Pirates roam airwaves

Press, 21 July 1980, Page 14

Pirates roam airwaves

By

ROGER GREEN,

“Ob-

server,” London Yesterday and every Sun- : day this (northern) summer, some' 60,000 Londoners tuned into one or other of the dozen-strong band of pirate radio stations that now pack their airwaves. Advances in electronic technology mean that it is now possible to construct for around $230 a transmitter than can cover the entire Greater London area with V.H.F. (F.M.) or me-dium-wave (A.M.) signal as good — or better than — legitimate 8.8. C. and commercial stations. Other technical advances have allowed the pirates — “call us independent broadcasters,” said one 10-year veteran —• to evolve a method of operation where the infrequent raids on transmitters by Home Office and Post Office officials usually result only in the seizure of unattended equipment, with no arrests. On most Sundays, an ordinary domestic radio receiver will pick up F.M. stations like Radio Free London, Radio Invicta, Bromley Sound, Radio Telstar South, Radio Liberty, Thameside Radio, Radio North Kent, and South London Radio; and on A.M., Radio Jackie, Radio City, and Edge City Radio. The last few months’ growth in “independent broadcasters” in the capital is deplored by the established pirates, some of whom have been running for years in 12-15-strong groups of enthusiasts who club together a few dollars each week to cover their running costs — which in bad times include court costs. “Mark Ashton,” the oldest' surviving member of the ivstrong team behind the established Radio Free London asserts: “The growth has happened because stations like ourselves, Jackie, Invicta, and Telstar have proved it can be done, and we can get away with it — touch wood. “The equipment is getting cheaper,” adds this education authority media resources consultant, “and when you get a load of idiots — I’ve counted 15 in recent months — who, just want to get on the air to chat and swear at one another, it gets us all a bad name.” Pirate radio firstflourished, then died, in the years 1964-1967. It was killed off by tough legislation which made it illegal to supply, publicise, maintain, work for, or advertise on

the shipborne pirate stations. The public’s newly discovered need for pop music was to be catered for by Radio One, the 8.8.C.’s revamped Light Programme. The demise of the seaborne stations, however, spawned a “free radio movement, and in March, 1969, a station called Radio Jackie started occasional transmissions, named in sympathy for Radio Caroline after another member of the Kennedy family. Jackie is still to be heard on 227 metres, medium wave, on Sundays, and Bank Holidays, trying hard to gain acceptance as the local radio station for South London.' “For God’s sake, don ’t lump us in with the rest,” pleads the station manager, Kevin Stewart. "The difference between us and the others is that we are professional in our attitude. Our programmes are strictly controlled and our presenters are taught how to present — these ■ other stations are just tinpot pirates. “Almost anyone could throw together a transmitter, but it may not sound very good, and could cause interference,” he says. “We are totally with the Post Office against something like that. We prefer to be called a community radio station, and our point is that good radio can be produced quite cheaply.” Radio Jackie’s nine hours of programmes are a mixture of mainstream pop music — a “Top 40” format — and local news for the area bounded by Croydon, Wimbledon, Putney, and Epsom. “It’s difficult to say how big our audience is,” says Stewart. “I’d like to think it is around 50,000.” The rules prohibiting unlicensed land-based broadcasts are different from those that beacched the seaborne stations of the 19605. The 31-year-old Wireless Telegraphy Act is quite clear that unauthorised broadcasts are not permitted, but enforcement has been spasmodic. Recalled Ashton: “We began broadcasting in May, 1969, on Saturday evenings. We got raided nearly every week — 17 times, and prosecuted three times. We closed down in 1974 because of lack of money and enthusiasm.”

Radio Free London staged a comeback in 1978, and, claims Ashton, hasn’t missed a Sunday since. It has expanded its one hour of rock music to 14 hours of music and South London news bulletins, started in June with the help of a mole inside

L.B.C. London’s all-news legitimate commercial station. Ashton claims an . audience of around 5000. Until recently, R.F.L. used the time-honoured .pirate technique of transmitting tapes recorded on Friday evenings from a car-battery-powered station hidden in a “safe” house or woods. The drawback — as R.F.L. discovered in-February — is that the equipment has to be tended by human operators, who turn over the cassette tapes when they finish, and attach fresh batteries. “In February we were broadcasting from the roof of a tower block. The Home Office and police Special Patrol Group suddenly appeared and caught four of our people red-handed,” says Ashton. Their case came up in early June. Three pleaded quilty and were fined $ll5 each plus $9O costs, and the charge against the fourth was dropped because, according to Ashton, the Home Office could not be bothered to press the case. The court confiscated R.F.L.’s transmitter and aerial,, but, such is the mildness of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, the quartet had their tape equipment returned to them. The experience led to the adoption by R.F.L. of a new broadcasting method that uses an unmanned transmitter. Ashton is cagey about how it works, but an increasingly popular technique among the sophisticated pirates is to use their main transmitter as a relay station for a signal

transmitted to it by a low power, hard-to-detect radio link beamed from their studio. The 10-year-old all-sou! music Radio Invicta evades easy detection by switching transmitters in mid-broad-cast. Home Office officials privately confide that the relatively harmless established pirates have not been worth the effort of trying to catch. Until recently, its resources have been soaked up by chasing the country’s 10,000 - 15,000 users of illegal Citizen’s Band walkie-talkie sets that interfere with legal radio equipment. But with increasing pirate congestion on F.M. — nine stations in London claim to be active at different times on some Sundays — that vigour is on the way. The Home Office now says it is “considering the need to strengthen the enforcement provisions of the Wireless Telegraphy Act." This could mean new legislation to clamp down on those who allow their addresses and telephone numbers to receive mail and telephone calls for pirate stations. At present the Post Office itself is extremely co-oper-ative in delivering pirate station mail.., Letters to Radio Jackie need no street name or number to its address in Surrey, and Invicta’s founder, “Tony Johns” remembers: “When we had a mailing address in Caterham, Surrey, we had a letter delivered to Radio Victor, the wrong number of road, Caterham Road, Chatham. It’s amazing how the mail gets through.”