Special thanks to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for sharing this story from a recent episode of Wavescan
Jeff: Many people worldwide are familiar with the name ‘Radio Caroline’ – the offshore ship-based station which first broke the monopoly of BBC radio in the UK in the 1960’s. They may be less familiar with the fact that the station has continued to operate down through the decades, and is not only still a presence on the airwaves in Great Britain to this day, but is actually thriving with now two full-time channels on a variety of platforms. Ray Robinson in Los Angeles has been a presenter on one of those channels for over four years now, so here he is with an updated profile of the station.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Yes, the potted history of Radio Caroline goes something like this.
The station was founded by an Irishman, Ronan O’Rahilly who, as a record promoter and pop group manager, had been frustrated that neither the BBC nor Radio Luxembourg would play his records. His solution was to start his own station, and Radio Caroline first began test transmissions on Good Friday, March 27th, 1964. Regular programming started the following day at 12 noon.
The station used as its broadcasting base a converted 763 ton Danish passenger ferry, the MV Fredericia, which the station renamed the M.V. Caroline. Initially the ship was anchored in the North Sea about 5 miles off the coast of Felixstowe, Essex on the southeast coast of England. She was well outside the then three mile territorial limit, so although the station was unlicensed, it wasn’t breaking any British laws, and quickly built a huge audience.
Some six weeks later in May 1964, Caroline was joined by a competitor station, Radio Atlanta, broadcasting from the MV Mi Amigo a few miles further down the coast.
The MV Caroline had two 10 kW transmitters putting out a combined power of 20 kW on 1520 kHz, while the MV Mi Amigo had a single 10 kW transmitter on 1495 kHz. Both could comfortably reach the eastern side of London with their signals.
But instead of duplicating each other’s footprint, the following month the two commercial stations decided to merge, and on 4th of July 1964, the original Caroline ship set off on a voyage around the south coast of England and then north through the Irish Sea to a new anchorage off Ramsay Bay in the Isle of Man, from where she broadcast as Radio Caroline North. This gave the station coverage of north Wales, northwest England, southern Scotland, and large parts of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The Radio Atlanta ship stayed put, but changed her branding to Radio Caroline South, with coverage of large parts of East Anglia, London and the Home Counties. The two stations remained on the same frequencies, although both now announced the rhyming ID as ‘Caroline on 199’ – even though in reality the north ship was on 197 meters and the south ship was on 201.
Both stations were managed out of the same office in London, and shared the same jingle package and had some pre-recorded programming in common. Most programming though was presented live from the ships, and DJ’s did transfer from one ship to the other from time to time as needed. In 1965, the stations adopted the American ‘Good Guys’ format, and they became very successful commercially.
In one hair raising incident, the south ship dragged her anchor during a storm in January 1966, and floundered on the beach at Frinton, Essex. All the DJ’s and crew were safely rescued, but the ship had to be taken to Zaandam, the port of Amsterdam, for a refit, including the installation of an additional 50 kW transmitter, and an increase in height of the antenna mast. When she returned to resume broadcasting a couple of months later, the frequency used was now 1187 kHz, 253 meters, which again was announced in rhyming style as ‘Caroline on 259’.
Over a dozen more stations were launched around the British coasts over the period from 1964-1967, until eventually the British government passed the Marine Offences (Broadcasting) Act, which made it illegal for British citizens or companies to advertise on offshore stations, or to support them in any way. The act went into effect at midnight on August 14th 1967 for the UK, and on August 31st 1967 for the Isle of Man, which is not part of the United Kingdom. All the other stations closed down on or before the act became law, but Ronan O’Rahilly decided that Radio Caroline would continue.
The station’s offices were moved to Amsterdam, and arrangements were made for the tendering of the south ship from The Netherlands, and of the north ship from Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland.
Most British DJ’s left the stations, but a few stayed along with one on the north ship who was a Canadian citizen. New DJ’s who were prepared to flout the law were quickly recruited, however, and by the end of 1967, the south ship, now identifying as Radio Caroline International, had arguably one of the strongest DJ lineups of any of the offshore stations. Advertising from international companies was difficult to come by, though, and most income was then derived from payments from record promoters for plugged records. In March of the following year, 1968, the Wijsmuller tug company which had been providing tendering services to both vessels hijacked the two ships by cutting their anchor chains and towing them back to Amsterdam, as security for unpaid bills.
There the ships languished for four years until 1972, when they were put up for auction. The north ship ended up being scrapped, but the south ship, the MV Mi Amigo, was bought by a supporter of the station, and after negotiations with Ronan O’Rahilly, it was taken back out to sea off the Dutch coast, and relaunched as Radio Caroline, initially with test transmissions from September 1972, and with regular programming back on the familiar wavelength of 259 meters from December 23rd. Here’s DJ Crispian St. John on Christmas morning, 1972:
Various pop and rock programming styles were experimented with over the next couple of years, and the station finally changed from Top 40 to an album format, which it has largely stuck to right up to the present. In August 1974, the Dutch government introduced its own Marine Offences Act, at which point the MV Mi Amigo was moved back across the North Sea to an anchorage 12 miles offshore in the Thames Estuary in a somewhat sheltered channel between two enormous sandbanks. The base of operations was then officially moved to Spain, although in practice Ronan largely ran the station on a clandestine basis from offices he leased quietly in London.
