Final broadcasts

Despite the passing of what is now a significant period of time, several UK-based shortwave free radio stations that have figured in this 1990s retrospective can still to this day be found on or around the 48 metre band. 

It is not the albeit honourably mentioned Radio Pamela, Xenon Transmitting Company(XTC), and Radio Merlin, as well as dormant stations like Weekend Music Radio(WMR) and Radio Pandora who are both it seems on extended hiatus, that are the focus of this blog post. 

When recently (re)listening to a YouTube clip of Live Wire Radio from approximately 20 years ago, it dawned upon me that this might well have been the last broadcast I ever heard from station operator Bill Lewis. That is not to say Live Wire called it a day at that time, but as I drifted away from the hobby and without any hard copy records or memories to suggest otherwise, there is a fair chance that this was the final time or one of the last when I heard one of the 1990s most recognizable free radio voices. 

Indeed, I can only be sure that I heard this broadcast as my phone call to the studio was acknowledged early in the show!

Despite delving into the 1990s UK-based scene to the greatest extent that I could, I have since pondered just when stations such as Live Wire, Subterranean Sounds, Scotland's Radio Gloria, and WNKR to name just a few broadcast their final programmes. It has also been a point of minor fascination as to whether these and other stations knowingly broadcasted their last programmes in a final flourish, or that they simply never returned to the air. This and what motivated individual operators to call it a day can only be answered by the protagonists themselves, but changes in circumstances, disillusionment with the hobby, and simply outgrowing what might not have had the same allure as the early salad days will surely rank highly in what has caused the significant hole left in UK free radio on shortwave by stations to this day who are conspicuous by their absence. 

It is far easier, or less difficult, to know how stations came into being and when they did so, but what characterized their final days and the reasons behind them by and large remain a mystery. This is though perhaps a metaphor for hobby pirates whose very existence must on the whole remain enigmatic and discreet. 

The door perhaps remains ajar for some stations who I otherwise assume to be consigned to history, and as such there may be operators who never actually 'officially' quit. If though broadcasters disappeared due to the deteriorating quality of free radio on shortwave, there is little on that basis to encourage them to return today.

By definition there are no rules, expectations, or standards demanded by free radio, and as such station operators can leave on a whim and return with alacrity without the need for explanation to listeners or to justify their actions to 'the man'. It is that unpredictability that has always lent a certain distinction to the scene, if albeit some operators let their so-called celebrity go to their heads - the only places it actually existed. 

It would be of interest to me if anyone out there has on record when the stations who have seemingly 'gone for good' actually called time on their presence on shortwave. Any recordings of final broadcasts would also be appreciated, even if only with hindsight has it since become apparent that these were the last times that they were heard, at least to date. 

Those were my memories - how about yours?

Two weeks after the dust has settled from the previous, and at the time final blog post detailing my experiences of UK-based shortwave free radio during the 1990's, I had hoped to receive a greater level of reader feedback than the amount my memories have effectuated. 

There has been some very welcome contact with a couple of well-known station operators of the time, one of whom is still relatively active on 48 metres to this day. I have also been pleased to share many emails with my Norwegian correspondent, someone with a depth of knowledge of the 90's scene that could only have been developed by a listener as immersed in free radio to the extent I was at the time. 

I admit that a lack of visual cues in the form of back in the day QSL cards and stickers has not helped to stimulate conversation, but my collection of free radio memorabilia has sadly long since bitten the dust. It would be easy for me to crib pertinent verification cards and the like from the internet but doing so would miss the point which my blog aimed to achieve but never quite knocked out of the park: to entirely reflect and encapsulate memories of a now very distant but once important time of my life.

Therein perhaps lies the issue - too much time has elapsed and those who listened with great interest and anticipation have long since left the scene, with nary a look back over the shoulder to reminisce, or even become reacquainted with today's scene that would be flattered by deception if described as a poor imitation. The same can be said for station operators, who perhaps have 'grown up' and in some cases would prefer to not look back to a time that might even embarrass them. Each protagonist, whether part of an expectant audience or as a broadcaster has whether they wish to impart it or not a story to tell from the 1990's, an era of free radio that undoubtedly heralded the inexorable decline of the medium.  

My writing is not to everyone's taste, nor would I ever intend to strive for something that is impossible to achieve. Although my research was as thorough as it could be for a niche within a niche whose presence on the internet was already more or less conspicuous by its absence, there will inevitably be gaps in the content where I have not done certain stations justice, with perhaps some broadcasters inadvertently overlooked altogether.

It is including these circumstances that I respectfully request the comments and memories of those who were there in the 1990's, in whatever form that took. This is not a request to stellify my blog or any particular stations, nor indeed to court pejorative observations, but field the views of those who perhaps saw things the same as I did, in a completely different way, or somewhere in between. I am not looking to rewrite history but ascertain what, if anything, my blog has brought to mind for those with this once upon a time shared interest. If though you remember you might not actually have been there; who can say...

Over to you. There may yet be further mileage to be had out of this blog, but not at the expense of tenuous, digressive, or discursive content that veers off topic to a point where a dead horse is being mercilessly flogged. 

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.