I used to run an adult rock/pop station in Suffolk in the early 1980s We were on 1413khz AM or 1556khz later on. It was 4 nights a week for 4 hours, we eventually got raided I was fined £25 on the following counts Building a transmitter/Installing/Operating it. We ran for over 3 years without trouble on about 80 watts average input. Good fun and if I had my time again, I would change nothing. I am now 69 now so not likely to repeat it anymore, but I always remember the date we were busted, 20th July 1984.
@@thecaravanham That's interesting, there is still a station about 12 miles away from me that broadcasts on AM periodically, I pick it up in the car. It used to be on all day 2-3 times per week over last 4 years or so but I haven't heard it for a few months now. An old friend of mine who knows him says he often uses up to 200 watts, and it can be heard easily over most of Norfolk and Suffolk, the programs are mostly a relay of "Radio Caroline" or sometime "Albatross" which was one of Suffolk's first land based pirate stations back in the early 1970s.I guess Ofcom are not that bothered about AM anymore. It is now easy to track an AM pirate using 3 SDR's so they could easily find his approximate location if they wanted to.
Very romantic time of radio. - it was raw and mostly illegal. I used to listen to shortwave with my grandfather when I was little. Listened all over the world on an old DX-130 Receiver. Actually purchased a used one years later. But most of the time when I wasn’t around to bother the old man he listened to collage basketball - march madness. Radio has been an important part of my life. CB, HAM,SWL toss some scanners in there but nothing beats an old transistor AM radio. Thanks for the videos.. Great stuff!
@David Wanklyn Nah being an idiot won't help or hurt you with that. You simply need a lack of care for how your exploitative actions will play out in the real world besides how much money they will make you. Your website gets used to incite a genocide in Myanmar? Who gives a shit. Expanding into emerging markets is how you'll get rich. Only deploy moderation that operates in and speaks the language of countries where you're likely to run into regulatory oversight.
I started in Pirate radio back in 1978 down here in Eastbourne and operated on Shortwave,Medium wave and then VHF FM.We finally stopped in 1990 after many raids from the DTI (Ofcom) Most of us involved then went onto get our amateur radio licences 😂I guess radio gets into the blood system eh? 73 Ian G7HFS/PA3IKH.
@@ianharling9569 haha you don't know who you are talking to Ringway is a 3 runway airport this is probably a pinkertons grass for ofcom simple as mate.
Thats interesting , all the old radio heads i know , say its more or less impossible , but they,re talking about getting a decentish coverage ( 20 mile ish ) can you get out on it so other dabs can pick up in the area or is it just like a little one for your own use ? cheers .
Awesome!! as you well know I was fascinated by this in my early youth and used to build and repair the transmitters from time to time, amazing fun, never hear them these days, it was a job to get many listeners back in the day, you had to fly poster or hand out flyers in pubs and even then it was sparse, people do radio online these days, there is so much competition for ears and eyes now you have to make it pretty special if you are going to launch a pirate station, the way society is clamping down on free speech though I can see it making a comeback, you would probably have to operate off a boat like radio Caroline, comedy and edgy/offensive comedy might be the only way for that to be aired the way we are going. Great video, looking forward to the next one.
I wonder if pirate radio is making a comeback. I live in a semi-rural area on the south coast and for years and years I heard no pirate stations at all. A full-time one came on in about 2018 and a second full-time one has been on for the last two months! If lockdown goes on much longer, I think I’d better monitor the band a bit more!! 73.
@@antonio1681 they ceise your equipment and give you a big fine of 2500 euros and if you keep going and the fcc show up 5000 euros the fines are getting higher and higher everytime they come
@@antonio1681 they locate and take away TX they find like here www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/81240/Illegale-zender-uit-hoogspanningsmast-gehaald or they destroyed a mast like piratenzenders.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/3.jpg
3 ปีที่แล้ว +11
Me and some friends had one Here in 1995. we had a good qualiyty gear and programs with electronic and club music and underground culture involved. was magical.
Always forgot ya drop and had to use the bent hand me down that always got stuck in the entrance door. Somehow getting away with carrying massive scaffold poles up the stairs and making so much noise up top it was unreal even though yous all did that shhhh " did ya hear something" when one of the boys got prangers
I have a couple of 50W home-built FM transmitters sitting here that work very well and all ready to go. Last time they were used was for a community radio RSL prior to the purchase of a commercial unit... 73 Dan M1CNO
Been many experimenting on the FM it seems. I picked up one Xmas day night on 103.6 in Kent it was blasting out trance music for a few hours. Few months before that I heard some drum n bass on 88.8 seemingly just a playlist of mixes. I hope pirate radio does make a comeback whether it's a cheap PLL or a big one with an aerial up a tower block.
Love my House Back in the day. Living in London at the time 2000-2008 lots to listen to from the Pirate World of Radio. Passion was my favourite. Great vid Lewis
Used to be lots on the band in W’ton & B’ham back in the day, remember stumbling literally over a transmitter left on a Shropshire hill one weekend. Great video Lewis and look forward to the documentary on them 👍👏👏
Anyone remember Frontline Radio? I knew someone in one of The Birdies in Old Trafford. The antennas were usually on top of one of those. They clearly used a simple mono transmitter with no filtering: The carrier was on 100.4MHz but was S7 on my FT690 in Oldham on 50.2MHz the SSB calling frequency!
