Free/pirate radio: what are its moral realities?

The recent raid of free radio stalwart Radio Merlin International has led me to ponder the illegality of pirate broadcasting, and who shares the burden of responsibility for its perpetuation. 

Through a stop-start relationship with shortwave free radio now into its fourth decade, I do not recall many instances of UK-based stations being apprehended by the former DTI(Department of Trade and Industry) nor Ofcom(Office for Communications) - the latter who now assume responsibilities for its very own slant on track and trace. Indeed, of the perhaps 70-80 UK stations I have heard on shortwave since 1990, it is only those whose omnipresence on the bands - Radio Galaxy that morphed into today's Merlin and UK Radio International - and the Bogusman who was caught using an international distress frequency that I can recall being apprehended by the powers that be. There will though of course have been others.

This would suggest, but is in no way certain, that a blind eye(deaf ear?) is turned to shortwave hobby broadcasters unless they stray onto frequencies that are out of bounds, or are perhaps persistent 'offenders' who have been given a certain if albeit tacit leeway by the authorities but in the end are too conspicuous by their own ubiquity. This does not though account for how free radio operators' initial come to the attention of officialdom, whether that be through the authorities doing their own band scans or reports of local interference to telecommunications equipment. There are also potential issues with aesthetic sensibilities relating to broadcasting antennas that are not necessarily subtle in their design and size. 

When I younger, much younger, it briefly crossed my mind that those who wrote in to free radio operators could also be on the receiving end of visits from the authorities should letters(yes, it is that long ago) be confiscated during theoretical raids. I hadn't thought along similar lines until the recent raid of Merlin, but rather than being concerned about the senders of emails being caught up in proceedings, it is the moral argument of whether or not listeners, supposedly the lifeblood of any radio station, are perpetuating the 'crime' as much as the operator himself. 

Since the dawn of humanity there has always been a tendency to only adhere to the laws of the land that suit us, with an attitude that if we do not agree with something then it is acceptable to overlook its legal demands. The argument remains that UK-based free radio on shortwave was to some degree been brought about by the BBC's hegemonic presence through its World Service output and the corporation's insistence on it remaining that way, but I have often wondered if getting a kick out of illegal broadcasting, or doing anything unlawful, would lose its appeal if all of a sudden licenses were handed out for example to those who broadcast on the 48 metre band. Is it therefore the illicit act itself and being able to circumvent the authorities that appeals, or the ability to get on the air through one's own technical mastery? I have no doubt that simply broadcasting the music which appeals to the operator is another motivation, especially if is unlikely to be heard elsewhere. If that is the reason why do some individuals set up free radio stations; what is the difference between listening to 'your music' in the comfort of your own home than transmitting it to the world? There will be an element of broadcasters who like the interaction with listeners, but I often felt that those who contacted some stations in the past were regarded as the inevitable but unwanted consequences of operating a free radio station.

What motivates listeners of free radio, pirate stations? Is it having a tenuous connection to and involvement with an illegal activity that will likely never rebound upon them? I feel my initial interest was piqued, 31 years ago this weekend, by hearing something different, but as a 14-year old I was never going to consider the reality behind what I was hearing. If I enjoyed it, how surely could any offence have been committed? Laws of the land are instituted to protect the population from each other and themselves, but by listening to pirate broadcasts I was hardly harming myself. It though can be argued that overlooking any illegal activity engenders a negative relationship with the statutes, potentially priming individuals who might in the future accept misdeeds that are regarded by society as comparatively far more serious.

How therefore one must view free radio and any interaction with its protagonists is very much an individual choice. After setting up a blog to chronicle 1990s UK-based free radio and eulogising about many of its component parts I run the risk of being labelled a hypocrite by writing this post, but instead of attempting to posit a 'do as I say not as I do' message this article is simply being put 'out there' to question our relationship with the law, and more importantly our attitudes towards it. Is it wrong to just listen to free radio without ever contacting its operators? If it sounds good and releases endorphins, how does that make it wrong? We of course can use the same tropes for almost any act, from the innocent to the most heinous, but whilst almost all illegality would be regarded as far worse than pirate broadcasting, the only way to separate a law from being a law is through the level of punishment its breaking commands. Laws as such are not tiered by their existence and severity by being included within the statute books, but are catalogued together for the purposes of being theoretically enactable legislation. 

