f pirates o y frequenc on modulati of Brief history radio te ra pi h is Brit
marconi - the first pirate
1896 -
On Salisbury Plain, England, Guglielmo Marconi, an adventurous fellow in his early twenties, from Bologna, Italy demonstrated the first ever practical application of wireless telegraphy. He patented the system on 2 June, 1896. By 1898, he had achieved wireless morse communication between Bournemouth and the Isle of Man; and in 1901, between Cornwall and Newfoundland.
First wireless telegraph
1914 – Wireless telegraphy had become possible between seafaring vessels. The army became involved because radios could win wars however the government realised that enemy countries were able to communicate to the british public, the clampdown began. Guglielmo Marconi
1919 - Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in transmit-
ting his voice across the atlantic, and set about establishing a public telegraphy service. This was run, as it happens,from a shed in writtle, near Chelmsford. The first pirate broadcasts were half-hour ‘Marconi shows’ put out twice a day.
1921 - In the United States, commercial radio began to flourish, with the formation of KDKA, a community station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A year later, there were stations o various kinds transmitting programmes from France, Belgium, Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Canada and New Zealand.
1921 – The army and navy pressured the government
to create a leglistation to catch up with Marconis broadcasts. The post office granted 4,000 licenses to members of the public allowing them to receive incoming signals and 150 grants to people who wanted to transmit.
A very early Marconis transmitter at the 2MT station in Writtle, Essex.
1922 - Marconi started a station called 2MT in
February, with a legal restriction of just 15 minutes airtime per week - hardly sufficient, given his mighty advances, his enthusiasm, his commitment and his ideals. An experimental station began operations at his headquarters, Marconi House, and the government and press of the day began to get irritated and worried about the whole issue. Later in the year, Parliament established the very first British Broadcasting Corporation to provide news, weather forecasts, educational material, radio lectures, classical music and drama. The era of programming radio content as ordained by Parliament had begun.
1925 - Further legislation, devised by Conservative politicians and civil servants, under recommendation from a Parliamentary committee, reformed the legislation, making the corporation answerable only to Parliament. The original constitution of the BBC was the work of the Postmaster General at t he time of Baldwin’s government; he followed the recommendations of the Crawford Committee, which reported in April 1926. The Postmaster Gen-
Marconis transmiter on New Street Factory
eral provided himself and his heirs with enormous powers over transmission; the use of wavelengths was determined, the power and location of transmitters established, and criteria for the content of broadcasting laid down. The latter were in line with Lord Reith’s declaration, as head of the BBC, that the corporation’s aim should be to ‘educate and elevate’ public taste, and to contribute an essential element of enlightenment to democracy. The BBC then began a bizarre form of ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with the government, which has involved varying degrees of backdoor compromise over the years ever since.
Radio Luxembourg poster
- Whatever the formalities and style of 1925 early BBC radio (the presenters had to wear diner jackets when on the air!) listeners in Britain began to sample alternatives to the BBC, in the form of Radio Luxembourg and Radio Normandie, the first commercial stations to broadcast to Britain from outside the country. Normandie was actually the first station, starting with transmissions from the small fishing village of LeCamp. Later, the station even beamed a programme about fashion, sponsored by Selfridges, from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Normandie’s income was derived from advertising, in the US style. Normandie broadcast to south east England every night between midnight and 3 a.m., the only transmission time available. Its programme diet consisted largely of popular dance music, which was unavailable on the BBC. Captain L.F. Plugge, Normandie’s controller, was the man behind the organization known as the International Broadcasting Company, which spread stations across Europe in the 1930s.