Oh yeah, I remember Frontline, seem to remember one of the guys (JP or JC, can't remember) responsible went on to community radio, dunno if he'd be prepared to comment on his pirate Legacy but I think he's still around.
Ages ago I bought one of these dinky little FM transmitters you could plug into your iPod. Never used it much, because with them being regulated to output 50nW maximum, the signal is almost too weak to even pass through my car's windscreen to reach the antenna, and finding a free frequency is more than tedious with even the weakest stations interfering with the reception. Two years ago, I found it again and decided to "modify" it a bit. I removed all the antenna matching circuitry for the tiny printed antenna, including the potentiometer that was set to dump almost all of the signal to ground. I looked up the datasheet for the transmitter IC, apparently it's able to output 200mW! I then drilled a hole into the transmitter's case and installed a simple wire antenna, carefully measured to approximately 1/4 lambda of length and soldered it directly to the IC's output pin. What do you know, whith my iPod sitting on my bed and the wire hanging down, I could pick up the signal clearly using my phone's built-in FM radio. I left my flat and went down the street. It only started getting a bit noisy after about 800m. Impresseive for that little thing! Now it's way more fun using it in the car. Even friends in other cars can now listen to the same music without any problems :)
Going back to the early 2000s their was a guy who used to run a pirate station from an empty flat at Park Hill flats, Sheffield. Didn't last long then again he used to play some right rubbish.
ive been facinated with pirate stations for many years. i worked on one in sussex run out of a mates garden shed at his parents house. we had such a laugh doing it and one sunday the guy called up to meet him at the top of a housing estate on a hill. he handed me a hi viz vest and said "carry this cable and follow me" we installed the cable on a proper transmission tower and the hi vis vests made it look as if we were meant to be there. we put in the new cable to the link box and the station carried on broadcasting from there for about a year. as usual it descended into chaos with people not paying subs and having our kit hijacked by other stations etc but it was one of the best experiences ive ever had djing. i did hear on radio 4 that they are shutting fm down for good at some point which is dissapointing since they could easily deregulate the fm bandwidth and hand it over to the people to use as many stations do good community work. i would say that pirate stations are very community oriented and are a benefit to many people.
@@TheMisphit sounds about right from memory yes. was mixes most of the week then thursday friday saturday was dnb, techno and hip hop then i had a funk and soul show on a sunday followed by a reggae show. it had a small local following, a few taxi drivers i think supported it. we did a few local events / community gigs.
ah! fm pirate radio. have very fond memories. went to school in liverpool between 1994 to 2002. in the early 2000's i can remember we had at least 3 or 4 regulars. 1 was an old guy called phil davis who broadcasted mainly 50's and 60's rock and roll. most horendous sound quality even if you liked that music you couldn't really listen to it because it was so muffled plus he liked the sound of his own voice too much. another was a lad the same age as me at the time(15) whom i actually became good friends with and we kept in contact for quite a few years after i left school. his was a pop mixed with dance and trance station which ran after school from 4 until about 10 pm. a lot of his friends worked on the station but he was actually quite professional with his output and broadcasting. sometimes we would hear distortion as some of the others weren't so clued up over sound levels but this was often fixed when my friend(the owner came on to do his shows). and often they would play pranks on the air like a time one of them decided to phone up this girl who he fancied and asked her out. my friend who ran it decided to secretly put the call live on air without his friend's knowledge. probably one of the best ones at the time to listen to if you fancied good tunes,a good laugh and a bit of mischief. happy days lol
Aaahh the good ol days! Yeah, did pirate radio and pirate TV back in the early 90's. It's amazing what you can do with a vintage VHS player and a Linear amp.
i'll join you man, had multiple small transmitters back in rural Sweden years ago. used to relay pirates from UK so i could have something to listen on. On weekends we use to have DJ sets running for 30-40hrs non stop switching DJs back n forth. Swedish eq. to ofcom seem to not give a shit, even tho once of the bigger transmitters for public service was located 15km away. Now, since this is rural parts, not much interference out, i could sometimes reach more than 20km mark with ~15watts!!! Im in Klp right now, hit me up. Look up my username if you are really serious about this :)
If you want direction finding SDR, there’s a thing called KerberosSDR. It does cost around £200, but you can connect it to an app on your android device to plot signal strength on a map, and it will show you lines pointing towards the signal source. It can even find the signal source and plot it too. - 73 de M7TCC
A simple 2 element beam and a portable rx with an S meter is all you need to df them.Ive done it many times over the years.Ofcom don't appear to worry too much about them these days as long as there signal is clean and they are not causing qrm to any other service.☺
Really interesting man anymore uploads coming? I do a weekend only pirate station but I only for my enjoyment but some locals do tune in I broadcast in the Suffolk area of East Anglia on 87.9FM
Awesome stuff mate, there won’t be any more on this station because I don’t wanna draw any unwanted attention to it. I’ve got a documentary about pirate radio in Manchester coming soon
That's definitely not a PLL special from eBay, I have one of those running and it sounds excellent, that sounds more to me like something someone has built themselves, still nice to hear though!