I for one am now reviewing my attitude to free radio. This isn't with the intention of being the broadcasting equivalent of nobody being more critical of smoking than an ex-smoker, but to perhaps view the scene in a more balanced way. I am though reminded that my attitude is drifting towards how my parents' reacted to the significant interest I showed in free radio during my early teenage years.

Are we as listeners therefore guilty by association? There is no crime in listening to free radio and I am not ashamed to say that in the past it gave me a great deal of pleasure, but the encouragement and the subsequent perpetuation of free radio is arguably morally ambiguous, especially for those who claim to lead a spotless life. 

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. 

In conclusion: Is nostalgia what it used to be?

I have long pondered as to what made the UK's contribution in the 1990's to shortwave free radio what it was, but have concluded that there are too many personal and external factors for this to be succinctly and concisely encapsulated. Where though the hobby slotted into the mosaic of one's own life is a significant criterion on which to base any sort of conclusion, this can only ever precipitate subjectivity as to how individuals related to the stations they heard, taking personal taste into consideration and where their own 'jumping off point' into free radio began.

My experiences of pirate 'free' radio began in 1990; therefore, I had no other stations who began life prior to that date with whom to make a comparison. Many though listening in that era will already have 'previous' of doing so, and could weigh up the relative merits of what they were hearing then with stations from the 1980's. Far from being bowled over by the UK stations of the 1990's, especially those most prolific in the early years of the decade, listeners reared on 1980's free radio might have thought it an ersatz imitation. This scenario is obviously not just limited to the aforementioned decades, but very much relates to when the listener joined the party. 

This leads on into my thoughts of the current overall free radio scene on shortwave, and not just that which pertains to UK-based stations. Those who are completely or relatively new to consuming free radio may not be any the wiser as to what could be heard in the past, and its relative merits, and so will to take today's output for what it is. It is easy to be critical of this inadvertent ignorance, but it is just the same for contemporary audiences as it was for those of us who began listening thirty years ago, but engenders inevitable 'things ain't what they used to be' type emotions if free radio of today is viewed somewhat dimly when juxtaposed with what I initially titled the genre's 'golden era'.

It is not possible for this blog to step into individual circumstances, mindsets, and personalities other than those of your correspondent. This collection of memories and opinions has always been about my take on what I heard, and how it was regarded at the time and since. There are no rights or wrongs, nor can someone else's taste that is different to mine be regarded as inferior; in the last fifty years television and radio has always offered choice and the chance to 'turn over' or move the dial to something more palatable, with free radio being no different to that. I would though say that aside from the now infrequently heard Bogusman and Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC) listening options are far less diverse than perhaps at any time since pirate radio began broadcasting in earnest during the 1960's. 

There are though many reasons as to why shortwave free radio is vastly different today to what it was thirty years ago, reasons that transcend personal preferences and circumstances. Whilst my take of how the shifting sands of life have infiltrated and exerted influence over, imperceptibly or otherwise, the world of hobby pirates and their listeners, it will I am sure be far from exhaustive. 

When I began listening to free radio at the age of fourteen I was a naive, impressionable youth. It is now impossible, 25-30 years on, to put myself in the shoes of my teenage self. What was new and impressive then to an adolescent wouldn't necessarily hold the same appeal today. It is therefore difficult to ascertain if nostalgia ain't what it used to be, simply because the free radio I first received in 1990 was being heard by very different ears than it is today.

The world has dumbed down, and continues to do so at an alarming rate. Many in society are now impressed with the banal, crass, and vacuous on which much of social media is underpinned. It is hard to imagine listening to shortwave being regarded by the youth of today as anything other than an unnecessarily cerebral way to hear stations, both legal and some hobby pirates, that can be heard with greater clarity and less effort through web streams. The achievement of locating signals through the crackles and static could now be seen as a frustration that outweighs the benefits.

For some time now the world has been in the grip of a 'fast fashion' mentality, that demands instant availability of what is often ephemeral and shallow before being disposed of as quickly as it arrived. This symptom of our time has bled through into impatience and short attention spans, as what was in vogue yesterday becomes the equivalent of today's fish and chip wrappers. In this sense it is far easier to play back to back music than put the necessary effort into producing interesting, thought-provoking programmes.

