Setting Up A New Pirate Radio Station

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[@matambale]

Why is it that unfunded, high risk pirate radio is so much more listenable than profit-obsessed, ad-saturated commercial radio? Ok so the answer is within the question.

[@ianharling9569]

Because the pirate ☠ stations have presenters with a passion for what they do and also have presenters with a personality unlike so many commercial stations who mainly sound so boring 😴

[@Bulletguy07]

@@ianharling9569 Alan "Fluff" Freeman was supremely passionate about music and presentation.....after all not many DJ's could get away with a 2 minute intro at the start of his show and his Top 20 countdown was a legendary masterpiece.

[@v8hotrodlincoln]

I built my own FM Transmitter I have a 15O Watt RF final stage however I have that attenuated down to a mere 15 Watts and even that seems too much for my co - Phased copper J - Poles sitting at 55’ …. Covers about 12 solid miles FM Stereo No Static At All..!! 1O7.3 FM THE PIRATE. Yarghhh…!!! Built from a NRG Pro III KIT then amplified and all neatly installed inside of my own rack cabinet with handles cooling fans on the rear of the unit … inside is my transmitter power supply for transmitter compressor / limiter / Stereo Encoder / RF 15O Watt Broadband Amplifier … Amp. Power supply … R.F.I. & Surge Protector fist thing coming in on the AC Mains …

[@m.9243]

Great memories from my youth.. While studying electronics back in 1964, I build a valve AM radio transmitter with mostly surplus equipment from old military radio sets, sold at the Flea Markets in Athens, Greece. The transmitter used 2 x 807 valves, driven by a 6L6 in buffer mode and a 6V6 as oscillator. Modulation was done on the plates of the output valves with and audio amplifier using 2 x EL34 valves in a 'push-pull' configuration. A power supply was build with 750 v on the anodes of the 807's. A long wire antenna was used, stretched between two tallish block of apartments and almost invisible from the street below. During night transmissions, I received reports of great reception as far as, 300 km away! Authorities gave up in trying to locate the source of the transmission due to the densely populated area of my suburb! The equipment was eventually handed over to the authorities when, in 1967, the Colonel's dictatorship took control of the country and they gave a week's amnesty to anyone running an illegal radio station. It was 3 years of fun and games that ended up well! Thanks for bringing these events back in my memory now, at 76 y.o. 😉😉

[@clangerbasher]

I am surprised by how professional some of these stations sounded.

[@waynenrich]

I was told the same by radio wave 96.5 which I knew well “ Blackpool” and radio hams in the area

[@gary3561]

Yet all they needed was a "biscuit tin"

[@stephenjones9153]

This brought back memories of my 1st Homebrew Transceiver back when I was 11 (now 63), It was a 2 Valve VHF AM from a circuit design I was given by an Ex British Forces Radio Tech who belonged to the Merseyside Free Radio Movement; they called CQ Echo Charley every weekend. I remember powering it up for the 1st time in our cellar and after about 1/2hr of tune,ing it up I heard a GPO van pulling up in the street 😳. Needless to say I pulled the plug quick and went to hide. 😂🤣😂🤣Very Happy Day's 😊

[@Willam_J]

Even though I live in the US (northern Illinois), I still find all of this radio history to be fascinating. There are as many similarities, as there are differences. The stories about ‘repeater wars’ are especially intriguing. I’ve been an ARO for 32 years, and have never heard of anything like that happening, here. (I’m not saying that it didn’t happen, just that I haven’t heard of it.) These videos must take an enormous amount of research. Thank you for your amazing work! 😃

[@TexasPrisonStories]

You've never heard of the wild wild wild repeater in LA?

[@daveg8htfadlibaudio250]

Yet another good one Lewis, my old mate Rick Dane ( RIP ) who ran radio Jackie North had many a run in with Gordon from the GPO and had lots of funny and clever tales to tell on how on most cases he managed to fool him on exactly where his transmitter actually was as most Pirates stations just ran run end fed quarter wave strait into the transmitter pi tank output stage circuit as it would match most load impedance's that a badly cut antenna would present. Rick Dane used a half wave on 217 mtrs with a matching unit at the antenna fed with about 150 foot of RG58 cable running all sorts of ways around a high rise block of flats even through drain pipes so it was very hard to trace it. the GPO used to go to every floor in the block of flats with a radio to see where the signal was strongest but because of the antenna matching unit the SWR at the TX was very low so the signal only got stronger at the top of the block of flats where the antenna came into, in the end Gordon and his mates decided to pull the main fuses out for the 4 different sides of the block to see when the TX went off but Rick had gone a stage further he ran his mains supply with a long run of 1.5mm mains cable from the other side of the block about 5 floors up from the flat he used to transmit from so this confused the GPO mob for ages as the main fuse on that particular phase did not make the transmitter go off, this made no sense to them as Rick used to change the mains feed from week to week around the block of flats, this went on for ages and I think they sort of gave up in the end for quite a while. Catch you soon Dave.