@@RingwayManchester mine is a CZE-7C, I run it 24/7 on the low power setting on 90.4MHz, get about a mile range on it, been running it since the start of April so that we have some good music to listen to around the house, on the way to the local shops and at the garage I work at. Previously I used one of those in-car ones but it didn't quite go far enough, I ran that for about 3 years 24/7 though!
@@RingwayManchester It simply sounds like the operator is not using pre-empasis to lower the bass for allowing the FM transmission to carry the signal better before the receiver's de-emphasis converts the bass back up to normal volume, I can only presume they just have maybe a phone or something plugged into their transmitter without being able to turn the Bass (lower end EQ's) down. If they are using RDS and the transmission is NOT in stereo then it is probably not a Chinese transmitter and probably a purpose built transmitter, it's impossible to guess but it's probably transmitting using anything from about 50 to 150 watts (sometimes more, sometimes less).
Interesting. I’ve not had a tune around the commercial FM radio bands for a long time. Not used the SDR for a while, either, so I should power it up and have a listen around.
Near New York City, one could hear Pirate stations around the FM band with Caribbean and Spanish programs. I have seen youtube videos about Pirate radio around London some years ago, and the DTI raids. When I was in London in July 2013, I didn't really listen for the Pirate radio, but I have heard that some Pirate London stations have become legal over the years. The music was a bit different from say New York City in the US. I've liked listening to talk shows, such as Steve Allen at night on LBC on FM in London through the internet.W2CH
sounds like my station when I still played house music. I wonder if I should start playing house music again. I started on FM and then moved to AM. I was 87.7 FM then 99.1 FM then 1710 khz.
I remember visiting KFM studios in Middle or Lower Hillgate in Stockport early 80SSB. (Behind the big flats, opposite side of road, probably next to a Robbie’s pub). A friend of mine knew one of the DJs. Going from memory they had a relay up to Werneth Low, Marple or thereabouts and forever having brushes with the law about licensing or lack of. Lots info on Wikipedia. Cheers
Nice. Just stumbled across this. Some nice double stacks in the video. Do you have a record of where they were taken & the years? Used to be heavily involved in pirate radio around southeast London. I noticed you have the Balfron Tower up on here also. Had Deja etc up there a few years ago. Thanks for the video 👍🏻 J
@@RingwayManchester ok mate. I have some great pictures & maybe videos of our installs etc in London. That tower is definitely Balfron tower in central London. It’s no being renovated.
There’s an irregular one in Hong Kong called Citizens Radio, though it is regular on the Internet. Mainland China doesn’t have any to my knowledge as the authorities there jump on independent media of any kind pretty quickly.
I used to listen to a pirate station in 1985 called itself 'Southside FM'. I was only 9 at the time and at first I thought the DJ John Sol I think????? had some technical issues. My dad had worked as a radio engineer though and he told me it sounded like a pirate and explained what they were. From that moment on I've always been interested in pirate stations.
@@RingwayManchester I grew up in Gateacre (South Liverpool) so I actually thought it was nearby🤣 but it seemed a bit weak. It was nearer Stockport/Manchester area- it had a good spread. Can't wait for the video!
Can you do a video on the technology used, I hear microwave repeaters become somewhat common to avoid the studio being seized, not sure how true that was though...
I have a 7 watt FM broadcast transmitter... tempted to set up a pirate station. mind you,. i am in canada and there's not many if any at all pirate stations here. although i do pick up some network stations out of buffalo NY... on the other hand, maybe it's time to power up my analog TV transmitter...
I’ve got one of the cheap transmitters I can only do about a 300m radius as I’m not up high enough and don’t have an antenna on the roof but it’s still fun .
If you are making a film about pirate radio Lewis I may be able to introduce you to someone well known for running & making the equipment back in the day & some of those who worked on his stations. Regards Tim 2e0aam.
We have a Reggie sticion before heracane mickel and its on 963 am band on Panama city beach fl with a cd palyer radio sistum and now thares a 863 satalight and a lot of people from that area aver since heracine mickel in Panama city beach fl and if you get beach music in Panama city beach fl on your cellphone Reggie pops up
i done raw fm back in the 90s 106 then to 87.8 played dance pye westminster convert worked well those you get of ebay less then 100 pounds 15 watts built in stero work well G7GRU
More and more activity on 27 mhz (cb bands ) and fm comercial band pirates all over the country , even one of them little crappy pll Chinese transmitters can get outa good few mile cover a small town with a tuned di pole , bring em on happy days .
