You are allowed to select 2 options. Always curious to see what gets people most interested in pirate radio. For me it was mostly starting out with a love for radio electronics since I have always been into building my own gear. The one day I just said "why not" and did a few broadcasts. The rest was history.
I started working for a real radio station at age 8, and have been at it ever since. I put on my own pirate radio station on the air by the time I was 11; After working in the business and watch so called legal radio stations break every rule in the book; I figured what the heck. It was then I realized I could do it better, and have been doing so since 1983 non stop. Up to just two weeks ago, I had four FM and two AM radio stations on the air 24/7; finally taking a break to reduce cost and get ready to relocate to the east coast; I left the weakest FM on the air until I the move. Now the nightmare of packing begins!
I'm not really all that interested in Pirate radio as I am in Grassroots radio, Community radio, Low Power radio. I know that alot of people in the legal low power community have a certain amount of emnity toward pirates, but I'm not like that at all. I see the Pirates as a part of the whole community radio movement. For myself, I'm operating a legal Pt.-15 station, and I don't want to go to Pirate because I'm running it out of my home. But my goal is to push my 100mw transmitter to it's limit, and if I technically cross the line to Pirate that'll be OK.
I've been a dj for many years now and i'm in the process of starting up a small station in my town. I'm involved with putting on raves in my area and the station just seemed like the next stage.
My neighbor had one of those Christmas light setups that danced to the music and he would broadcast .5 watt fm so people driving by could tune in and listen to the lights. That was my first experience with LP broadcasting so shortly after seeing his setup I had a 7 watt tx and a 1/4 wave gp antenna strapped to the roof, That was one year ago. I am moving up to 30 watt tx a new antenna( haven't picked which one yet) and some pro radio software. I hired a girl with a sexy cute voice to do station ID's and maybe( weather reports, news etc.) wow I'm growing like a (some noun that grows fast?) sixer
been doing this since the mid 70's we had a small station at local high school, and the program format was terrible so... my self and a few others built our own
i always loved electronics. I got out of the military in 09 and had been doing radar. Saw that documentary Pirate Radio USA and said where do I sign. I now have the funds to get really going
i always loved electronics. I got out of the military in 09 and had been doing radar. Saw that documentary Pirate Radio USA and said where do I sign. I now have the funds to get really going
That's awesome man! Great to see others interested in this hobby. Pirate Radio USA was an informative movie and I recommended it to a few folks that were interested in getting their ideas and music out there. As far as I am concerned licensed radio is doing a great job at killing itself so it's only natural that us who play outside the box chime in and make the medium interesting again to the population.
Glad you found our forum. Looking forward to hearing more from you!
For me it was listening to Oldies stations and gradually as time went on they stopped playing what was originally oldies as the audience got older. Since radio was losing me and I had a love for radio all my life I thought the only way to keep what I grew up with on the radio was to do it myself! With all the transmitters available and computers and MP3 players to manage the music and the capability of random playback and repeat I learned myself about this and how to use computer to create all the programming including my station plugs so my station can run whether I am there or not! It runs itself. Really great to listen to my own station on the radio around the whole nighbourhood and know others can too!
It was Christmas 1980, I was given a small transistor radio as part of my presents. I was just ten. It was little blue thing by no maker you ever heard of. It had a little silver aerial which I discovered was not connected to anything it was just for show. The tranny(a different meaning now of course)as my Aunt called it was a Medium Wave and Long Wave receiver. I was amazed later to find that there were more radio stations on the air in Ireland than just RTE Radio 1 and RTE Radio 2. Radio 1 and 2 were the national broadcasters stations and legally that was it, with nothing else. I would listen in under the covers to stations like Radio Dublin, Big D, ARD, Southside Radio and Sunshine Radio etc. I was amazed to discover that they kept broadcasting for hours after the two national stations closed down.
After that I would mess with other radios around the house and at relatives houses, and discovered Short Wave and what was then always called VHF on the radios I was tinkering with. I soon got the loan of an old radio with a plug and short wave as well as MW and LW and started to listen to all the frequencies hearing stations from around the world. I would listen in to stations far and wide playing all sorts of music and other programs. This was like magic to me growing up in the Ireland of the 80's.
Then in 1981 Radio Nova opened and right from the start it brought a whole new sound to Ireland. They wiped out the listening figures of the national stations. They took so many listeners from the national stations that eventually the authorities after years of turning a blind eye decided to act in 1983. There was jamming of the pirates by RTE and raids. To a lad just entering my teens this was like a rebellion. The Government would send in the Post and Telegraph officials with the backing of the Garda (Garda Síochána-Irish Police Force) to close the stations and remove their transmitters. The stations mainly would return within a few hours with borrowed/spare equipment. They would attend court to be handed back their equipment in several cases. Exceptions to this at the time were KissFM 102.7, Radio Dublin and a later station called Kiss FM (No connection) who lost their transmitters. There were protests, marches, petitions and all sorts of other activity to save the stations. It was all very exciting to be honest. The Government realised that this approach was not working, as all they were doing was losing votes, at a time when we never saw a Government last a full term. If a Government lasted two years in the Ireland it would hardly be much of an exaggeration to say they did well, as we had five general elections in that decade. As things settled I continued to listen to and support the pirates. I had by this stage thanks to birthdays and Christmases built up a collection of radios to listen on FM, AM, SW and LW. I even had a digital watch with an FM radio built in.
A lot of lads I knew wanted to be in a band or be a singer at this stage, me I wanted to work in radio and be a part of this magic. When I was asked at school what I wanted to do when I left school I told the career guidance teacher I wanted to work in radio. I think he thought I was a bit of a dreamer, but then I got work as a DJ on an FM pirate at weekends. He was actually impressed. At the time we had to go on work placement from school mainly it was stuff in small factories and shops etc. I asked could I go to a radio station to do my placement and Sunshine Radio said yes. So now I was working at two stations one as a DJ the other answering phones, doing research, being a record librarian, yeah and making tea as well. There was a small amount of money paid by the government for travel expenses etc. Which is funny really as they were paying me these expenses to work at an illegal operation, you couldn't make it up.
I continued to work on and off at stations in and around Dublin and when I moved to the UK, I lived for a while on the Wirral Merseyside. In the 90's there were pirate stations operating on the Wirral. Stations such as Raw FM, Radio Tarquar, Power FM, even a station called Radio Nova. I got to know the lads at Raw and Tarquar and Raw provided me with a transmitter, but I could never get it to work. The Tarquar lads opened in and discovered it was damaged beyond repair.
Moving back to Ireland I finally got my own transmitter and now broadcast on an intermittent basis. The bug will never leave me I hope. A long answer I know but once I got started....
"Lets see' we're on err 92 FM tonight, and it feels like a nice clean little band so far. No one else is using it. The price is right."
Mark Hunter - Pump Up The Volume.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
