Thank you to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for this week's nostalgic feature from Wavescan.
Jeff: This week, by way of something different, we’re delving into our archives and bringing you a 52-year old recording of a predecessor to this program, a segment of an AWR World DX News edition from September 1973. Here’s Ray Robinson in Los Angeles to explain more.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Yes, in 1973, AWR World DX News was a program that went out on Sunday mornings via a 250 kW transmitter of Radio Trans Europe in Sines, Portugal. The actual time of the program was 0900 UTC, on 9670 kHz. The program was introduced by Allen Steele, and the DX news was presented by his finacée, Andrea Paige, who later became his wife.
When AWR Europe first started, Allen and Andrea were based close to the transmitter site in Portugal. But as the number of languages increased, it became more convenient and practical for them to move the production facilities and offices to a new location in Paris, France. And in this recording, Allen gives the address as P.O. Box 5409, Paris 9, France. That address has, of course, long since been retired, so don’t go sending anything there.
As you’ll hear, much of the program content was provided by the Medium Wave Circle – the British equivalent of the American National Radio Club, so it’s not surprising they discussed medium wave developments as well as those on shortwave. Sadly, only the first five minutes of the recording have survived, so I’m going to play that, and then I’ll explain a little more about it afterwards. So again, from a Sunday morning in September 1973, here’s AWR’s World DX News.
You may listen to the original audio on this week's podcast at: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/wavescan
AWR World DX News 1973 Radio Seagull https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnZiNs2iFao
WR World DX News 1974 - ILR & Offshore Radio
And that was the beginning of an AWR World DX News edition from September 1973. As you heard, the stations they featured were Radio Atlantis and Radio Seagull, both of which broadcast from the Caroline vessel, the MV Mi Amigo. At that time, the ship was anchored off the coast of The Netherlands. It was still a full year before the Dutch legislation against offshore stations became law, so it was being legally supplied from ports on the Dutch coast.
Radio Atlantis during the daytime broadcast pre-recorded pop music programs in Flemish for listeners in Belgium, and then overnight Radio Seagull took over with progressive rock music and presentation in English. The transmitter on 1187 kHz, which was announced as 259 metres, was a Continental 50 kW unit that had first been installed on the ship in February 1966, and it had very wide coverage of northern Europe at night.
The presenter’s voice you heard was Tony Allan, closing out the Radio Atlantis programming for the day over their theme tune, Atlantis by The Shadows, and then also opening Radio Seagull two hours later, apparently on a Friday evening. Radio Seagull was relatively short-lived – from July 1973 to February 1974 – but it wasn’t a commercial success, and when the money from the original backers dried up, the owners of the MV Mi Amigo simply reverted to the familiar name Radio Caroline instead.
Oh, and as for the concerns about the weight of the new antenna mast on the MV Mi Amigo, well it stayed up just fine, radiating the programming from the ship for the next seven years.
When the vessel finally sank in shallow waters during a storm in March 1980, the top half of the mast remained proudly poking out of the sea, pointing to the sky.
It was interesting to hear that this program went out the month before the launch of the very first legal, landbased independent commercial radio stations in the UK – the LBC news station in London modelled after WINS, New York, followed a short time later by the pop music station Capital Radio and other stations around the country, all of which simulcast on AM and FM.
Anyway, that was an interesting glimpse into the early days of AWR programming for DXers, and if you happen to have any old recordings like that, we’d love to hear them. Just send them through any file-sharing platform using the email address wavescan@yahoo.com.
Back to you, Jeff.