Rampant housebuilding in the UK has put paid to both the broadcasting and listening side of radio by conventional means, and is something that has undoubtedly affected free radio. Stick with me on this! One prominent operator from the 1990's had fields at the bottom of his garden, which turned in the blink of an eye into a housing estate. As the UK government continues with a level of housebuilding which it believes will cure all the country's financial and accommodational ills, properties are being built closer together than ever which creates more electrical interference from adjacent sources - the flip side being of free radio transmissions bleeding onto telephones, televisions, and other neighbourhood apparatus common to most homes and complaints about antennas has made broadcasting 'from home' a very difficult or almost impossible scenario for many. Which leads me into...

Remote broadcasting, out in the field as it were, has always been an option for pirate stations already limited by personal circumstances and/or those wishing to reduce the risk of detection to a bare minimum. Finding a suitable location and powering up transmitters etc with car batteries or a generator was always a colossal hassle, and really puts an operator's long term commitment to the test. Curious hikers and dog walkers are by no means a new phenomenon, but continued urban sprawl, something particularly noticeable in the last decade, with many of those places classed twenty to thirty years ago as remote now no longer being so. It is undeniable that to find anywhere in the UK that nowadays is genuinely isolated takes a much longer journey than it used to.

It should though be remembered that much of life is cyclical. Where someone or something may have its fifteen minutes of fame before slipping back into the shadows, natural cycles of interest and being 'in fashion' soon turn into obscurity and the easily forgotten. Modern proof of this would suggest that the popularity of vinyl records is going through something of a renaissance, but I cannot help but feel this is more out of copying the habits of others out of a desire to fit in, to be de rigueur, or even to be deliberately contrary. Should free radio also be subject to being of a cyclical nature or not, it may now for many be as far from its apogee as it ever has been and due a rebirth, or alternatively the die has now been terminally cast.

All things in life to a certain degree and at one time or another will change and do. No area of life is immune to this, but change in the modern era is automatically seen as a negative consequence of the days we live in, and is often correct in saying so(in my opinion). Free radio is not insusceptible to this, either by circuitous or direct consequences of inevitable societal change.

Technological strides including an instant availability of music and speech-based podcasts has removed the element of anticipation redolent with for example waiting for the Top 40 chart and even our favourite free radio stations to return to the air. As with fast fashion and 24/7 supermarkets, everything one conceivably needs in life is now available at a minute's notice. I am not a complete Luddite, nor do I cling to the days of yore for all it represented, but it is undeniable that the internet and DAB have made it far easier for many to consume media than battling through the crackles and unfavourable propagation. 

Thirty years ago there were few other mediums of communication other than radio and television. The printed word was of course an important form of conveying the latest occurrences but that too has sharply declined since the advent of the blogosphere(no irony intended) - as have standards of English in all its orthographic and mechanical nuances. As the variety of platforms has broadened so has the bewildering choice from where the general public can get their kicks; it is not unfair to suggest that shortwave radio will now be a long way down that list, and an alien concept to many.

In what can be a construed as chicken and egg cause and effect, a lack of operators or at the very least a large reduction in their number will mirror the downturn in listener numbers. Which precipitated the other is moot, although I suspect it was a process that went hand in hand rather than either blinking first. Many free radio operators active in the early 1990's will have been influenced by their 1970 and 80's counterparts, who themselves presumably drew inspiration from the 1960's pioneers. I am aware that several stations from the 1990's were influenced by one of their contemporaries, for example XTC, Subterranean Sounds, and Radio Armadillo were in part shaped by Radio Orion and then the Bogusman - the common denominator being who we first knew as Mike Wilson. As though each decade has passed a net deficit of new stations have taken up the mantle, or should that be grasped the nettle? It is again moot, but will there be a future scenario where operators draw inspiration from today's crop of those who adhere to continuous music and minimal interaction?

In an attempt to distill the very essence of free radio from my own experiences of listening to it in the 1990's, I have probably found it easier, or less difficult, to ATTEMPT to get under the skin of the station operators to ascertain just what made them tick and offer psychological explanations for their individual motivation, than get a handle on my own reasoning for listening and for a time, how the hobby held me captive. Although imperceptible at first it soon became apparent to me as this blog developed that I had left it too long, perhaps by a decade, to get to the very heart of what free radio meant to me at the time and why, and to find it a position in the then prevailing zeitgeist of my life, either as a counterpoint or reflection of it.

