If I had a time machine I would go back and help people like this ...and if I was a sympathetic farmer they could have used my land ......Great experiences Lewis well done again...looking forward to tommorow
Spent a good few of my formative years dragging transmitters and car batteries up and down the hills surrounding Manchester dodging Gordon and his entourage. Never tried it with the weight of an valve AM rig though. This is well put together and very enjoyable!
absolutely love hearing these pirate radio stories from decades ago! been listening to a mystery FM station in the San Juan, Puerto Rico metro area, I hope they stay online
Absolutely fantastic, Before i started work at Carphones of Britain (you covered in other videos) I worked for 2 of Piccadilly Radios sub companies, Piccadilly AV (based out in Salford just off Broadway) and then Piccadilly light and sound (based opposite the Apollo) just at the time the took over from Squire Sound and Light (based on Deansgate) and was part of the move to the 'mega store' based at 130 Broadway Salford. I will have it known we did not listen to Piccadilly in the workshops, oh no, Radio 1 and brew time was ready for 'Our Tune'. I left not long after Piccadilly Radio was taken over by Owen Oysten and it became Key 103. I had been a fan of Piccadilly as a kid helping a guy work on cars listening in his garage at weekends.
And this was all done before the days of ali-express getting a transmitter on a single board radiating 100w and getting it to customers in a week!! Much admiration for those who wielded a soldering iron in those days.
I suspect that ILR would have been a lot slower in coming without the pressure exerted by pirate stations. Oh, it would have happened eventually - there was money to be made in all those extra licences - but the continued activity of pirates was a motivating factor in the government passing the reform that permitted it. There isn't really any I or L left it it these days though... decades of industry consolidation and acquisitions. Heaps of different DAB stations to choose from, and all of them owned by the same three companies.
Another great one Lewis. Are you in touch with Charlie? If so please give him my regards. I haven’t seen him since around 1972 when he came down to London to see how we did it on Radio Jackie. It’s great all these stories are being told again
I was bitten by the pirate radio bug in the mid 80s whilst being a schoolie on the Wirral. S. C. R. (Storeton Community Radio) was massive along with Radio Merseywaves. I grew up wanting to be a dj and ended up working with and being good mates with most of the folks I grew up listening to. Busted in a tower block, being fined £50 and my name in the paper 👍 Highlight was sitting in someone's back bedroom on one side of the Mersey linked to a 300watt fm tx on the other, doing live shout outs (over 70 calls in an hour). The future was Sound 🥴😳 Thanks for the memories lads, them were the days 👍👍
I used to install 23Ghz and 13Ghz point to point microwave links supplying PDH and SDH transmission systems for many different uses... Be good to see some content on LTE transmitters and nano wave 5G as its rolled out in metropolitan areas.
Running a valve(tube) based transmitter off car batteries? That's just nuts. Even for a 15 watt transmitter. That would've needed over a 100 watts of supply power just to power it. Plus, you would need some kind of inverter to step the 12 volts from the car battery to the high voltage to drive the plates on the valves(tubes). The only inverters they would've had at the time would be a Vibrator or a Dynamotor and those only have an efficiency of about 40%. So in the end. They would need to draw over 200 watts from those car batteries just to power that 15 watt transmitter.
Mostly dynamotors, but later we used transistor inverters. The reason for using valves was that it was a familiar technology and the PA stages were far less prone to sudden failure under bad SWR conditions. There were no nice RF powerfets available in the early 70's. Also a valve could be swapped easily (we carried spares), but a transistor would need a soldering iron and other tools. Add to this the fact that old valves were tumbling out of our junk boxes, whereas suitable semiconductor RF devices were not.
When I was in high school back in the early seventies we lived in a house up in the hills in Los Angeles and we acquired a radio transmitter from somewhere that I won't mention and a friend of mine built a RF amplifier for it to give us about 50 Watts. So we went on the air on FM but kept it to about 2 hours of broadcast time. Playing mostly top 40 music. We did this on the weekends for several weeks and then one night there was a knock on the door and there were the suits:-( needless to say my parents were scared to death and very very angry at me especially when the suits decided to threaten me with jail time and to fine my parents thousands of dollars. However all they did was confiscate all the equipment and went away. I consider that a warning and unfortunately that was the end of our Pirate Radio broadcasts. But I will say it was so much fun while it lasted!
Hi Paul. Probably because the offshore pirates had made such an impression and had recently been forced off the air, leaving a young audience demanding action. Radio 1 was meant to fill the gap, but it's early days were rubbish. This left a vacuum to be filled and up popped the land-based pirates.
