Did you live away from London and could never get stations?

[Sparki]

I see a really good topic asking what was the best stations from the 90s in the London part of the forum but I thought what about those of us who lived away from London in places with barely any stations? how did you cope and how did you try to access stations? I live on the South East coast of Kent and apart from Obsession FM 89-92, Essence FM 2000-2007, Rival FM (cant remember timespan) I found it hard to really connect with anything else. I did used to get Charge FM from Essex with my aerial draped over my curtain rail and out of the window, I remember texting them and the DJ nearly lost his shit asking how could I get them from Margate and I also got Renegade and Lush from Essex.

What was your experiences? did you live in a place where barely any stations were on? did you feel you missed out on the likes of Kool, Eruption etc.

[reverend]

I was at college in West Surrey in the late 80's and despite being over 30 miles away from central London, some of the stations did make it through. I remember Clockwork Wireless 90.0, Hits FM 105.5, Raiders 105.2, Solar 93.0, Starpoint 93.2/94.3. My favourite, though, was always TKO on 102.4 in Stereo which I would listen to all day while studying despite being a rather hissy stereo signal. Never could hear any of the big names such as Kiss or LWR. There was nothing local, so far as I remember... well at least nothing that I wasn't involved with!

[Sparki]

I was at college in West Surrey in the late 80's and despite being over 30 miles away from central London, some of the stations did make it through. I remember Clockwork Wireless 90.0, Hits FM 105.5, Raiders 105.2, Solar 93.0, Starpoint 93.2/94.3. My favourite, though, was always TKO on 102.4 in Stereo which I would listen to all day while studying despite being a rather hissy stereo signal. Never could hear any of the big names such as Kiss or LWR. There was nothing local, so far as I remember... well at least nothing that I wasn't involved with!

What did those stations mostly play? gathering its from the 80s I guess it was a mixture of acid house, reggae, soul, hip hop that sort of thing? being 30 miles away from where they broadcast from shows how far such stations could get out. TKO in stereo sounds like a rarity I think some pirates tried it down the years did Kool try it? I think Girls FM did from things Ive seen online. I wasnt that lucky to get any London stations down here so the likes of Kool, Eruption and all that past me by and was always playing catch up.

Essence was my only source when growing up, started listening to it when I was 13 as someone's dad at school was a DJ on there. I got heavily into pirate radio since then.

[reverend]

Solar, Starpoint and TKO were mostly soul stations with a touch of house, jazz, funk and reggae too if I remember it right. I'm sure others on here will have better recollections than me. There's a bit about them here:

https://www.amfm.org.uk/pirates/solar-radio.html
https://www.amfm.org.uk/pirates/starpoint-fm.html

[Lordunderground]

I was around 40 miles away on the Essex coast in about 89-90; I could get Sunrise 88.75, Lightning 90.8, Eurojam 8.94, fantasy 98.1, friends 100.7, Stomp 105.4 using a 3 element FM aerial, placed in the loft. Horizontal, it would not pick up any pirates but turn it vertical, with the smallest dipole towards London, and it picked up most.

Centreforce 88.3 came over too, but it was wiped out by Radio 2 bleed 50% of the time.

[radionortheast]

I think this is the reason why you would get your own transmitter