I swear Ofcom might aswell hire you lmao with the amount your finding. Theres an old video on youtube showing when ofcom showed down a video like this in london
Hi M8, if you need some insights I used to run and DJ on some major Stations in London from the late 80's 90's and early 2000's. PM me if you need to chat
I find pirate radio very facinating. I'm glad it's still around, despite it being illegal and the possiblity to just do it in the internet. But I think I wouldn't start my own. Maybe just for testing :P
Greatings from Finland, Good Grief, those horrible housing standards in your country, why has the UK got the least Generous welfare state benefits system in North Western Europe and the widest Gap between Rich and Poor in North Western Europe, here in the Nordic Region, we pray that Scotland becomes independent soon as the 14th richest country in the world would be financially better of independent, kind regards, Harry Passannen.
Scotland relies on the money it gets from the British government. Its in a terrible state and if it came independent would see an exodus of citizens to England or Wales. Its got no chance of surviving on its own.
I used to run an adult rock/pop station in Suffolk in the early 1980s We were on 1413khz AM or 1556khz later on. It was 4 nights a week for 4 hours, we eventually got raided I was fined £25 on the following counts Building a transmitter/Installing/Operating it. We ran for over 3 years without trouble on about 80 watts average input. Good fun and if I had my time again, I would change nothing.
I am now 69 now so not likely to repeat it anymore, but I always remember the date we were busted, 20th July 1984.
It was probably my old man that busted you John! He used to work for the radio investigation service and covered the Suffolk area ;-)
@@thecaravanham That's interesting, there is still a station about 12 miles away from me that broadcasts on AM periodically, I pick it up in the car. It used to be on all day 2-3 times per week over last 4 years or so but I haven't heard it for a few months now. An old friend of mine who knows him says he often uses up to 200 watts, and it can be heard easily over most of Norfolk and Suffolk, the programs are mostly a relay of "Radio Caroline" or sometime "Albatross" which was one of Suffolk's first land based pirate stations back in the early 1970s.I guess Ofcom are not that bothered about AM anymore. It is now easy to track an AM pirate using 3 SDR's so they could easily find his approximate location if they wanted to.
Very romantic time of radio. - it was raw and mostly illegal. I used to listen to shortwave with my grandfather when I was little. Listened all over the world on an old DX-130 Receiver. Actually purchased a used one years later. But most of the time when I wasn’t around to bother the old man he listened to collage basketball - march madness. Radio has been an important part of my life. CB, HAM,SWL toss some scanners in there but nothing beats an old transistor AM radio. Thanks for the videos.. Great stuff!
Oh yes John that is a great story, AM over FM anyday.
You should set it up again - your never to old to have fun - pay the price with a smile on your face. : )
Last time I plugged a Pirate on our local Facebook group I got thrown off for advertising an illegal station !!! (that is one sad admin, lol)
that is Mark zuckberg for you ,when your worth 100 billion you can do what ever you want
@@richardbrobeck2384 it was most likely the Group Admin, not Zuckerburg. While Zuckerburg is a total idiot, he’s too busy to do something like that
@David Wanklyn Nah being an idiot won't help or hurt you with that. You simply need a lack of care for how your exploitative actions will play out in the real world besides how much money they will make you. Your website gets used to incite a genocide in Myanmar? Who gives a shit. Expanding into emerging markets is how you'll get rich. Only deploy moderation that operates in and speaks the language of countries where you're likely to run into regulatory oversight.
I started in Pirate radio back in 1978 down here in Eastbourne and operated on Shortwave,Medium wave and then VHF FM.We finally stopped in 1990 after many raids from the DTI (Ofcom) Most of us involved then went onto get our amateur radio licences 😂I guess radio gets into the blood system eh? 73 Ian G7HFS/PA3IKH.
Cheers mate! Hope you're ok Ian!
@@RingwayManchester hi mate.All ok here thanks and hope you're well up there.☺
@@ianharling9569 haha you don't know who you are talking to Ringway is a 3 runway airport this is probably a pinkertons grass for ofcom simple as mate.
@@factorylad5071 actually I know exactly who I'm talking to so no worries.
Ireland has the next step-up, pirate DAB multiplexes because the regulator has been dragging their feet on DAB for years.
Wow!
Its hard to do isnt it , get on a multi plex .
@@eckeynecker Yes. Exactly. And expensive.
@@eckeynecker And conversely easy to build your own mux & TX it. I have one in the house
Thats interesting , all the old radio heads i know , say its more or less impossible , but they,re talking about getting a decentish coverage ( 20 mile ish ) can you get out on it so other dabs can pick up in the area or is it just like a little one for your own use ? cheers .
Awesome!! as you well know I was fascinated by this in my early youth and used to build and repair the transmitters from time to time, amazing fun, never hear them these days, it was a job to get many listeners back in the day, you had to fly poster or hand out flyers in pubs and even then it was sparse, people do radio online these days, there is so much competition for ears and eyes now you have to make it pretty special if you are going to launch a pirate station, the way society is clamping down on free speech though I can see it making a comeback, you would probably have to operate off a boat like radio Caroline, comedy and edgy/offensive comedy might be the only way for that to be aired the way we are going.
Great video, looking forward to the next one.
Cheers mate!
