As we are aware there isn't much space on the FM dial in London just wondering what's your view of pirates station using the same frequency as Licenced broadcasters ie community radio and pirates sitting on other pirates.

Like example on 105.6 remember hearing two pirates, Playback FM and think the other was lips FM

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Intruder wrote:......pirates using the same frequency as Licenced broadcasters ie community radio......

If you're TXing on the opposite side of London to the said community station's designated broadcast area and a directional is being used (for example), would this really cause a massive problem to anyone? I can think of 2 stations off the top of my head (one of these is actually net only now) that have done this in recent years & were both pretty consistent on their chosen dials with the said community stations broadcasting on them as well - The only thing that seemed to be the biggest strife for them was a restricted signal across London.

Unfortunately pirates don't always coordinate with other pirates. If two stations both 'find' an empty frequency to come on at the same time, neither will want to back down after the effort and expense of tuning rigs etc.

Community stations and RSLs are always going to get bulled by pirates. It's not right but it's a reality and one of many reasons the community radio experiment is failing in the UK.

Well Ofcom dug their graves allocating them all to regularly used pirate frequencies in the first place.

Ironically on a slightly different note, apparently VOA 94.0 think they are coming back as a pirate. If they do I hope they don't last more than the 2 minutes that they don't deserve!

To be fair, the established pirate frequencies were always likely to be the best available for licensing.

I don't blame VoA for wanting to go pirate again. Community stations don't come close to getting their money's worth. The restrictions on advertising revenue purely to protect Global and Bauer are just dumb. That said Ofcom have gone further to accommodate them than most other community stations with a frequency change, power increase and looking the other way when they breached their commitments by falling off air for weeks at a time. Not sure who's side I'm on for this one.

What the deal with VOA never heard them on did they get the licence revoked ?

What do you class as established pirate ? How many years

They didn't pay their rent and their equipment was removed.

I said "established pirate frequencies" so that could be any length of time what pirates have been well known to use those dials. (89.6 for example)

Oh how long did VOA last ?

Wonder how many Community radios have flopped ? Only other one I knew that has gone was On FM 101.4

Too long!

Not sure, I can only remember a couple..

106.8 Time FM, Shooters Hill
107.3 Fusion FM, Lewisham
107.8 Thames FM, Tolworth

Iam personally wouldn't class Thames FM (not to sure about the others) as community radio in the aspect like
Westside radio, Hayes FM, Bang FM.

Thames FM now "radio Jackie" have a lot more than 25watts ERP! 300watts ???

It's like Hayes FM for example run 25watts 0dB antenna (on a church for memory ) drive about 2miles away from the town and Livefmuk take over and are strong wasn't livefmuk on 101.5 at one point ?

teckniqs wrote:106.8 Time FM, Shooters Hill
107.3 Fusion FM, Lewisham
107.8 Thames FM, Tolworth

None of those were Community Radio stations. They were all in the wave of commercial radio "SALLIES" in the late 90s.

106.8 was Radio Thamesmead, then Millennium FM, then Time FM before handing its licence back.

107.3 was First Love Radio, then Fusion FM, then South London Radio before handing its licence back.

107.8 was Thames FM before selling to Radio Jackie and is still going.

Intruder wrote:Iam personally wouldn't class Thames FM (not to sure about the others) as community radio

I would...

Initially they were just to serve SW London and NE Surrey as one of the newly licensed 100w stations popping up all over London. Although they would be classed as an ILR station they were there to serve their local community.

When locking on to Rinse, some times on the boundaries on their push, you get Heart FM from either Kent or Essex, and that's two legal stations.

In years passed, I remember the Brit School in Croydon used to come on for a month on 101.5 when Flight were on 101.5, and I seem to remember Flight going off while the Brit School was on. I could be wrong but I think the Brit School might have only been on 8am to 6pm then Flight would come on at 6.15 until the morning again.

Rage wrote:When locking on to Rinse, some times on the boundaries on their push, you get Heart FM from either Kent or Essex, and that's two legal stations.

In years passed, I remember the Brit School in Croydon used to come on for a month on 101.5 when Flight were on 101.5, and I seem to remember Flight going off while the Brit School was on. I could be wrong but I think the Brit School might have only been on 8am to 6pm then Flight would come on at 6.15 until the morning again.

But this was down to them both coming from surrey the Brit school is border line Surrey, So there signals would clash heavily.

Rage wrote:When locking on to Rinse, some times on the boundaries on their push, you get Heart FM from either Kent or Essex, and that's two legal stations.

Do you mean KMFM? ...There's no Heart FM relays on 106.8 in the UK.

Intruder wrote:Iam personally wouldn't class Thames FM (not to sure about the others) as community radio in the aspect like
Westside radio, Hayes FM, Bang FM.

Thames FM now "radio Jackie" have a lot more than 25watts ERP! 300watts ???

It's like Hayes FM for example run 25watts 0dB antenna (on a church for memory ) drive about 2miles away from the town and Livefmuk take over and are strong wasn't livefmuk on 101.5 at one point ?

Jackie got 800 bloodclarts

Pants wrote:Jackie got 800 bloodclarts

Gets into Crawley clear with RDS at 46db! I thought moving out of South West London to the sticks meant I wouldn't see or hear of this shite again! - Fuck you Jackie!!!

Optimus Prime wrote:

Pants wrote:Jackie got 800 bloodclarts

Gets into Crawley clear with RDS at 46db! I thought moving out of South West London to the sticks meant I wouldn't see or hear of this shite again! - Fuck you Jackie!!!

Couldn't agree with you more Mr Prime what a pile of shit

It would probably reach all the way down here if it wasn't for our local Splash 107.7.