b2b fm 88.6

[FMEnjoyer]

Try SW again 6200-6400 can be great fun in evenings and weekends and also the top of the AM band Dutch
they are not all playing Dutch music. This winter I am going to enjoy the cold nigths indoors listening to some SW and MW.

[Albert H]

Game over for pirate broadcasting- how depressing

I agree. It's sad. I built and operated my first land-based pirate station in 1969!

My first ever rig was a modified circuit from "Practical Wireless" - https://www.worldradiohistory.com/hd2/I ... e-0047.pdf - modified for line level audio input, and moved downwards in frequency from "top band" - 1.8 MHz - down to ~1.5 MHz (the top end of the Medium Wave Band). It ran at around 11 Watts carrier, and could achieve arbout 93% modulation depth at best. Loaded into a sloping ¼-wave aerial, and with an earth that used the local water supply pipes, it went for miles in the daytime!

Our "studio" was in the attic of our house, and used a sort of disco console effort with two Garrard turntables, a "Geloso" microphone, a home-made mixer and a Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder. I discovered the need for compression of the audio, so built a crude optical compressor that had appeared in an American magazine a year or two before. Considering that we were a bunch of schoolkids at the time, it sounded pretty good!

After some months of almost daily operation, the lads from the PTT (the Post Office Telecommunications Department) paid us a visit. They examined my homebrew rig, and told me to dismantle it and stop broadcasting. We stayed off the air for six days (as I remember) and then we were back - on an adjacent frequency - for another couple of months. On the second visit, they impounded the rig!

Within two weeks, I'd built another, but with an 813 valve instead of the 807, and with a secondhand guitar amplifier as its modulator! This was considerably more powerful, and caused some interference to local TVs until I tamed its tendency for VHF spurs! Again it sounded good, and we got our first letter from a listener in another country.....

The bug had well and truly bitten by then, and there was no looking back. Transmitters got more powerful and more sophisticated, and in 1972, I made my first VHF transmitter.... 15 Watts of mono from a QQV03-12 valve.....

[Old Anorak]

I still remember the thrill of hearing Caroline on 199 for the first time in 1964. It began my lifelong interest in Free Radio. A couple of trips out to the Mi Amigo in the seventies were memorable. Always loved the vibe of Free Radio. Time and technology march on .

[Albert H]

I remember the start up of Caroline North in '64. My family lived on Merseyside at the time, so the signal was huge! They tested for a few days before, with continuous music tapes, and all the kids at school were telling each other about it. On the Saturday (the day before their Easter Sunday launch), there was a full page advert in the Liverpool Echo for the station.....

When it actually came on the air, much of the programming in the early days was a bit bland - mostly pop music, but a lot of middle-of-the-road stuff aimed at older listeners during the daytime. It made a great change from Luxembourg at night, because it didn't fade!

[Effemm]

Love these stories.