You don't know who you are talking to I would have thought Ringway (airport) would be a big clue. Pinkertons grass for ofcom would be my guess.
Have a tune around 6.2 to 6.4 Mhz and 1602 to 1700 khz. Loads of A.M. pirates, mainly from the Netherlands, but a few from the UK too
I wonder if pirate radio is making a comeback. I live in a semi-rural area on the south coast and for years and years I heard no pirate stations at all. A full-time one came on in about 2018 and a second full-time one has been on for the last two months! If lockdown goes on much longer, I think I’d better monitor the band a bit more!! 73.
We have one in Eastbourne Ed and he's been on for many years.He's not causing any problems and Ofcom don't appear to worry these days.
Theres a few down that way isnt there ? retro 87.8
Had a Pirate Station running 24/7 for two years. The FCC sent me a letter lol KO6JAY 73!
In Britain its ofcom
Nice, 73
Did you get any reception reports? I had mine running 24/7 too but just 7W. Had to quit cause my laptop is gonna blow up xD
Great to see so much Pirate energy in a world of DAB, Alexa, and Google.
go to the netherlands its pirate radio heaven here. Hunderds of pirate radio stations operate here everyday including myself
What does the "fcc" do in the Netherlands?
@@antonio1681 they ceise your equipment and give you a big fine of 2500 euros and if you keep going and the fcc show up 5000 euros the fines are getting higher and higher everytime they come
@@glennbreukelman8241 WOW! That's worse than the US.
I hear (and enjoy) the europirates here in western Ireland- keep up the good work Glen
@@antonio1681 they locate and take away TX they find like here www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/81240/Illegale-zender-uit-hoogspanningsmast-gehaald or they destroyed a mast like piratenzenders.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/3.jpg
Me and some friends had one Here in 1995. we had a good qualiyty gear and programs with electronic and club music and underground culture involved. was magical.
Tower Blocks, Mid Block, Drop Keys, Ripped Jeans, Rig Thieves, Cat and Mouse, DTI. This was my Teens.
Ha ha feel you on that. So many memories, bundles of keys and late nights.
Always forgot ya drop and had to use the bent hand me down that always got stuck in the entrance door. Somehow getting away with carrying massive scaffold poles up the stairs and making so much noise up top it was unreal even though yous all did that shhhh " did ya hear something" when one of the boys got prangers
I picked It up here In Vancouver Lewis, they must be running some mega wattage :) Happy new year mate.
Cheers mate you too! Hope you and Jan are ok!
hiya pal from another brit in BC g4kfj/ ve7kfj
I have a couple of 50W home-built FM transmitters sitting here that work very well and all ready to go. Last time they were used was for a community radio RSL prior to the purchase of a commercial unit... 73 Dan M1CNO
For sale?
Nice! do you have any more technical information on them?
Been many experimenting on the FM it seems. I picked up one Xmas day night on 103.6 in Kent it was blasting out trance music for a few hours. Few months before that I heard some drum n bass on 88.8 seemingly just a playlist of mixes. I hope pirate radio does make a comeback whether it's a cheap PLL or a big one with an aerial up a tower block.
Cheers mate!
Love my House Back in the day. Living in London at the time 2000-2008 lots to listen to from the Pirate World of Radio.
Passion was my favourite.
Great vid Lewis
Cheers Danny!
Passion 91.8? I was the engineer from 2007 to 2008 up until Ofcom licenced a station in West London on the same frequency.
@@drmagis thanks 🙏 it kept me going love those times and tunes
Used to be lots on the band in W’ton & B’ham back in the day, remember stumbling literally over a transmitter left on a Shropshire hill one weekend.
Great video Lewis and look forward to the documentary on them 👍👏👏
Cheers mate!
Anyone remember Frontline Radio? I knew someone in one of The Birdies in Old Trafford. The antennas were usually on top of one of those. They clearly used a simple mono transmitter with no filtering: The carrier was on 100.4MHz but was S7 on my FT690 in Oldham on 50.2MHz the SSB calling frequency!
Frontline is covered in the documentary I'm making :)
Oh yeah, I remember Frontline, seem to remember one of the guys (JP or JC, can't remember) responsible went on to community radio, dunno if he'd be prepared to comment on his pirate Legacy but I think he's still around.
Ages ago I bought one of these dinky little FM transmitters you could plug into your iPod. Never used it much, because with them being regulated to output 50nW maximum, the signal is almost too weak to even pass through my car's windscreen to reach the antenna, and finding a free frequency is more than tedious with even the weakest stations interfering with the reception.
Two years ago, I found it again and decided to "modify" it a bit. I removed all the antenna matching circuitry for the tiny printed antenna, including the potentiometer that was set to dump almost all of the signal to ground.
I looked up the datasheet for the transmitter IC, apparently it's able to output 200mW!
I then drilled a hole into the transmitter's case and installed a simple wire antenna, carefully measured to approximately 1/4 lambda of length and soldered it directly to the IC's output pin.
What do you know, whith my iPod sitting on my bed and the wire hanging down, I could pick up the signal clearly using my phone's built-in FM radio. I left my flat and went down the street. It only started getting a bit noisy after about 800m.