[@RingwayManchester]

Hey Dave would be good to chat via email [e-mail]

[@labor4]

beautiful tale

[@daveg8htfadlibaudio250]

Thank you, the story is 100% true. Regards Dave.@@labor4

[@labor4]

love it 😁

[@labor4]

In Switzerland they want to turn off FM in the near future. Of course being a pirate is everybody's dream, so we joked if there will be a run on these frequencies, and how big the mess will be nationwide. I asked the federal radio station (the one with the major licenses, like the BBC kindof), if it will be legal to run your own aerial. They answered, they would like to know that too. 😛 cheers @@daveg8htfadlibaudio250

[@christopherhulse8385]

Fascinating, looking forward to part 2 tomorrow night 😃

[@Bluelagoonstudios]

In the Netherlands, pirates are just part of their culture, and sometimes they are very creative. So when I worked for Broadcast Partners, we noticed an FM dipole between all the other stacks of antenna's that were not on our list, it contained a digital link in OGG, and the MPX straight in an FM exciter. They took power from the safety signal lights. And we measured field intensity in the neighborhood, while the rest of the transmitters were down for maintenance. I'm still wondering how they pulled this off. Of course, all the equipment was removed after we called the police and got a warrant to remove everything. Like I said, very creative minds.

[@558vulcanxh]

I remember it well , we could pick it up well with our Bush Portable in Hazel Grove , and easily recognisable to us are where the photos of Manchester are taken from .Happy days, Thanks 😊

[@DavidHarberRadio]

Thanks for this. Really interesting content. I know a good amount about the pirates "tossing around in the north sea" and London's land based stations. Really interesting to watch a well put together video about stations 'up north'. (Love the Piccadilly sticker on the TX!) Keep it up!

[@raymondmartin6737]

Thanks 😊 for more about the Pirates in your area. 73 de W2CH Ray, New Hampshire, US

[@whothefoxcares]

a small flying drone can act as a radio router. broadcast to/from a mesh of many pi rate radios.

[@erikmutthersbough6508]

Always good story's and history lessons. I look forward to the next episode ❤

[@petecoventry6858]

I was on the Mi Amigo the day before she sank - and I am still on The Ross Revenge to this day :)

[@andyhowlett2231]

So it was you!

[@wisteela]

Fantastic bit of history. I love that with the stereo trick. Looking forward to part 2.

[@huwkelvinmorgan3575]

It's just fascinating hearing the history of this station i would have been around 8 years old back then just getting into CB and SW

[@Jauffre-innit]

These chaps are definitely very intelligent. I wonder how they learned how to build and setup their stations though

[@boilerroombob]

1st class Lewis ...you cannot get any better than the history of a pirate radio station

[@M0UAW_IO83]

Cheeky gits, "Piccadilly 261" sticker on the side of their TX 😅

[@NoddyAlba]

Anyone remember atlantic 252 ?

[@MrDmjay]

Love your work Lewis.

[@markcancellara]

i was friends with a dj involved in pirate radio stations in Sheffield from around the 1990's.. he was and still is funny interesting and exciting to listen too.. the stations were popular and cool..the shows were legendary you still don't get that kind of humour or music on normal broadcast stations

[@Derrick6162]

Glad I found this on Hackaday...brings back fond memories. Thanks

[@donpro3672]

Love this 😍 good work as usual Lewis 😎

[@TheSlinq]

Love your stories of radio and pirates - I take it you've seen Ray's videos from Radio Workshop? Got a few stories I could tell myself ;)

[@RingwayManchester]

If you want any stories you feel would make into great videos drop me an email mate :)

[@joerowland7350]

Ray is the man I love his video's I wach them all I really like this chanl to

[@cbeagle]

The start of Pirate radio was always the Wireless Set 19, good to see one appeared at the end of the video. Many young pirates had their experiences with the GPO man in the 1950's onward...