I wonder why they didn't hide the transmitter in a cave system where no one would know it's location, and have a system of beacons to lure the raiding parties away from where the main transmitter was.
what a fantasy, the problem is not to hide the transmitter, the problem is not to be triangular, if you want to radiate a signal you have to use an antenna outside in a high position, which in turn is connected via a coaxial cable to a transmitter, this it can modulate and transmit the audio directly or it can also be remote and reached by a microwave signal from the transmission station, also traceable even if with a little more effort, if the remote location is temporary it can give time to escape later having shrunk the FM transmitter, the antenna in the cave does not transmit to anyone it would be useless, if it is external it radiates and is tracked like any radio transmitter on any frequency, some easier others more difficult but it is only a matter of time and cunning , this is inevitable, any transmitter trap on the same frequency would disturb the main transmission and defeat everything, I would like to see with u n pirate bugget create 4 or more stations that switch every time to deceive those who search with radio gognometer, or even in synchronous transmission in isofrequency. the pirate knows that sooner or later his equipment is captured, so much so that he already has a spare.
Radio has requirements. The transmitting antenna needs to be in an open area, and elevated above the surroundings. The top of a tree works. Underground does not. In cities, the roof of a tall building like a block of flats is ideal. There are also ways to identify the location of a transmitter given some time, so a transmitter running too long would be found. In the 80s transmitters got cheap enough to be more disposable, so pirates would sometimes use them as such - put up the transmitter with a cassette full of programs, and abandon it. By the time the law got there, the operators would be long gone. But 70s components were much more expensive. If FM piracy were still a big thing today, I imagine pirates would have gotten more sophisticated - with GPS synchronisation you could run multiple transmitters hopping between them ten times a second in a pseudorandom sequence and slowly modulating the output power, which would really screw with anyone trying to do direction-finding and location. But by the time that became feasible for hobbyists, pirate radio was all but dead. Just no need for it any more.
A long time ago I was waiting out side a court house in Ashton with my cine camera where they where convicted and filmed them when they came out and the GPO appeared they coverd their faces up with their parker hoods and ran away when I pointed my cine camera at them.
Here's a different side of things that may be interesting to your subscribers. What happened to Gordon. What's his history. What would be really interesting is his side of things, however, he may not be alive anymore.
The G.P.O. was the mafia! Why should they get all the rights to broadcast ? Who is the current mafia shutting down freedom of the airwaves? I would love to set up my own radio broadcasts but so far only have knowledge that pulses of electricity are required to use as the carrier wave and the only way I know of doing that is the spark gap method which is pretty useless now. I would have a regular show about an hour long, not interfering with any other broadcasts on air. Would CB radio work though? It's not a case of competing with other broadcasters, just that I would like to transmit a few tunes and my own take on the news for those that would tune in, but setting up a reasonable transmitter of any sort seems impossible to get the information on how to make one.
Reminds me of my Youth regarding Parrs Wood 🪵 and putting a Erection up, Great in the Summer ,Not so good in the Winter, 🥺🤔. It wasn't the GPO I had to worry about But the Husbands and Boyfriends chasing after Me.
If I had a time machine I would go back and help people like this
...and if I was a sympathetic farmer they could have used my land ......Great experiences Lewis well done again...looking forward to tommorow
This is gold, great work! Loving the daily chapters.
Spent a good few of my formative years dragging transmitters and car batteries up and down the hills surrounding Manchester dodging Gordon and his entourage. Never tried it with the weight of an valve AM rig though. This is well put together and very enjoyable!
absolutely love hearing these pirate radio stories from decades ago! been listening to a mystery FM station in the San Juan, Puerto Rico metro area, I hope they stay online
This story has got me hooked it's well edited and narrated a pleasure to watch and listen to.
Thank you so much
@@RingwayManchester bye bye Manchester 😂😂😂😂
Hello big ass tornado 😂 😂 😂 😂
People really need to understand what the radio scene was like in the early 70s with a complete lack of real choice in comparison to today.
Really enjoying this series Lewis, fascinating story of some dedicated pirates
What a great series! All that is broadcast on the radio now is repetitive adverts, we need more pirate stations!
Brilliant. These clips bring back some great memories.
Absolutely fantastic, Before i started work at Carphones of Britain (you covered in other videos) I worked for 2 of Piccadilly Radios sub companies, Piccadilly AV (based out in Salford just off Broadway) and then Piccadilly light and sound (based opposite the Apollo) just at the time the took over from Squire Sound and Light (based on Deansgate) and was part of the move to the 'mega store' based at 130 Broadway Salford. I will have it known we did not listen to Piccadilly in the workshops, oh no, Radio 1 and brew time was ready for 'Our Tune'. I left not long after Piccadilly Radio was taken over by Owen Oysten and it became Key 103. I had been a fan of Piccadilly as a kid helping a guy work on cars listening in his garage at weekends.