Impresseive for that little thing!
Now it's way more fun using it in the car. Even friends in other cars can now listen to the same music without any problems :)
Going back to the early 2000s their was a guy who used to run a pirate station from an empty flat at Park Hill flats, Sheffield. Didn't last long then again he used to play some right rubbish.
There was an excellent one in Sheffield 106FM on Friday and Saturday night/early morning that would play some great drum and bass in the 99/2000.
Did have a pirate station in Bradford up until recently, played Reggae and Caribbean based tunes. Enjoyed it while it lasted!
We still have some pirate stations here in the West Midlands but nothing like the heydays of the 80's & 90's.
It's on now, with music, and background hum.
Mabey all thease lockdown will bring back pirate radio back 👍👍👍
87.9, Walkden, Salford. R&B on now
ive been facinated with pirate stations for many years. i worked on one in sussex run out of a mates garden shed at his parents house. we had such a laugh doing it and one sunday the guy called up to meet him at the top of a housing estate on a hill. he handed me a hi viz vest and said "carry this cable and follow me" we installed the cable on a proper transmission tower and the hi vis vests made it look as if we were meant to be there. we put in the new cable to the link box and the station carried on broadcasting from there for about a year. as usual it descended into chaos with people not paying subs and having our kit hijacked by other stations etc but it was one of the best experiences ive ever had djing.
i did hear on radio 4 that they are shutting fm down for good at some point which is dissapointing since they could easily deregulate the fm bandwidth and hand it over to the people to use as many stations do good community work. i would say that pirate stations are very community oriented and are a benefit to many people.
What was the name of the station you did, nobby?
@@TheMisphit phonic fm brighton it wasnt around very long
@@nobbystyles4807 Ahh yes I know the one, I think it was on about 2008/09??
@@TheMisphit sounds about right from memory yes. was mixes most of the week then thursday friday saturday was dnb, techno and hip hop then i had a funk and soul show on a sunday followed by a reggae show. it had a small local following, a few taxi drivers i think supported it. we did a few local events / community gigs.
@@nobbystyles4807 Was it transmitting from the cell phone mast up on Woodingdean Hill?
Is it Chorley FM lol
i really do miss pirate radio stations
Possible might be running a test to see how the equipment is working
I remember in Sheffield 1999 there was a pirate radio station on 106FM that would rotate every saturday with drum and bass, techno and wierd ambient.
ah! fm pirate radio. have very fond memories. went to school in liverpool between 1994 to 2002. in the early 2000's i can remember we had at least 3 or 4 regulars. 1 was an old guy called phil davis who broadcasted mainly 50's and 60's rock and roll. most horendous sound quality even if you liked that music you couldn't really listen to it because it was so muffled plus he liked the sound of his own voice too much. another was a lad the same age as me at the time(15) whom i actually became good friends with and we kept in contact for quite a few years after i left school. his was a pop mixed with dance and trance station which ran after school from 4 until about 10 pm. a lot of his friends worked on the station but he was actually quite professional with his output and broadcasting. sometimes we would hear distortion as some of the others weren't so clued up over sound levels but this was often fixed when my friend(the owner came on to do his shows). and often they would play pranks on the air like a time one of them decided to phone up this girl who he fancied and asked her out. my friend who ran it decided to secretly put the call live on air without his friend's knowledge. probably one of the best ones at the time to listen to if you fancied good tunes,a good laugh and a bit of mischief. happy days lol
The first rule of pirate radio is don't talk about pirate radio.
The second rule of pirate radio is _don't talk about pirate radio!_
Aaahh the good ol days! Yeah, did pirate radio and pirate TV back in the early 90's. It's amazing what you can do with a vintage VHS player and a Linear amp.
Man, I want to run my own pirate radio station, but idk what are the laws for doing this in Lithuania.
i'll join you man, had multiple small transmitters back in rural Sweden years ago. used to relay pirates from UK so i could have something to listen on. On weekends we use to have DJ sets running for 30-40hrs non stop switching DJs back n forth. Swedish eq. to ofcom seem to not give a shit, even tho once of the bigger transmitters for public service was located 15km away. Now, since this is rural parts, not much interference out, i could sometimes reach more than 20km mark with ~15watts!!!
Im in Klp right now, hit me up. Look up my username if you are really serious about this :)
Great video Lewis. Happy New Year mate. Motters M7TRS 73's
Happy new year! Thanks!
If you want direction finding SDR, there’s a thing called KerberosSDR. It does cost around £200, but you can connect it to an app on your android device to plot signal strength on a map, and it will show you lines pointing towards the signal source. It can even find the signal source and plot it too. - 73 de M7TCC
A simple 2 element beam and a portable rx with an S meter is all you need to df them.Ive done it many times over the years.Ofcom don't appear to worry too much about them these days as long as there signal is clean and they are not causing qrm to any other service.☺
Cheers mate!