1931 - In October, the Prince of Luxembourg laid
a foundation stone on the site of a huge radio transmitter in Luxembourg. As one of the International Broadcasting Company’s Radio Luxembourg began broadcasting in 1933 and like French stations such as Normandie, Toulouse, Lyons and Poste Parisienne was financed by advertising and provided a selection of dance band music. The long-wave frequency which Luxembourg adopted ‘pirated’ was the word used by the BBC had not been allocated to them at any of the international conferences on radio, at which the government of Luxembourg had been present. The BBC expended much energy in attempting to prove frequency interference by Luxembourg. Luxembourg declared themselves ‘The Most Powerful Broadcasting Station In Europe’, thus further irritating the authorities in Britain. The BBC’s real source of irritation, though, was the fact that Luxembourg posed a threat to the corporation’s monopoly.
1933 - On 24 June,the
BBC and Radio Luxembourg officially got together for a meeting at Broadcas ti n g H o u s e , to d i s c u ss m a tte r s of wavelength and piracy. They were to debate solutions to what,in Radio Luxembourg fact, was not a problem. The atmosphere was, by all accounts, frosty. The BBC did not, as was intended, manage to put the‘pirate radio amateurs’ in their place. Radio Luxembourg continued to operate, and by 1934 had an 80-piece orchestra in its studio.
poster
the war
1939 - The Second World
brought major changes in British radio. The Ministry of Information took over responsibility for the BBC, the MOI claiming that the BBC had a sense of patriotic duty with the truth as the guiding criterion. After the patriotic duty with the truth as the guiding criterion. After the expression of national values and inspiration, as Lord Windlesham put it. Its position, vis-Ă Lord Haw Haw was the first pirate vis the government was dj to be hung by the neck still not clearly defined in formal terms, and has not been to the this day. English language radio of a distinctly unusual nature was also broadcast to Britain during the six years of the Second World War. The Nazis had commandeered Radio Luxembourg in their grotesque travels across Europe, and they put Lord Haw Haw (real nine William Joyce) on the air to crow propaganda across the North Sea to Britain. After the war he was convicted of High Treason in 1945 and executed in 1946. Lord Haw Haw was the first pirate DJ to be hung by the neck.
1948 - “Everyone has the right to freedom of opin-
ion and expression; this includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.� Universal decleratin of human rights, united nations. 1949-The new Wireless Telegraphy Act, which still
remains on the statute book, came in to force. The Act rules that no-one can establish or use wireless telegraphy without a license from the Secretary of State, through the Home Office.
Radio on patriotic duty
the sea pirates
1958-The scope of radio was now opened up with the
birth of sea piracy, which grew to immense popularity in Europe during the 1960s. In July 1958, Radio Mercur began broadcasting to Denmark from the ship Cheeta. Similar ventures arrived, such as Radio Veronica broadcasting to Holland, and Radio Nord to Sweden. In 1960, an audience survey found that Radio Veronica was receiving upwards of 5 million listeners.
Radio Caroline DJs
1961 - The
Commercial Neutral Broadcasting Company on Radio Veronica’s ship made its first ever sea pirate broadcasts for English listeners. Piracy developed and expanded, incorporating news bulletins, paying DJs’ salaries, developing ‘microphone talent’, and achieving regular broadcasting output. And the arrests began too.
Postre to the film based on Radio Caroline story
1964 - On Good Friday, Radio Caroline made its
first broadcast to Britain. DJ Simon Dee opened the station officially on Easter Sunday. Radio Caroline had been started by Ronan O’Rahilly, who had converted a ferry situated in the Irish port of Greenore. Only 21 days later, the station claimed a steady one million listeners, fed on an almost constant diet of pop music. The House of Commons felt obliged to briefly discuss ‘piracy on the high seas’, for the first time. Radio Caroline was followed nine months later by more pop stations, including, amongst many others, Radio Atlanta, Radio 270, Caroline North, Radio Scotland, and 370. Some of the stations lasted until 1968, others were short-lived. New stations appeared and disappeared.
The 60s pirates walk the plank
1964 - The Labour party gained a slender majority in Parliament, after years of Tory government. With enormous national support for pirate radio, Radio Caroline had drawn in seven million listeners within only a few months of coming on the air. The newly-elected government did not feel ready to put its policy of tight control over broadcasting into practice. MP Hugh Jenkins declared, ‘The BBC has quite clearly failed to cater for this section of the public. If the BBC had met needs, the pirates would never have arisen’.