Ha excellent undercover work eh? Loving aquarius efforts! Imagine the Busby's effort. Ace well played everyone and great info Lewis.
And this was all done before the days of ali-express getting a transmitter on a single board radiating 100w and getting it to customers in a week!! Much admiration for those who wielded a soldering iron in those days.
Great research & explanation, this is the kind of original content TH-cam was made for! Well done & many thanks!
Thanks so much!!
Great stuff Lewis and Andy. Looking forward to part 3 when I expect Inspector Morse will be on secondment from Oxford.
That was interesting. Your narration was in great detail and had me gripped. Keep them coming. I'll certainly be watching you videos.
Thank you so much
Brilliant, Lewis! Thanks! A riveting story.
LOVE hearing these stories. You're preserving radio history!
Brilliant Lewis! Thanks for putting the time and research in to do this series. 🙂
I remember listening to radio Caroline in the 70’s
I prefered it when they sailed the seas and fired cannons at each other.now its radio transmitters.nice one ringway.....
Wonderful can't wait for the next episode.Thanks
I suspect that ILR would have been a lot slower in coming without the pressure exerted by pirate stations. Oh, it would have happened eventually - there was money to be made in all those extra licences - but the continued activity of pirates was a motivating factor in the government passing the reform that permitted it.
There isn't really any I or L left it it these days though... decades of industry consolidation and acquisitions. Heaps of different DAB stations to choose from, and all of them owned by the same three companies.
Another great one Lewis. Are you in touch with Charlie? If so please give him my regards. I haven’t seen him since around 1972 when he came down to London to see how we did it on Radio Jackie. It’s great all these stories are being told again
Hey Stuart, unfortunately my efforts to trace Charlie and make contact with him have all lead to dead ends
@@RingwayManchester I’ll put some feelers out
Great days Lewis.We did exactly the same back in Eastbourne in the 80's.
73.G7HFS/PA3IKH
I remember this very well. Great accurate description of this👍🏻
Thanks for another interesting history of pirate radio
More Pirates 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Nice production as usual….Love these stories makes me tingle with joy 🤩
Great wee series! Thanks 👍🏼
Ian
I was bitten by the pirate radio bug in the mid 80s whilst being a schoolie on the Wirral.
S. C. R. (Storeton Community Radio) was massive along with Radio Merseywaves. I grew up wanting to be a dj and ended up working with and being good mates with most of the folks I grew up listening to.
Busted in a tower block, being fined £50 and my name in the paper 👍
Highlight was sitting in someone's back bedroom on one side of the Mersey linked to a 300watt fm tx on the other, doing live shout outs (over 70 calls in an hour).
The future was Sound 🥴😳
Thanks for the memories lads, them were the days 👍👍
awesome Lewis loving this series.
The culture that built up behind pirate radio is really something else.
Thanks Lewis
They squatted a nearby frequency? Lol 🤣 love the stories :)
A very informative documentary series!
This is turning out to be extremely interesting. Thanks for putting it together.
I used to install 23Ghz and 13Ghz point to point microwave links supplying PDH and SDH transmission systems for many different uses...
Be good to see some content on LTE transmitters and nano wave 5G as its rolled out in metropolitan areas.
Very interesting 👌 👍 part II from almost
50 years ago.
I miss those days
this series of videos is fantastic what another brilliant story!
Great run of videos, really enjoying it!
As usual this was, "well received." And most interesting. Thanks.
Lewis, do you do all the photography and drone footage yourself? It's absolutely beautiful!
I do mate thanks so much!
Running a valve(tube) based transmitter off car batteries? That's just nuts. Even for a 15 watt transmitter. That would've needed over a 100 watts of supply power just to power it. Plus, you would need some kind of inverter to step the 12 volts from the car battery to the high voltage to drive the plates on the valves(tubes). The only inverters they would've had at the time would be a Vibrator or a Dynamotor and those only have an efficiency of about 40%. So in the end. They would need to draw over 200 watts from those car batteries just to power that 15 watt transmitter.
Mostly dynamotors, but later we used transistor inverters. The reason for using valves was that it was a familiar technology and the PA stages were far less prone to sudden failure under bad SWR conditions. There were no nice RF powerfets available in the early 70's. Also a valve could be swapped easily (we carried spares), but a transistor would need a soldering iron and other tools. Add to this the fact that old valves were tumbling out of our junk boxes, whereas suitable semiconductor RF devices were not.
For a long time I have wanted to hear a story about such subjects told with such strong details. I absolutely loved this where can I find more?
Cheers Matt, there’s another 3 parts coming this week
@@RingwayManchester excellent!
Does anyone know the name of that song 0:27 min ?