Just a cheap Tecsun FM radio (with signal dB meter) with a small beam connected works great for DF (and costs a heck less than 200 notes)
Really interesting man anymore uploads coming? I do a weekend only pirate station but I only for my enjoyment but some locals do tune in I broadcast in the Suffolk area of East Anglia on 87.9FM
Awesome stuff mate, there won’t be any more on this station because I don’t wanna draw any unwanted attention to it. I’ve got a documentary about pirate radio in Manchester coming soon
That's definitely not a PLL special from eBay, I have one of those running and it sounds excellent, that sounds more to me like something someone has built themselves, still nice to hear though!
I was beginning to think the same too mate!
@@RingwayManchester mine is a CZE-7C, I run it 24/7 on the low power setting on 90.4MHz, get about a mile range on it, been running it since the start of April so that we have some good music to listen to around the house, on the way to the local shops and at the garage I work at. Previously I used one of those in-car ones but it didn't quite go far enough, I ran that for about 3 years 24/7 though!
@@ArlenMoulton2 Brilliant mate!
@@RingwayManchester It simply sounds like the operator is not using pre-empasis to lower the bass for allowing the FM transmission to carry the signal better before the receiver's de-emphasis converts the bass back up to normal volume, I can only presume they just have maybe a phone or something plugged into their transmitter without being able to turn the Bass (lower end EQ's) down. If they are using RDS and the transmission is NOT in stereo then it is probably not a Chinese transmitter and probably a purpose built transmitter, it's impossible to guess but it's probably transmitting using anything from about 50 to 150 watts (sometimes more, sometimes less).
Interesting. I’ve not had a tune around the commercial FM radio bands for a long time. Not used the SDR for a while, either, so I should power it up and have a listen around.
Near New York City, one could hear Pirate stations around the FM band
with Caribbean and Spanish programs.
I have seen youtube videos about Pirate
radio around London some years ago,
and the DTI raids. When I was in London
in July 2013, I didn't really listen for the
Pirate radio, but I have heard that some
Pirate London stations have become
legal over the years. The music was a
bit different from say New York City in
the US. I've liked listening to talk shows,
such as Steve Allen at night on LBC on
FM in London through the internet.W2CH
I used to do mixology fm in the east side of greater Manchester 👌
Just picked up someone's sat nav, they were just going to the route! 87.5, Boothstown carpark, Salford.
sounds like my station when I still played house music. I wonder if I should start playing house music again. I started on FM and then moved to AM. I was 87.7 FM then 99.1 FM then 1710 khz.
I remember visiting KFM studios in Middle or Lower Hillgate in Stockport early 80SSB. (Behind the big flats, opposite side of road, probably next to a Robbie’s pub). A friend of mine knew one of the DJs. Going from memory they had a relay up to Werneth Low, Marple or thereabouts and forever having brushes with the law about licensing or lack of. Lots info on Wikipedia.
Cheers
It was at Goyt Mill - I remember going out with my mate to try and find it
Nice. Just stumbled across this. Some nice double stacks in the video. Do you have a record of where they were taken & the years?
Used to be heavily involved in pirate radio around southeast London. I noticed you have the Balfron Tower up on here also. Had Deja etc up there a few years ago.
Thanks for the video 👍🏻
J
Hi mate thanks so much. They were taken early 2000’s but I’ve no idea where
@@RingwayManchester ok mate. I have some great pictures & maybe videos of our installs etc in London. That tower is definitely Balfron tower in central London. It’s no being renovated.
That’d be awesome to see!
@Uncle K Pirate radio King Set up a few stations in / around London. Played on a good few also.
@Uncle K Pirate radio King Cant believe your still out stealing rigs 👀🤣 not bored of it yet. Surprised any stations still on the band. CJ
No surprise they everywhere
Some Sundays in Sheffield 106.9 mhz hear John peel sessions. audio is quite good and coverage too :)
Doubt there is a city anywhere in the world without pirate radio stations now that you can buy an FM transmitter for the price of a pack of smokes.
There’s an irregular one in Hong Kong called Citizens Radio, though it is regular on the Internet. Mainland China doesn’t have any to my knowledge as the authorities there jump on independent media of any kind pretty quickly.
I used to listen to a pirate station in 1985 called itself 'Southside FM'. I was only 9 at the time and at first I thought the DJ John Sol I think????? had some technical issues. My dad had worked as a radio engineer though and he told me it sounded like a pirate and explained what they were. From that moment on I've always been interested in pirate stations.
Cheers mate! I've got a video coming up which covers southside!
@@RingwayManchester I grew up in Gateacre (South Liverpool) so I actually thought it was nearby🤣 but it seemed a bit weak. It was nearer Stockport/Manchester area- it had a good spread.
Can't wait for the video!
Rules and laws are there to be broken, nice one 👍
Is pirate radio still relevant given what its possible to do online these days?
Can you do a video on the technology used, I hear microwave repeaters become somewhat common to avoid the studio being seized, not sure how true that was though...
This reminds me of the guy who Broadcast 30-35 min. Music on channel 8
Long Live Pirate Radio!