Radio Caroline then continued to broadcast successfully throughout the 70’s, often using both the 50 kW and 10 kW transmitters on the Mi Amigo to carry different programming on separate frequencies. Most of the funding for the station during this period came from a daytime Dutch language service which used a loophole in the Dutch anti-piracy laws by reading advertising placed in a print magazine. Interference problems in 1977 forced another change of the main frequency, from 1187 first to 953 kHz, and then to 962 kHz, announced as 319 meters.
In March 1980, however, the elements finally achieved what two governments had been unable to, and put the station off the air once again. The Mi Amigo lost her anchor in a storm, drifted onto one of the sandbanks, and sank in the Thames Estuary with her antenna mast proudly poking out of the sea, still pointing skyward. Again, all the DJ’s and crew were safely rescued, this time taken off the ship during the storm by a lifeboat that had been standing by. During 1981 and 1982, some short term illegal land-based transmissions were made by shortwave and medium wave, while options were evaluated for getting back on the air permanently.
Financial backing was eventually secured for the purchase and outfitting of a new ship, the former Icelandic trawler the MV Ross Revenge, and this was able to return Caroline to the air with a new 50 kW RCA transmitter in August 1983. The Ross Revenge sported an amazing 300’ antenna mast – the tallest that was ever erected on any of the offshore stations. The last voice heard from the Mi Amigo on the night it sank was that of DJ Tom Anderson. So to demonstrate the continuity of the station here he is again, now with the relaunch at 12 noon on Saturday August 20th, 1983 from the Ross Revenge.
In October 1987, a rare hurricane hit the southeast of England putting many radio and TV stations off the air. But amazingly, Radio Caroline was one of the few that was able to continue uninterrupted transmissions.
The hurricane had caused damage to the ship, even though it wasn’t realized at the time. It had weakened the guy wiring system holding the antenna mast in place, and had caused some of the wires to become perilously slack. The result was that in a relatively minor storm the following month, November 1987, the antenna mast came crashing down over the side of the ship. Over the following months, a new antenna system was constructed at sea using shorter masts, and the station carried on. Even a raid by the Dutch authorities in August 1989 when much of the studio and broadcast equipment on board was destroyed, only put the station off the air for a couple of months – Caroline was back by the October, albeit on low power.
By 1990, a dedicated team of DJ’s was still keeping the station running, and from a listener’s standpoint, there was little evidence that anything was seriously wrong. However, supplies on board were running extremely low, of diesel fuel, food and water, and eventually the station had to close in the November of that year. The MV Ross Revenge remained at sea with a caretaker crew for another year, until she lost her anchor in a storm and grounded on the Goodwin Sands in November 1991. She became one of the very few ships to survive that experience, and was eventually salvaged and towed into Dover harbor.
Throughout the 1990’s, Radio Caroline ran a series of some 13 low power one-month special-event broadcasts, under what the British Office of Communications, or OFCOM, licensing authority calls Restricted Service Licenses. All of these were broadcast from the studios onboard the ship, which was towed to various quayside locations around the Thames Estuary region. Most were on FM, although a couple used AM, including the last in 2004.
In addition to this, the station leased time on several satellite services during the 90’s, and started its own satellite channel in 1998. A full time Internet webstream was begun in June 2000, and the station hasn’t looked back since. For some years it was carried on the WorldSpace satellite service, which gave it coverage of most of Europe, Africa and Asia. But eventually, the satellite services were dropped, in favor of expanded use of DAB in the UK, and in 2016, a secondary channel was launched called Caroline Flashback, which has an oldies format with music from the late 50’s to the early 80’s.
In December 2017, the station was given the opportunity to use an antenna at the former BBC World Service facility at Orfordness on the Suffolk coast, but using their own transmitter on the former BBC frequency of 648 kHz. This is licensed by OFCOM as a community station, but a power increase from 1 to 4 kW was subsequently approved, and the station is once again heard on AM on both sides of the North Sea. In the early 2020’s, a solar panel array was installed, such that during the daytime, the transmitter is entirely solar powered, and excess power generated is sent into the grid. Caroline is believed to be the only solar-powered AM radio station in the UK. The major need now is for the MV Ross Revenge to be dry docked, so that a number of issues can be dealt with, and over $200,000 has so far been raised from supporters for that purpose.
Radio Caroline has a very dedicated listener base, with several regional support groups, one of which is being held in the Southampton area this coming Wednesday evening, September 11th. I and a number of other Caroline presenters are planning to be there, and I’ll be running an offshore radio themed pub-style quiz. If you’re in southern England, I’d love to see you there, and if you want more information please email me – at either wavescan@yahoo.com, or rayrobinson@carolineflashback.co.uk. Back to you, Jeff.
(Ray Robinson/AWR Wavescan)
For videos on Radio Caroline, go to YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=radio+caroline