[@alastairbarkley6572]

Is it a 19 set, though? Possibly one of the later MkII US made models omitting the B (UHF) set. MkIII 19 sets have a distinctive row of three switches lower centre, plus having a (left hand side) vertical slot for the B set tune. This just doesn't look quite right. Could the multipin plug left upper be a modification, in place of the original vario knob - and this therefore is actually a 22 set chassis? Many of these radios were brutally hacked about by careless owners - they were plentiful post war and cheap as chips. I had two 19 sets in the late 60s. They didn't, TBH, make very good short wave receivers and when I could afford better equipment, I chucked them both in a skip. Apart from some of the valves and the massive multi-section tuning caps, there wasn't much n the way of salvage parts in them.

[@cbeagle]

@@alastairbarkley6572 it is a British produced Mk3 19 set, that went through the Donnington workshops for refurbishment between 1958 - 1962. There isn't a lot left of the original set, the RF deck is gone, PA section is gone, IC amp and B set area gone. Interestingly there is a VT4C laid next to it, either being used as a modulator or PA.

[@rog2224]

Kenny Everett never really lost his Pirate vibe, even in his declining years. You can hear his influence in a lot of those broadcasts.

[@Blacksheepishot]

Guess I'm not alone when it comes to having your own TV or radio station on the air Today it's mainly FM pirate stations and very few doing tv. Built my first TV transmitter at the age of 9. Ch # 65 it was a low power uhf device with an est max power output under full modulation of about 100 mw. My classmates and a few close by neighbors loved the programing big time. Sure was a lot of fun doing cool stuff like that as a kid. A few years latter moved up to AM Radio via 650 kc at .5 watts pep. Now this low freq jazz was the most fun cuz it required a very large wire antenna. Had far better range then TV, and fm for sure...

[@jsEMCsquared]

In the seventies I lived at 1000 feet elevation over San Francisco! My brother who is now a prominent radio engineer used to run a one watt radio station and had the cart machines from kest in Emeryville.

[@robertfletcher3421]

Great stuff can't waiot for Part 2.

[@Jimmyboy1674]

Brilliant!👍🏼 love a wee cat and mouse chase!🤣🤗

[@nigehomer9744]

The story of Aquarius was serialised in Pirate Chat magazine in the 90s.

[@RingwayManchester]

It certainly was. The author of that article; Andy helped on this video

[@whitefoxgaming6155]

Lewis this documentry series on aquarius is absolutely brilliant. I have learnt a lot from your channel thank you

[@RingwayManchester]

Thank you!

[@daverhodes362]

Lovely bit of Granada Reports audio at the front of this video!

[@johnb6723]

Never transmit on FM within 0.5 MHz of another radio station, due to the requirements of FM stereo, or within 18 kHz of another station on AM (twice the audio frequency used on AM).

[@user-di9lw7si5e]

Watching this video while running a 30 watt pirate station FM in Rhode Island USA 😅

[@gary3561]

My dad was involved on RFL. he then went to skykine my dad's best friend was Mark (ashton)

[@DJMICA-bz3qz]

Excellent video

[@TrimeshSZ]

12:05 - that honestly looks like a deathtrap - I especially like the string of what are presumably HT filter caps on the right also presumably carrying lethal voltages for the PA. That guy "Gordon" sounds a lot like Eric Gotts in London - he took the mere existence of pirate stations as some sort of personal insult.

[@sw6188]

As a radio broadcast engineer I have seen some real howdy doody contraptions in my time. There are a lot of people out there who have just enough knowledge of electricity and RF to be dangerous. It's amazing that more of them don't end up dead.

[@borisvostoknewbury9124]

And his partner 'in crime' Vic Frisby. We called them Fizzy and Grotts. Extra fun up the Parade! It was all so innocent then (or so it seemed)...

[@TrimeshSZ]

@@borisvostoknewbury9124 Never ran into him - the only only DTI guy I can remember was Brian (Brian Holder?) - he seemed way less personally involved than Eric was and basically treated it as a job.

[@gman83090]

It’s so ironic now that Radio Jackie and radio Caroline are perfect legal stations now

[@ianharvey868]

Gripping! Number 2 to watch now, yay!

[@NigelWatkinson]

Fascinating story from just before the time I started listening to "interesting" stations, having been too young for the original sea-based pirates. Waiting with interest for part 2 - I wonder if it will cover any of the history after Aquarius as Bob and Andy went on to run Andromeda Independent Radio and Charlie eventually returned with KFM....