I have a 7 watt FM broadcast transmitter... tempted to set up a pirate station. mind you,. i am in canada and there's not many if any at all pirate stations here. although i do pick up some network stations out of buffalo NY... on the other hand, maybe it's time to power up my analog TV transmitter...
I shouldnt really talk about this... i do run a pirate radio station in Stoke on Trent called Raindrop pirate radio around the area of kidsgrove
@Uncle K Pirate radio King lol i got shut down 3 months ago
@Uncle K Pirate radio King yeah cant do one again tho. Put me in debt and frightened me tp death
Picked it up around Prescot, Merseyside on Christmas eve, same buzzing sound. I thought it was the drive in cinema in Stockport.
Nice one jack hope you’re ok mate
@@RingwayManchester All good here sir, hope everything is good with you at the moment!
@@JackBromby Yes not bad thanks!
UFO come back Pirate radio
I’ve got one of the cheap transmitters I can only do about a 300m radius as I’m not up high enough and don’t have an antenna on the roof but it’s still fun .
If you are making a film about pirate radio Lewis I may be able to introduce you to someone well known for running & making the equipment back in the day & some of those who worked on his stations. Regards Tim 2e0aam.
Thanks Tim that’d be good!
@@RingwayManchester Here you go Lewis. His name is Steve & this is a link to his facebook. facebook.com/steve.leyland.35
Steve West is a Liverpool Legend (Wirral)
yeah no license fee
Didnt recognise any of those building supposedly in Manchester,AND a London bus in one of them
Yeah, they’re not in Manchester they’re all in London.
We have a Reggie sticion before heracane mickel and its on 963 am band on Panama city beach fl with a cd palyer radio sistum and now thares a 863 satalight and a lot of people from that area aver since heracine mickel in Panama city beach fl and if you get beach music in Panama city beach fl on your cellphone Reggie pops up
Cool channel. Cool video. I was an engineer for a London drum and bass station for a couple of years. Stella sesh Sunday morning show. AV it
Thanks for this rapport, greetings from the Netherlands
i done raw fm back in the 90s 106 then to 87.8 played dance pye westminster convert worked well those you get of ebay less then 100 pounds 15 watts built in stero work well G7GRU
Bloody ell Mark there’s a blast from the past! Think I last spoke to you in 2005 on the radio! Recognised the call straight away. Hope you’re ok mate
@@RingwayManchester i think we talked on dmr as well the early days of dmr nice to hear from you will have a chat on dmr soon
Pirate radio stations are brill.
Very cool vid
More and more activity on 27 mhz (cb bands ) and fm comercial band pirates all over the country , even one of them little crappy pll Chinese transmitters can get outa good few mile cover a small town with a tuned di pole , bring em on happy days .
Yaaaar Jim lad it was not the station I was hoping for.
yes yes loved pirate radio we run ambient fm 106.4 manchester dnb jungle station
yesterday i heard a pirate station in london on 86.500 mhz- it was a pretty rough signal though-73-febuary i get my ham ticket!
Awesome mate!
Interesting 🧐
I swear Ofcom might aswell hire you lmao with the amount your finding. Theres an old video on youtube showing when ofcom showed down a video like this in london
If someone could afford a flat high up on Beetham Tower, could they just put the wire along their windows? and how would tha authorities ever find it?
Ha hA also i see you used some of the blocks we used to put up the antennas on in London
Haha cheers lee
In the netherlands it is normal
Hi Lewis. .very interesting video thanks matey
Cheers mate!
I never operated a pirate radio station EVER in my life.
I've never ever been a pirate in my life. Arrrghhh.
And just like that, you’re a pirate!
People still do this? Neat!
Sounds like fun.
Nice one!.
Wish you would do more on this sort of stuff
pirate radio can be a numbered spy station
they will never ever be as good a caroline
87.7 on your dial
Holy crap it's Ali G
Does he wear an eyepatch?
😀great!
cliff jones lesson be to learned google
Hope the covid police don't get you for traveling
Are you a ham radio operator?
Hi M8, if you need some insights I used to run and DJ on some major Stations in London from the late 80's 90's and early 2000's. PM me if you need to chat
Whats the song at the beginning
Basefmuk
I find pirate radio very facinating. I'm glad it's still around, despite it being illegal and the possiblity to just do it in the internet. But I think I wouldn't start my own. Maybe just for testing :P
Greatings from Finland, Good Grief, those horrible housing standards in your country, why has the UK got the least Generous welfare state benefits system in North Western Europe and the widest Gap between Rich and Poor in North Western Europe, here in the Nordic Region, we pray that Scotland becomes independent soon as the 14th richest country in the world would be financially better of independent, kind regards, Harry Passannen.
Scotland relies on the money it gets from the British government. Its in a terrible state and if it came independent would see an exodus of citizens to England or Wales. Its got no chance of surviving on its own.
Because our government are the most corrupt
Be better than the advert ladened crap you hear.
Far too much noise posing as music.
Its bad enough to hear it blaring out of cars at night when you want to sleep
I heard the dead carrier on the 23rd dec very strong nr wythenshawe hospital
It is on air now ! Same place very strong signal and heavy heavy bass
That's him!