Free Radio Research - 1995-2000 (Straying into 2003)

It is somewhat counterintuitive that my recollections of UK-based free radio stations on shortwave are far more hazy after 1995 than from the earlier half of the decade, but as I grew into my later teenage years other aspects of 'the world' initially competed with an interest in pirate stations before eventually supplanting it altogether. 

If I am to term the 1990s as a golden age of free radio listening that is in comparison to the subsequent decades, especially this last ten years or so. If though I am afforded greater specificity the halcyon days(years) of the 1990s were its first 4-5 years, although 1993 was a particularly poor year due to adverse listening (and broadcasting) conditions. It is moot as to whether the scene had started to unravel by the mid-1990s, or simply that I wasn't listening with the same ears as my younger self.

By 1999 there was still a significant UK presence on shortwave, and although not an exhaustive list consisted of the following:

• Britain's Better Music Station(BBMS)
• Subterranean Sounds
• Live Wire 
• Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC)
• Weekend Music Radio
• Blackbeard
• Station Sierra Sierra
• Galaxy International (a side project operated by the above two and Mark Perry)
• Radio Pamela
• Armadillo
• Pandora
• UK Radio (Paul Johnson, etc)
• Radio Free London
• Mirage
• Zodiac
• Radio Orion(the Big O/Big Ostrich) operated by Mike Wilson who eventually became the Bogus Jobseeker, then simply but no less effectively Bogusman, or even just Bogus.

By 2001 the time I devoted to listening became increasingly infrequent as foreign travel and the everyday realities of adulthood placed greater demands upon my time. Again, the following may well be incomplete but my recollections and subsequent research suggest that these stations were active:

• Blackbeard
• Radio Geronimo
• XTC
• The Grolschman
• West and North Kent Radio(WNKR)
• Weekend Music Radio
• Station Sierra Sierra
• Galaxy International
• Live Wire
• Wizard's Magic Spell(WMS)
• Subterranean Sounds - I estimate this to be the station's final year of broadcasting.
• Groovy Granny
• UK Radio
• Uranium

Some observations from the above 2001 list suggest that Uranium, now Valley Wave, was indeed active before I gave up listening in 2002, although I never actually heard the station and only became aware of it anecdotally as well as from recent research. Despite a mailing address in Dortmund, Groovy Granny was I believe a relatively short-lived UK-based station. Whilst I knew of who operated and was the eponymous 'Grolschman' I never actually received this station, although the man behind the plan was occasionally heard on other stations.

In 2003 I was well and truly out of the loop, although kept in touch with a few operators by text message and/or email. Ongoing research has identified the following UK stations that were known to have broadcast during this year, including a few new additions:

• XTC
• Pandora
• Britain Radio International  - by this time I would estimate to be in its 24th year of broadcasting.
• Radio Underground
• Blackbeard
• WNKR
• Orion/Bogus Jobseeker
• Galaxy International
• Geronimo
• Good Music Radio
• Live Wire - I estimate this to be the station's final year of broadcasting.
• UK Radio.

This was the year that UK Radio's Paul Johnson sadly passed away, only in his early forties. The operator of Radio Geronimo, Chris Watson, also departed before his time, in December 2016. 

As we can see there are few operators still out there today who were active in the early years of the millennium. It is left to Radio Pandora, Pamela, the Xenon Transmitting Company, and re-entrant Valley Wave to continue in the traditions to which we have become accustomed, with some of the aforementioned quartet having been involved with free radio broadcasting for the thick end of forty years. 

It does though show that whatever age you were in the early 1990s and notwithstanding the stage in individuals' lives the era may have coincided with, those truly were the days my friend.