UPDATED DECEMBER 2023
New this month: we have some wonderful Radio London photographs taken in August 1967; and another chart, courtesy of Ian Biggar.
This time it is an incomplete listing of a Radio Atlantis ‘Hotline of Hits’ from March 1974.
With the festive season approaching, why not take a look at our chapter on ‘Christmas in International Waters’ to get you in the mood?
CBS News in the USA recently reported on Sealand, the micro-nation on Roughs Tower in the North Sea founded by Roy Bates. Their report (available
here) included some archive footage of Radio Caroline and Radio Essex, as well as an interview with Sealand's
Head of Homeland Security, Mike Barrington.
Dr. Martin van der Ven launched his first website Offshore Radio Links in December 1996. A few years later it became the Offshore Radio Guide. He went on to add a number of spin-off sites but says “now it's
time for a modern layout and especially a streamline of the various pages”. His new site Offshore Radio Nostalgia can be found at https://offshoreradio.info.
Highly recommended.
And while welcoming Martin's new site we have to say a sad goodbye to another one - Bob LeRoi's. Bob has posted: “As you may know, for many years I have provided an historical broadcast website majoring on the offshore forts
where I began my career, together with local interest features, personal pages and general info old and new. However it's with a heavy heart and sadness I have to announce the closure of my website. Since constructed over two decades
ago, technology has moved on apace leaving my site, built in outdated code, vulnerable to abuse. The site was recently compromised from overseas with more serious follow-on implications. Having carefully considered rewriting it in
modern certified code, the task is too arduous and cost prohibitive to contemplate to continue on a regular basis .... I would like to thank you for all your contributions and support of the website over the years, Bob.”
Mark Wesley's first novel Bangk! is now also available as an audiobook, narrated by the author; and Roger Day's autobiography Pirate of the Airwaves, is
now also available as a Kindle download (for some devices).
See the contents page and DJ Directories of the sixties, seventies and eighties for full details of this website.
If you click to follow us on our Facebook page, you will be alerted when this site is updated.
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FIFTY YEARS AGO:
23rd December 1973: Low powered test transmissions began on 1115 kHz for Radio Atlantis from their new ship, mv Jeanine, anchored off the Belgian coast.
24th December: With another new mast erected on the Caroline ship, tests began on 1187 kHz for a new Dutch/Flemish station to be called Radio Mi Amigo (see here for more details).
30th December: Radio Atlantis officially opened with programmes in Flemish and English (see here for more details).
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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.
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.
(The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame is a British-based website. It only includes those DJs who broadcast in English and could be heard in the UK. Offshore radio also flourished in Denmark,
Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel and New Zealand. The absence of the DJs from these countries in the Hall of Fame does not suggest that they are any less deserving, just that they are outside the scope of this site. Please
see the links page for details of websites which cover offshore radio in other parts of the world.)
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The inductees in The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame are listed alphabetically. 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 later decades, go to the Seventies
Supplement or Eighties Supplement. There are some that we know very little about - see the help wanted page.
THE OFFSHORE STATIONS OF THE 60s, 70s AND 80s
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We are very grateful 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 on this site are beginning to show
their age. Apologies for those that are of less than perfect quality. Many of the 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 which 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 recording. 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 later re-recordings, please
let us know.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame participates in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme, an affiliate
advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk. It is also 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 Google's Privacy page.
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