Yup, it's 'Red River Rock' by Johnny and the Hurricanes.
never heard of this pirate station , but a great story bro
"An extra car battery was procured from somewhere" - wait just a minute!
enjoyed this can we have more tales ?
Love these stories
When I was in high school back in the early seventies we lived in a house up in the hills in Los Angeles and we acquired a radio transmitter from somewhere that I won't mention and a friend of mine built a RF amplifier for it to give us about 50 Watts. So we went on the air on FM but kept it to about 2 hours of broadcast time. Playing mostly top 40 music. We did this on the weekends for several weeks and then one night there was a knock on the door and there were the suits:-( needless to say my parents were scared to death and very very angry at me especially when the suits decided to threaten me with jail time and to fine my parents thousands of dollars. However all they did was confiscate all the equipment and went away. I consider that a warning and unfortunately that was the end of our Pirate Radio broadcasts. But I will say it was so much fun while it lasted!
This stuff is great.
These people were not robbing people or assaulting anyone just harmless fun! Oh how times have changed.
Had a laugh when you got to the row of car batteries bit.
One question, England really features on the pirate radio scene, why?
Because of the BBC mate
Hi Paul. Probably because the offshore pirates had made such an impression and had recently been forced off the air, leaving a young audience demanding action. Radio 1 was meant to fill the gap, but it's early days were rubbish. This left a vacuum to be filled and up popped the land-based pirates.
I spy, for the DTI...
Anyone else remember it?
Super!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder why they didn't hide the transmitter in a cave system where no one would know it's location, and have a system of beacons to lure the raiding parties away from where the main transmitter was.
what a fantasy, the problem is not to hide the transmitter, the problem is not to be triangular, if you want to radiate a signal you have to use an antenna outside in a high position, which in turn is connected via a coaxial cable to a transmitter, this it can modulate and transmit the audio directly or it can also be remote and reached by a microwave signal from the transmission station, also traceable even if with a little more effort, if the remote location is temporary it can give time to escape later having shrunk the FM transmitter, the antenna in the cave does not transmit to anyone it would be useless, if it is external it radiates and is tracked like any radio transmitter on any frequency, some easier others more difficult but it is only a matter of time and cunning , this is inevitable, any transmitter trap on the same frequency would disturb the main transmission and defeat everything, I would like to see with u n pirate bugget create 4 or more stations that switch every time to deceive those who search with radio gognometer, or even in synchronous transmission in isofrequency.
the pirate knows that sooner or later his equipment is captured, so much so that he already has a spare.
Radio has requirements. The transmitting antenna needs to be in an open area, and elevated above the surroundings. The top of a tree works. Underground does not. In cities, the roof of a tall building like a block of flats is ideal. There are also ways to identify the location of a transmitter given some time, so a transmitter running too long would be found.
In the 80s transmitters got cheap enough to be more disposable, so pirates would sometimes use them as such - put up the transmitter with a cassette full of programs, and abandon it. By the time the law got there, the operators would be long gone. But 70s components were much more expensive.
If FM piracy were still a big thing today, I imagine pirates would have gotten more sophisticated - with GPS synchronisation you could run multiple transmitters hopping between them ten times a second in a pseudorandom sequence and slowly modulating the output power, which would really screw with anyone trying to do direction-finding and location. But by the time that became feasible for hobbyists, pirate radio was all but dead. Just no need for it any more.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR !
Useless factiod: The average wage in 1974 was about £38 a week
A long time ago I was waiting out side a court house in Ashton with my cine camera where they where convicted and filmed them when they came out and the GPO appeared they coverd their faces up with their parker hoods and ran away when I pointed my cine camera at them.
you can hide alot in thew woods LOL
Here's a different side of things that may be interesting to your subscribers. What happened to Gordon. What's his history. What would be really interesting is his side of things, however, he may not be alive anymore.
Working on it ;)
Point? Just because??? seems silly at best.
The G.P.O. was the mafia! Why should they get all the rights to broadcast ? Who is the current mafia shutting down freedom of the airwaves? I would love to set up my own radio broadcasts but so far only have knowledge that pulses of electricity are required to use as the carrier wave and the only way I know of doing that is the spark gap method which is pretty useless now. I would have a regular show about an hour long, not interfering with any other broadcasts on air. Would CB radio work though? It's not a case of competing with other broadcasters, just that I would like to transmit a few tunes and my own take on the news for those that would tune in, but setting up a reasonable transmitter of any sort seems impossible to get the information on how to make one.
GPO golf poppa Oscar
killjoys....
👍
Send them to jail for life! /S
Reminds me of my Youth regarding Parrs Wood 🪵 and putting a Erection up, Great in the Summer ,Not so good in the Winter, 🥺🤔. It wasn't the GPO I had to worry about But the Husbands and Boyfriends chasing after Me.
Brilliant. G4OWW