I have though accused myself of attempting to find a deep, psychological, and academic answer to a question that simply doesn't require one, or even where one doesn't actually exist. Comparisons are odious; over thinking things in what is usually a fruitless pursuit of something that is at best subjective, at worst isn't even there to pursue, can be just as egregious. In that sense I conclude that I listened, enjoyed, and moved on. There is in the end no need to go any deeper to justify a harmless facet of one's life than that. The 1990's were often turbulent years in my life and at times free radio was a 'go to' solace, but a danger was always there of taking it too seriously and venerating those who were just normal people often broadcasting from their bedrooms. 

My rather prosaic conclusion would be to remember the past for what it represented for you(if indeed you are able to do that) and recall the great listening days that many of the early to mid-years of the 1990's represented. This should though be done in isolation to the rest of what made up life at the time, and not be seen as its defining factor. To do so will only engender greater disappointment that indeed, things ain't what they used to be. I see little point in rheumy eyed reminiscence of flicking through QSL collections and crackly recordings, for this will only itself draw out conflicting emotions of loss and negative comparisons with the present.

If the very tenets of what free radio stood for, although I admit that is a flexible definition and something of a movable feast, are still important to the listener supporting the stations that still align with what entertainment in their own preferred sense represents remains an important part of the quid pro quo relationship between stations and their audience, at least with those operators who wish to interest their listeners. In my case that would be XTC and the Bogusman, but for others it will involve different stations in keeping with one of free radio's philosophies: each to their own.

Be glad you were there in the 1990's, if indeed you were, but what made it what is was will not be coming back, in general or its free radio element, and the time to move on is at hand. This is as much a lesson for me as the one I am proselytizing. 

Thank you for reading.

Radio Orion to the Bogusman: Broadcasting that transcends the decades

In the early years of my listening to shortwave free radio, Radio Orion was one of the regular broadcasters to whom a watch could be set. Those things that I had forgotten which are now more than a hazy memory but will still not come into sharp focus have at times dogged the production of this retrospective, but unless it was all a dream and we aren't really here, I am sure that West and North Kent Radio(WNKR) on 6275 kHz, Ozone Radio in their usual 6280 berth, and Radio Orion ensconced on 6290 kHz nailed down their respective frequencies but in a way that did not clash with each other, usually through scheduling the times they came on air to reflect the others' habits. That is at least how I remember it, but corrections are as ever welcome. 

By the time I had entered the fray in 1990 Radio Orion had already been a shortwave fixture for four years. Initially set up in conjunction with Paul Johnson's UK Radio - a further blog post will in part be dedicated to the late 'Paul' - Orion set a precedent for being at the time the only free radio station to broadcast on a daily basis. None of your Sunday-only shenanigans here!

In effect fronted by one Mike Wilson, already known in the West Midlands for his involvement with FM projects, Orion did have several other presenters at their disposal but my initial and most memorable encounters with the station have Mr. Wilson's individual style seared into my mind. And for good reason. 

To talk now of a UK-based Radio Orion on shortwave will leave many listeners relatively new to shortwave free radio, and even some of those who aren't, none the wiser or confusing it with an Orion Radio, a Dutch station that could also for a time be heard on channels frequented by hobby pirates. To even bring the name 'Mike Wilson' into a free radio-related conversation would leave many blank faces, but whilst Radio Orion was by 1990 firmly established on 6 MHz and at times elsewhere on shortwave, the man we then knew as Mike Wilson was only getting started on a broadcasting odyssey which would be the cause of controversy, bewilderment, but also veneration amongst free radio listeners; the latter emotion precipitated by both backhanded compliments and those of unabashed appreciation. 

It is my understanding that Radio Orion continued under that identification for most if not all of the 1990's, but a less than subtle shift was emerging behind the microphone. Mike Wilson was never one for spinning back-to-back records or being backward at coming forward, but to me what was an obvious change in his personal circumstances precipitated an alteration in broadcasting alias to The Bogus Jobseeker. Now, from what the we can deduce from that sobriquet is that 'Bogus' was in receipt of what at the time in the UK was called Jobseeker's Allowance(JSA) - unemployment benefit by another name given window-dressing by the Tony Blair government.

To receive JSA applicants had to enter into a quasi-contract that paid a meagre 'benefit' in return for the jobseeker committing to applying for x amount of vacant positions per week or fortnight. There are the obvious arguments that such state handouts are not designed to be lived on, instead to be used as a stop-gap before reentering the world of work, but the paltry amount the allowance actually paid the unemployed in my view crossed the line to become a disincentive for many to seek work, rather than a well-aimed boot up the backside to 'get on one's bike'.

