Radio City (pirate radio station)
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
pirate radio
Pirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
station that broadcast from Shivering Sands Army Fort
Shivering Sands Army Fort
Shivering Sands Army Fort [U7] was a Maunsell army fort built near the Thames estuary for anti-aircraft defence. It is made up of several once interconnected towers north of Herne Bay and is 9.2 miles from the nearest land. They can be viewed from Shoeburyness East Beach on clear, cloudless summer...
, one of the abandoned Second World War Maunsell Sea Forts in the Thames Estuary
Thames Estuary
The Thames Mouth is the estuary in which the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea.It is not easy to define the limits of the estuary, although physically the head of Sea Reach, near Canvey Island on the Essex shore is probably the western boundary...
.
Origins
In 1964, following the launch of Radio CarolineRadio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
, Screaming Lord Sutch
Screaming Lord Sutch
David Edward Sutch , also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch", was a musician from the United Kingdom...
announced his intention to start his own pirate radio station. On 27 May Radio Sutch began broadcasting on 194 meter - 1542 kHz from the south tower of Shivering Sands. It was a low-powered, low-budget operation.
The transmitter, originally taken from a Handley Page Halifax
Handley Page Halifax
The Handley Page Halifax was one of the British front-line, four-engined heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. A contemporary of the famous Avro Lancaster, the Halifax remained in service until the end of the war, performing a variety of duties in addition to bombing...
bomber, was powered with a cascade of car batteries, a scaffold pole with a skull-and-crossbones flag served as an antenna. Sutch soon became tired of it, selling the station to his manager Reginald Calvert
Reginald Calvert
Reginald Calvert was the manager of The Fortunes pop group and singer Screaming Lord Sutch, and the owner of offshore pirate radio station Radio City....
for a reported £5,000. Calvert bought new equipment and expanded the station into the other towers. One of the original seven towers had been destroyed when a ship collided with it, leaving the northernmost tower isolated. The remaining five were connected by catwalks in an irregular star shape. Calvert's team set about repairing the catwalks and refurbishing the fort's facilities and living quarters. New studios were built, a more powerful transmitter installed, and the station experimented with new antenna
Antenna (radio)
An antenna is an electrical device which converts electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver...
configurations and frequencies (1034 and eventually 1003 kHz). Initially antenna wires were strung around the periphery of the towers. Later a vertical mast was erected on the central tower, supported by guy wires on the surrounding towers, and the station adopted the nickname "your tower of power". Although the station's output never exceeded 2 kW, the efficiency of the antenna combined with the fact that it was located over water (an efficient reflector of radio waves) gave it the equivalent coverage of a much more powerful land-based station.
Studio equipment
The station's studio equipment was fairly standard for the time, consisting of a pair of turntablesPhonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
, a microphone, tape decks and a mixer. A US navy transmitter type General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
TCJ-7 (nicknamed "Big Bertha") replaced the old bomber transmitter, instead of the makeshift scaffolding pole antenna, a real antenna mast was used. Whereas most radio stations played jingle
Jingle
A jingle is a short tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television...
s and commercial
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
s from cartridges, City used reel-to-reel
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording
Reel-to-reel, open reel tape recording is the form of magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording medium is held on a reel, rather than being securely contained within a cassette....
. In addition to the usual music programming, subsidised by Dutch and American evangelical
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
shows, City also had the only comedy show on pirate radio - The Auntie Mabel Hour, a recorded programme in which the DJs acted out comic sketches and sang parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of contemporary songs. Some of the show's material seems to have been stolen from The Goon Show
The Goon Show
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme...
and Round the Horne
Round the Horne
Round the Horne was a BBC Radio comedy programme, transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The series was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman - with others contributing to later series after Feldman returned to performing — and starred Kenneth Horne, with Kenneth...
. Another novelty programme was The Anti-City Show, which invited listeners to send letters and reel-to-reel tapes of complaint about the station. It soon became a forum for listeners' complaints about anything that annoyed them. Occasionally, the record "You've Got Your Troubles" by The Fortunes
The Fortunes
The Fortunes are an English harmony beat group. Formed in Birmingham, The Fortunes first came to prominence and international acclaim in 1965, when "You've Got Your Troubles" broke into the US and UK Top 10s...
would be broadcast as a signal to land-based associates that a problem, such as a supply shortage, was arising on the fort.
