwart Radio Pandora, it would be my frustration that the station's signal during the mid nineties was a long way from being listenable, either because of my rather prosaic listening post or the station's extremely low wattage broadcasting capability. Maybe both. 

Yesterday evening I caught a few minutes of Radio Pandora's 28th anniversary broadcast, transmitting on 6935 Khz and heard via the North West Ireland SDR remote receiver. What a different a quarter of century makes! With a signal surpassing S9 and a shade under +10 dB Pandora was sounding more like Live Wire or Weekend Music Radio(WMR) from yesteryear than its previous incarnation where I would often not know the station had been on the air unless it had been logged in free radio publications. 

Pandora is now arguably more of a fixture on 6 MHz than it ever has been - or perhaps it is simply because now it has the capability to be heard by more listeners over a wider area - but the station's almost weekly appearances between 6935-6955 Khz betrays operator Steve St. John's renewed lust for broadcasting - assisted in no little way by the acquisition of a new 100 Watt rig.

In these days of continuous music, almost always canned IDs and when the DJ actually talks it is often only to say 'that was... the next record is...' Radio Pandora lends an almost old-school but very welcome antithesis to modern free radio broadcasting with a personable touch that doesn't take itself too seriously, complemented by a diverse choice of music and trademark chuckling. 

This is, was, and forever shall be my preferred style of free radio, and along with the Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC) represents the last bastion of its kind who broadcast on shortwave from the UK that actually have something of interest to say to the listener, without sounding like a polished but generic ILR station. Indeed, you can almost set your watch to Steve St. John namechecking Mr. XTC during a Pandora broadcast. 

There is currently a minor resurgence of UK-based stations including relatively new additions Radio Jennifer, Radio Clash, and Cruisin Radio to complement the now established Radio Nova and Radio Parade, alongside shortwave's fixtures and fittings Radio Pamela and Radio Merlin. When it is though considered that over the last two decades the likes of Radio Armadillo, Subterranean Sounds, Radio Orion, Station Sierra Sierra, as well as Live Wire and WMR have been lost to the scene, it is little wonder that UK-based broadcasting on shortwave has lost most of its lustre. 

Despite being a mere stripling compared to Steve St. John, XTC's Matt Roberts has though been broadcasting on shortwave as long as, if not for longer than the man at Radio Pandora's controls. There are plenty of broadcasting years ahead of both, but I hope that other would be operators out there in the wings can eventually serve as an adjunct to the more listenable elements of UK-based free radio on shortwave, and in the end take its reins. 

Here's to another 28 years, Steve! 

Next time: Buzz FM, the not so nowadays frequency modulated station currently operated on the medium wave band by a very familiar voice from the past...