[@RingwayManchester]

Hey Nigel have a look at my videos I did one on andromeda a couple of weeks ago :)

[@billyhatcher643]

i think that the pirate radio stations sounded way better compared to boring licensed ones

[@demiscunningham7340]

Fascinating

[@rectify2003]

Bravo the Pirates 👍

[@gman83090]

It’s called wave propagation usually when it’s dark the signal is a lot stronger than in the daytime

[@sparkyprojects]

I remember a story in the Oxford area, a bunch of students transmitted form a university, but they planted polished or chrome plated tin cans in specific locations to bounce the signal, they were cemented into trees etc The GPO had a bit of a time removing the tins, only to have them replaced soon after Not sure how true this is though.

[@edwardbyard6540]

I'm fairly sure that was Bounce FM in the late 80s, but I could be wrong!

[@waynenrich]

Been there done that on many pirate stations ie power fm Blackpool from 99-2015 It was only ever about the music Now I’m going down the legal ssdab route

[@joelmarcott3282]

I would like to see a video on Shop Watch listening.

[@davidmckee5659]

This is really cool, where did they get the money to build all this stuff? Reminds me of underground the 3-D printing of various "weapon parts" here in the US.

[@andyhowlett2231]

No money, it was mostly junk-built gear. The specialist items for the more powerful transmitters cost a few Bob but we usually had a collection from the staff.

[@dataterminal]

Congrats on making it to the front page of Hackaday :)

[@RingwayManchester]

Oh really? When?

[@dataterminal]

@@RingwayManchester I did post a link, but I think KZbin has filtered it. You might need to authorise it from being spam.

[@TexasPrisonStories]

I am a few videos behind but I have a good cup of coffee and I'm about to get up to speed. Thanks for the content.

[@PhillipDampier]

In the future, most of us will be streaming local radio stations and won't need to bother with AM/MW and FM. Anyone can start a streaming radio station right now and not run into communications regulators. The problem is generating enough attention to get people to tune in.

[@e.n.l1976]

Most of the remaining pirate radio around here also stream, fm helps bring along new listeners for when it invariably gets taken down and the listeners have something to fall back on until they get back on air. Can't see fm pirate radio ever completely going away.

[@gary3561]

Marine offences act later the wireless telegraphy act.

[@andyhowlett2231]

The original WTA in the UK was 1949, updated several times in the 90's and 2000's. The Marine Offences Act came along in 1967 and was designed to deal with the offshore pirates.

[@noncounterproductive4596]

I agree wholeheartedly with the guy who said that there was no point for a pirate station in playing exactly what a licensed station in the area was already playing. Find a niche that's not being served. There's not much point in pirate radio these days. You can put a program on Internet now and reach many more people. Who even listens to radio anymore? Alternative MUSIC radio in the USA lost a lot of audience with the rise of MTV in the early 80s, so that unless you lived in a big city or were part of an ethnic community it became hard to attract much of an audience. Where I lived circa 1980, there was no oldies station, and there was certainly no station playing new wave. An oldies format easily attracted a large audience. New wave, hardly at all: the public taste for it had not developed. (I played a lot of oldies that are less-known in the USA -- lots of UK hits that didn't make it in the USA -- and I could mix in a few new wave discs without losing the audience but I did not have much.) MTV circa 1983 did expose new wave music and develop that audience, but they were glued to MTV. After a licensed oldies station came on the air, it became necessary to find another, less popular niche -- which probably would have been fine if I had lived in a major metropolis, but where I lived there was not much interest in obscure hardcore (essentially what became known as grunge, after Nirvana hit). So, for me this was how pirate broadcasting of music became pointless. Low funding of the FCC under Reagan, however, allowed unlicensed stations to operate in the 80s without much worry about being shut down. The last real purpose for pirate radio in the USA (apart from ethnic music) was probably POLITICAL alternative programming in the 1990s, before Internet podcasting took off. A lot of people were buying time on shortwave stations for right-wing political broadcasts in that era, but putting it on FM made it easier for people to find accidentally. There was also some content that none of the shortwave stations easily heard in the USA would air. It was a BELATED indicator of how pointless radio broadcasting in general had become, I think, when Radio Nederland ceased its English broadcasts to North America in 2008 because hardly anyone was listening. Almost the only programming on American shortwave stations now is religious, and outfits like Republic Broadcasting have moved entirely to Internet (becoming more daring as a consequence of no longer having to worry about being kicked off the air). Basically everything is on Internet now.