The Port of London
Port of London
The Port of London lies along the banks of the River Thames from London, England to the North Sea. Once the largest port in the world, it is currently the United Kingdom's second largest port, after Grimsby & Immingham...
authority had placed wind and tide gauges on the isolated North tower, and often complained that Radio City's signal was interfering with the gauges' radio link to the mainland and potentially placing shipping at risk. Interference with official communications was a commonly-cited reason for the pirates to be banned, but Radio City was eventually to provide the Government with a much more compelling reason for their closure.
Merger talks and death of Reg Calvert
In September 1965, merger talks began between City and Radio Caroline South. A transmitter was delivered to the fort, intended to be used by Caroline when it jumped ship. The merger plans collapsed, and the transmitter was never paid for. Calvert then began discussions with Radio London regarding a merger, in a new venture called UKGM (United Kingdom Good Music).In the early morning of 20 June 1966, a business associate of Calvert, retired Major Oliver Smedley
Oliver Smedley
Major Oliver Smedley MC was a British businessman involved in classical liberal politics and pirate radio. He was acquitted of the murder of a business rival on the grounds of self-defence.-Military:...
(who claimed ownership of the transmitter), sent a group of men to take possession of Shivering Sands. That evening, Calvert visited Smedley's home and in the ensuing scuffle was shot by Smedley. The police were called and Smedley was charged with murder. Smedley was later acquitted on grounds of self-defence.
The killing spurred the Government into legislative action shutting down offshore pirate radio stations, passing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act
Marine Broadcasting Offences Act
The Marine, &c., Broadcasting Act 1967 c.41, shortened to Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, became law in the United Kingdom at midnight on Monday, August 14, 1967 and was repealed by the...
.
However prior to this legislation, it was established that the fort, being located within British waters, was covered by existing legislation. On 8 February 1967, at midnight the station closed down.
Film reference
The 1975 rock musicRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
film Slade in Flame
Slade In Flame
Slade In Flame is a 1975 film starring the members of the band Slade. In 2007, BBC film critic Mark Kermode called it the "Citizen Kane of rock musicals" and included its soundtrack among the 50 greatest soundtracks in cinema's history.Record Mirror magazine voted the film at #4 on the top 10...
, starring the band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
, includes a scene in which the fictional rock band Flame visit Radio City for an interview, only to be airlifted to safety when shots are fired at the fort from a nearby ship. It is later implied that the attack was staged by the band's unscrupulous manager in order to drum up publicity. The fictional attack was inspired by the actual 1966 boarding party; some of the actual news footage of the boarding is later seen on a fictional television news report.
Exterior shots of the visit were actually filmed on and around Shivering Sands, with the actor/musicians having to climb the actual ladders used by the Radio City DJs and suffering vertigo in the process. For the airlift scene a helicopter actually landed on the roof of one of the towers, but was not big enough to carry all of the actors, so they all had to enter on one side of the aircraft and then exit out of shot on the other.
The film crew hung a large Radio City banner on one of the towers, which was bigger and more professionally-made than the actual crudely-painted sign used by the station.
In one respect the film was not able to be authentic: the fort has no antenna. The original Radio City antenna mast had been dismantled in 1967. It was not possible to build a replica because of its huge size, and contemporary special effects techniques were not up to the task of replicating it.
Interior scenes were filmed on a soundstage. The interior dimensions of the tower are authentic, but the studio appears more professionally-equipped than the real one. In particular, the fictional studio contains cartridge machines which were never used by the real Radio City. The Radio City DJ was played by real-life DJ Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance was a British pop radio broadcaster, born in Eynsham, Oxfordshire. He was one of the few music broadcasters in the United Kingdom to champion hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans...
, who was actually working on Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
in the 1960s.
In real life any interviews on the pirate stations would have been taped on land rather than exposing musicians to potentially hazardous (and expensive) sea crossings.
Other information
- Colin Dale, early Radio Sutch DJDisc jockeyA disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
, continues Radio Sutch as an internet radio station.
External links
- Radio Sutch
- Colin Dale's homepage
- Shivering Sands on The Offshore Radio Fleet