1966 - An incident ocurred which gave an impetus to organize direct action against the pirates. A man was shot and killed during an argument over the ownership of a pirate station located in the Thames Estuary, on MarMartello tello Tower. There were big headlines, and within a short time, the Marine Offences Bill had been devised and was shuffling its way through Parliament. During the debate, one Member of the House argued that allowing the public to listen to pirate radio did not represent democracy but was ‘pandering to populism’. Needless to say, when Radio One arrived, the BBC ‘pandered to populism’ in much the same way.
Towers
1967 - The Marine Offences Act laid down tight control. The sea pirates were, to all intents and purposes, finished. Despite requests, the French did not allow the British pirate ‘Radio London’ to transfer to their country and broadcast from Paris. The station issued a press statement which said: ‘It is unfortunate that this government’s atitude towards independent radio has consistently been one of suppression, as part of a determined plan to continue the government’s monopoly in radio broadcasting. At this point, in a supposedly coincidental fashion, the BBC restructured its services, and in September, Radio One was born. Back in March, the Postmaster General of the time had promised that audiences would receive greater choice, and that a new popular music programme would be created Tony Blackburn by the end of the year. The first voice to be heard on Radio One was that of Tony Blackburn, coincidentally enough an ex-Radio Luxembourg and pirate DJ. This was also an important year for official radio in that it saw the opening of the first of the BBC’s radio stations, Radio Leicester (there are now 35 such stations), as well as the authorization of student radio operating within the campus of universities.
Public Notice Hi-Fi News September 1967
1968-1970 The heyday of sea-based piracy was
over. Stations disappeared, were raided, and only sporadically re-appeared. In August, exactly a year after the Marine Offences Act became law, an all-night vigil was held outside the GPO offices in London. Radio London Three, a pirate station, marked the occasion by transmitting for an hour from an aerial actually placed on the BBC offices in Shepherd’s Bush, London. But, the pirates lot grew steadily worse with the passing of other Marine Offences Acts across Europe. New station, did however, appear, including Radio Jackie in March 1969, which went on to broadcast 24 hours a day in 1970. A station began to operate from a boat on Ullswater Lake District and Radio North Sea International came on the air. And at this time, a survivor of the earlier pirate days, Radio Geronimo, claimed audiences of two million plus. Whilst (pirate) Capital Radio folded at the end of 1970 when its boat salvage costs proved too much to bear, Radio Veronica survived until September 1972, raising a million guilder, at one point, for the Dutch Kidney Foundation. Meanwhile, transmitter-jamming techniques were put into operation by the Post Office, numerous arrests and prosecutions were made, and broadcasters fined. During the conviction of three Radio Jackie members in 1970, the chairman of Sutton Magistrates Court declared: ‘Your transmission could have interfered with emergency services and spoilt the peace and enjoyment of thousands of people. If people were permitted to transmit indiscriminately we should reach a state of bedlam.’
The birth of Independent Local Radio
1973 - It was the commercial ethic that persuaded the Conservative government of the time to press for Independent Local Hadio (ILR). With the passing of the Sound Broadcasting Bill the first ILR stations to appear were LBC (London Broadcasting Company) and Capital Radio. To maintain control, the government transformed the ITA into the IBA, hence creating a body to regulate and monitor all independent broadcasting in Britain. ILR blossomed and grew to its present level of 46 stations. However, during the 1980s, ILR was to come under pressure from competitors in piracy as well as from the other media. Not so successful in the 1970s were local radio cable stations legalized from 1976 onwards, who suffered from lack of advertising revenue. However, three notable cable stations still exist today – Greenwich Sound, Radio Basildon, and Radio Thamesmead.