[@e.n.l1976]

Radio still has a substantial audience over in the uk, mostly drivers. FM & online can go hand in hand, most of the pirate stations that broadcast where I am also stream online, get to listen on fm in the van and then put the stream on when I get home. FM also helps bring new listeners, the problem with online radio is its completely saturated so trying to get new listeners is a challenge.

[@bobthompson4133]

I remember radio Caroline in the 1970’s

[@wam2610]

👍

[@MissilemanIII]

Wish I could find part 2

[@RingwayManchester]

Radio Aquarius kzbin.info/aero/PLAxEITuSnIjGB38hQot9U4Hr6RI3nyzG7

[@GordonHudson]

Here is an idea for a video: In the recent House Subcommittee on UAPs, the Department of Defence witnesses said the objects (UFO's) were emitting RF energy and they could be signals. The frequencies weren't given, but I found some info that the frequency was around 1250 MHz. Its a convoluted story about the US navy and long term studies into UFO's and related phenomena connected to a property called SKinwalker Ranch. At that location they have been detecting signals around 1250 MHz as well as 1450 MHz. I bet a video on this subject would be massively click baity!

[@SeattlePioneer]

Sure you didn't mean KHZ? That would place them in the regular broadcast band. The MHZ you suggest would place them in the UHF bands that would be inaccessible to most people outside of those with specialized equipment.

[@GordonHudson]

@@SeattlePioneer MHz, just under and above the 23cm Amateur Radio band. When you dig into the reports that's what the US navy and Intelligence people claim to have received signals on.

[@rissonedacrissone]

Done enough of these missions tower blocks phone masts and trees

[@NigelDixon1952]

Thanks for yet another great video, you've really done your homework. I'm wondering, what the situation would be like now, in 2022, if a pirate station was broadcasting but doing its best not to cause interference, to keep the shows clean, and generally stay away from trouble. Of course, the bands are now policed by OFCOM, but will they go for the blatant sources of interference and leave the better guys alone?

[@Mike-H_UK]

I imagine that there is a link between these guys and the Andromeda guys.

[@RingwayManchester]

There certainly is mate. Andy and Bob set up andromeda. So that video sort of forms part 7 :)

[@RobertDeloyd]

About the same time amateurs were messing around with primitive computers.

[@teresaanderson3581]

So early blue tooth

[@tonygunn6889]

Pirate radio seem more on offer vs BBC radio station /local radio

[@davidgrant8824]

Seems to have been taken down

[@garychap8384]

The (anti) Wireless and Telegraphy Act 2006, Sec 38 (2) ... states _(with the waggly finger of authority, and little humour)_ : (2) A person commits an offence if- . (i) _"he publishes *the times or other details* of unauthorised broadcasts made by the broadcasting station, or; (otherwise than by publishing such details) publishes an advertisement of matter calculated to promote the station (whether directly or indirectly), knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that unauthorised broadcasts are made by the station." ... tsk tsk tsk ... off to the _"naughty step"_ with you, mister anonymous voice clip! XD

[@cockneyb2k]

GPO? DTI?

[@RingwayManchester]

Gpo

[@clangerbasher]

General Post Office, Department of Trade & Industry

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

Why didn't they use CU-QAM a format that commercial broadcasters don't use, what didn't they use a cave that wasn't all that well known.

[@sw6188]

People who want to do radio broadcasting these days mostly believe that they have to be on FM or no one can (or will) listen to them. There's a belief about AM that it sounds like crap compared to FM. Unfortunately that's true to a degree, but it's not because of the radio station - it's due to cheap radios with bad filtering. AM stereo (C-QUAM) sounds amazing - but there are few radios out there that can receive it now. Manufacturers haven't been putting C-QUAM decoders in receivers for a long time. I live not far from a station that does broadcast on AM with C-QUAM and it sounds amazing. I have a car stereo that can receive it as well as several home radios that can also decode it.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

You are one of the lucky ones to have radios that decode CU-QAM

[@sw6188]

@@DAVIDGREGORYKERR The guy that runs the C-QUAM station not far from me also repairs car stereos, home stereo tuners etc and builds C-QUAM decoder boards that can be fitted to almost any AM tuner. Pick your favorite AM receiver and he could add a board to it. The best ones are the PLL digital tuning variety, although it is possible to convert manually tuned receivers as well.

[@lexington476]

What was the point of pirate radio? Were they somehow making money off of this?

[@TheBlakestBlake]

Smh😢