To coin oneself as a bogus jobseeker would suggest for all the outward appearances to the Job Centre suggesting the contrary, that there was little interest in finding work and therefore fulfilling the claimant's side of the JSA deal. It can also be argued that Mike Wilson morphing into the Bogus Jobseeker did not represent an actual change in style, insomuch to say that it became more arcane or even abstruse, but a shift from what would otherwise be classed as a bog-standard DJ handle to a controversial and potentially divisive nominal representation of the presenter's chosen lifestyle added a greater mystic and notoriety to already entertaining and often cerebral programmes. 

Therein for me lied the rub. Many in society will give short shrift to those who outwardly flaunt a reluctance to work - especially if that is done at what people like to call at 'the taxpayers' expense'. By starkly refashioning himself as a bogus jobseeker Mike Wilson was left wide open to criticism - something he may have relished or underestimated, I cannot say. I think though much of any criticism aimed at 'Bogus' would in fact have been thinly-disguised backhanded compliments, that it seemed preposterous for someone of such intellect and perspicacity to in effect drop out of society.

In ordinary circumstances it would not be appropriate for me or anyone else to comment on the lifestyle and choices of someone we have never met, or even spoken to. We have never walked a mile in their shoes, or in any way have cognizance of what has precipitated their quiddity. This though is more than slightly undermined by naming oneself a bogus jobseeker, the antithesis of hiding one's light under a bushel and an incitement to criticism, whether ultimately deserved or otherwise.

It is perhaps with this is mind or no longer in receipt of JSA - from not being in possession of any of the facts I again cannot say with great certainty - that the previous on-air appellation was watered down simply to Bogusman, to maybe retain a link with the new generation of listeners who had locked on to what were post-Mike Wilson broadcasts. If anything programmes under the presenter's 'third-coming' have gathered apace, becoming more discursive but which continue to generate laugh out loud observational humour from what to most would be mundane, everyday occurrences and scenarios.

Where there might be ambiguity regarding the choice of moniker the quality of programming in both its musical and speech-based elements remains unequivocally constant. From references to the 'Grauniad', a deliberate misspelling of the centre-left UK daily The Guardian, to one-time neighbour Malcolm pottering around his garden, and a musical taste often procured from record shop(remember them?) bargain bins, the Bogusman manages to effortlessly segue from aphorisms to a pertinent music track via an anecdote whilst outwardly suggesting his modus operandi is without coordination or plan. There is undoubtedly an element of genius to the proceedings.

There is much more to be said about the early days of Radio Orion and its other presenters, including on the excellent Pirate Archive website. A timeline of how the station evolved, or simply changed identity would roughly run along the lines of Orion existing until the very early years of the new millennium, by which time Mike Wilson was known on the station as The Bogus Jobseeker(TBJ) and shared programme duties with The Ghoul. Prior to Paul Johnson's untimely death in 2003 TBJ was also heard on UK Radio, predominantly on 6266 kHz. Perhaps brought about by Paul's passing there was then a lull in broadcasts by TBJ before a re-emergence that saw him broadcast eponymously, insomuch that the eponymic name behind the microphone and that of the station were one and the same, something which continued on the retitling as Bogusman.

To be termed a cult figure, legend or similar is subjective, and relates to connecting a set of values and predilections that we as individuals have rather than an 'across the board' popularity, and to some extent through comparisons with those operating in the same field and being known for a level of notoriety that isn't necessarily condoned. There is little doubt that whilst not pursuing such epithets the man we know today as the Bogusman has achieved such status, and although an OFCOM raid in December 2018 put paid to conventional free radio broadcasting, the man himself can still be heard on occasion via the legal Channel 292 facilities, usually on 6070 kHz. 

There is though some self-awareness of a take on life that's translated into the station's email address which begins as 'different radio'. Influencing the likes of Subterranean Sounds, Radio Armadillo, and the Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC) the 'difference' between anything Mike Wilson and his 'Bogus' idents have been appended to with what would otherwise be classed as conventional free radio, in other words the relatively formulaic approach pursued by many or most other operators despite 'free' radio theoretically opening up a world of alternatives, is stark but in my view not done for shock value, but as an accurate representation of a man who continues to organically bring humour, intelligence, and unpredictability to a now otherwise moribund genre not simply to play devil's advocate, but to be himself in the one realm of his life that allows him to do this. If free radio is only good for one thing, it is this.