One of banned songs played by pirates
- On 1 April, bandit pirates hijacked the BBC’s 1976 transmitter on the Isle of Wight, using their own portable transmitter, and broadcast music over Radio One’s frequency across the south of England. This half-hour of direct piracy included the playing of several records banned by the BBC, including Paul McCartney’s ‘Give Ireland back to the Irish’. One or two similar hijackings occurred later, but no-one was arrested.
1977 - The Annan report on broadcasting recommended that the BBC and IBA should release their control over local radio, in favour of a new authority. The recommendations were not taken up by the government.
tune the dial
1981 – Citizens band radio was legalized on part
of the FM frequency with much publicity, raising a lot of false hopes that restrictions would be further relaxed. 1983-1984
Re-emergance of large-scale sea piracy came into play. Both ‘Radio Laser’ and ‘Radio Caroline’ transmitting from the north sea. 1984–The telecommunications act was passed which
tightened up various loop holes which in turn pretty much stopped in land radio piracy. 1980-1984
Numerous high profile jungle and drum & bass artists, DJs and producers began their careers playing reggae or hip hop on stations like DBC (Dread Broadcasting Corporation), LWR, WIBS, Galaxy and Station in London.
Before cd era
1985-Kiss FM launched to play house,
soul and hip hop across London. went down in pirate history for pulling 1/2 million listeners. Music honchos Steve Jackson, Norman Jay, Mannasseh, Trevor Nelson, Danny Rampling and Judge Jules began their careers on Kis Kiss FM sticker
1986-1987
South London stations Phase 1 and Quest had friendly competition. It was on this station DJs found a love for hardcore, gradually phasing out their rare groove, hip hop and reggae sets for rave music. 1988 - The invention of the microlink, a device that relays a stations signal to a distant transmitter made it harder for the DTI to locate and raid studios. This led to an explosion of new pirate activity up and down the country. 1990 - Fantasy FM shut down to start broadcasting
on cable, which unfortunately never happened. Kiss FM were granted a license and resumed broadcasting. Many of the DJs that had made the station famous moved on or were fired and the station took an increasingly commercial angle. 1991
- In September 1991 Weekend Rush launched from the Nightingale Estate and so began a new era in dance music known as jungle. Hardcore station Pulse followed suit with a big weekend show coming from Hype. Three weeks later Kool FM was set up by Eastman.
1992 - Rude Fm launches in North London.A 16 year old Andy C starts a weekly show on his local pirate station Syndicate FM. 1994- This was the height of jungle,
the year when it was the official music of the streets. Kool FM held their legendary fourth birthday party at London’s Astoria Navigator. Andy C
1995 - Jungle was still there but you had intel-
ligent, darkstep, techstep. drum & bass got a new audience and kids from Hackney and Brixton started listening to garage.”Radio 1 launched ‘1 In The Jungle’ with a rotation of DJ’s and MCs whilst a string of new Jungle and drum & bass pirates such as Concept, Conflict and Future emerged with Rude FM.
Rude FM logo
Garage 1996-1998 became the official sound of British streets with only die-hard listeners continuing to support the jungle and emerging drum & bass sounds. Garage compilation cd cover
1999 - The first new station solely dedicated to
playing drum & bass and old school twenty-four hours a day seven days a week hit the airwaves as Origin FM on December 31st 1999. Based in North London the station has gained massive respect amongst the scenes now veteran producers and DJs who see the same passion in the station’s team as they had in the early days.
Origin FM promotional poster
2000-2002 Drum n Bass hits the web and Internet
radio stations become the new pirates. www.Pyrotechnicradio.com blows up with hundreds of stations setting up across the globe. 2003-2004
Internet radio continues to expand and as broadband spreads into people’s homes Internet radio looks set to become the future of drum & bass broadcasting. 2011 - DJ van der Knutsen joined Pawarota Radio
established in the same year by Luciano Pawarota and started broadcasting from his flat in London.
Internet radio era began
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