UPDATED JANUARY 2012 - HAPPY NEW YEAR
New this month: Terry Bate, who worked for Radio Caroline
in the sixties, has sent us a great photograph of himself and the station boss
Ronan O'Rahilly; David Gibson, who edited Radio Scotland's 242 magazine, has provided
a rare copy of the first issue; and Britain Radio's Jack
Curtiss and Johnny Dark (alias airtime salesman Harry Putnam)
recently met up again. We have a photo. See the contents
page and DJ Directories of the sixties and seventies
for full details of the site.
This graph shows the number of daily visitors to The
Pirate Radio Hall of Fame during December (as of 2am on 31st). Guess
which night ITV showed Richard Curtis's pirate-based film The Boat That Rocked! 118,168 people
visited The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame during 2011, slightly down
on last year. 2007 still holds the record with 283,461. Despite the decline, it is immensely gratifying that so many people
are still interested in the site and in the subject of watery wireless, more than twenty years after the final offshore broadcast.
Our grateful thanks to everyone who has contributed during 2011. We wish you all a very happy new year.
Congratulations to Radio London's Dave Cash and his new wife,
Sally. They have posted a video of their recent wedding on YouTube.
Former Radio Caroline senior DJ Tom Lodge posted this message on his
Facebook page on Christmas Day: Dear Friends, Some of you know that I have cancer, and so now, I want to share
with you that on January 3rd I am having a CAT scan, to gather information to see whether I decide to have an operation or
not. Finding out the facts. This is an amazing adventure. My whole life is an adventure. Wow! I have done so much in
this life. Cowboy, arctic ice fisherman, author, gold miner, broadcaster, radio corespondent, deejay, festival organizer,
drop in center manager, teaching the exploration between creativity and technology, professor, seeker, real estate salesman,
pilot, author again and Zen master. I am full, I am content. What a gift. Thank you. The
Pirate Radio Hall of Fame wishes Tom the best of luck with the scan.
Congratulations to former offshore DJ Roger Gale who was awarded
a knighthood in the New Year Honours list for public and political services.
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IT WAS FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH:
29th January 1962: Denmark's two offshore stations, DCR and Radio Mercur, merged.
This meant that the combined station now owned three ships. One of them, the original mv Cheeta, was put up for sale. It was bought
by Mrs Britt Wadner who launched Radio Syd off the coast of Sweden a few months later.
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Britain's first offshore radio station, Radio Caroline, began broadcasting
at Easter 1964 from a ship anchored just outside UK territorial waters. She was followed
by a host of other radio stations based on boats and marine structures dotted around the coast.
These pirates rapidly won an enormous and enthusiastic audience.
There are other web-sites which tell the stories of the various offshore stations but
The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame
has been set up to honour the stars, the broadcasters, from that golden era of music radio.
This site is a tribute to the people who endured a daily battle with the
elements to provide a soundtrack to the swinging sixties.
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The inductees in The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame are listed
alphabetically. More names are being added all the time. To find your favourite voice from the sixties either select
it from the drop-down list below, search the site using the Google box or click on the appropriate page from
the table of contents beneath. For broadcasters from the seventies, go to the Seventies
Supplement.
Please note: Offshore stations operated around the British coast from 1964 to 1990.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame covers the first decade, the sixties, in the main part of
this site with the following decade featured in the Seventies Supplement. Eventually we hope to
cover the later years too.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed information, recordings or
memorabilia to The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. We are always on the lookout for more so, if you have any items of interest,
please
get
in touch.
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A number of the photos, stickers and recordings are beginning to show
their age. Apologies for some of the less than perfect quality. Many of these photographs were distributed freely by the
various radio stations and were intended for as wide a circulation as possible. Others have been donated to
The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame that are of unknown origin. Where photos
have been scanned from books, newspapers or magazines, we have given credit. However, if anybody believes that their
copyright has been inadvertently infringed by the inclusion of an item on this site, please
get
in touch and it will be removed immediately. Similarly, anybody who has supplied audio for
The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame has been credited but tapes get passed
from collector to collector and often there is no way of knowing who made the original recordings. Our apologies to anyone
who thinks their work has been used here without due acknowledgment.
The name Radio London and the RL logo are used by kind permission of Radio London Ltd.
The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame links to MP3s
which can be downloaded by UK-based customers from Amazon. As in a traditional record shop, Amazon offers multiple
versions of some songs. It isn't always easy to identify precisely which version is which. We have endeavoured to
ensure that each link leads to the appropriate version of the relevant track - the one that was played by the offshore
DJs of the era - but please listen carefully before purchasing. If you discover that any of them are re-recordings,
please let
us know.
You will need a Real Player to hear the airchecks on The Pirate Radio Hall Of
Fame. There are two types of Player. The free one is perfectly adequate for listening to these clips although the
Real.com site will encourage you to pay for a more exotic version.
Either can be downloaded by clicking on the left icon below. Correspondents have also suggested the
Real Alternative or the latest
version of the VLC Media Player.
The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame is partially funded
by displaying adverts provided by Google. Please note that Google, and their advertisers, may use information (which
does not include your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites
in order to provide advertisements they think will be of interest to you. If you would like more information about this
practice, please visit The Google Privacy Centre,
where it is possible to opt-out. The site also participates in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme,
an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and
linking to Amazon.co.uk.
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