Great job and I most certainly learned something! As an ex-presenter here in the US, I hope Soul Nation makes a comeback. From the sounds of it, they were what radio is supposed to be.
We closed our Manchester drum & bass station Ambient Fm 106.4 running from 1993 - 1996 after being offered a slot on Kiss Fm Manchester & Leeds network. great times.
i hate how its not WHAT you are playing, or how you conduct yourself, but its the feelings of the "big boys" on the radio who are scared of losing listeners and are terrified of competition, sad really
A great peace of Manchester radio history Lewis......it just goes to show...what the public want the public doesn't always get.......in essex in the late eighties and early 90s inner city radio "icr" in Chelmsford held a similar status for a while and the complaint to ofcom/ris/dti came from the chief engin eer of essex radio complaining about the inner city's monster signal ....the icr engineer was kieth jermey g7wcm ..pirate legend in essex and London in his own lifetime sadly now a silent key....he had pirated top band since 1970 and been involved in all aspects of pirate radio since the early 70s chased and caught by the dti to many times to remember....he built my 1st rig in 1989 for infinity fm....he loved hanging out on top band and 2 meters... loathed by many but loved by us pirates and real hams ......when some youths Stole his 2 meter set on pretense asking for a light after knocking on his door one afternoon we purchased him a new straight away from ebay because 2 meters was just not the same without him .....his early exploits not long after deciding finally to go legal and getting a licence in the mid 90s were the ones that led to a ban on air for a while in 2000 for falling foul of the repeater group locally...that story can be found on the lpws website Kieth we won't forget you m8 x Goigle kieth Stafford inner city radio and you can hear some of the shows he done back in the day x
Wow a real blast from the past i loved soul nation the music they played wasn't covered by ILR which is what i for one was looking for from a radio station it would be great if they could comeback as ILR is just dire !
2nd time in a week I have heard a 5/8th for small FM stations. My vertical dipole was rubbish. Was made out of 75Ohm CT100 for sky TV dishes though. I'm looking at my transmitter now. dug it out a few weeks ago because of your vidjaos. It needs a bit of healing though. Mission for the weekend.
You could make a slim Jim antenna, that is if you have an antenna analyser to get it on frequency for low VSWR and use some good high quality coax to stop the TX losses, at minimum I'd use RG214 or belden 9913. The antenna can be made very easily and can be fit into waste water pipe like that's used on a sink, you can make it with 20mm conduit but the length makes it a bit too flexible for my liking at that frequency for a stable TX antenna. If you need any help just ask, it's very simple
Unfortunately radio licenses aren't awarded on popularity alone I can tell you this from experience. Community Radio is not for profit and has to be match funded. This means every pound of advertising has to be offset against other forms of financial gain such as grants etc. This is why so many have sadly disappeared. I can tell you now that there are some slick sounding community radio stations Amber Sound FM, H FM, Radio Newark. By the way a certain station in Lincolnshire complained several times to Ofcom about us during our first six months on air. Rajar is a complete waste of time and money. When did someone last walk up to you and ask what station you listen to. Why didn't they apply for a small scale ILR sally license. Mansfield 103.2 has one of these they were up for grabs at the time.
Fantastic, well researched and well presented. If you could do one on Globe FM in Nottingham, that would be amazing. It is quite a similar story of a well run, professional 'pirate' that was a massive thorn in the local legal stations side and had a huge amount of listeners. The owners went on to run some of the biggest commercial stations in Midlands and the North
Godfrey is a great guy, he used to have the show after myself on TCRFM and I used to see him at Winton Festival a decade or so ago as he used to teach street dance and bring his group up to perform there.
@@djpauldeandjpauldean9571 Almost seems like deja vu here but I was wirh Godfrey just a few weeks back again haha. We were both down at a Hip Hop event held by Greens who used to run 106fm and is now part of Unity. He had an event on in Salford and me and Tiny and a few others reached down to support it. Top guy R Tiny and still dancing too 😁👊
How come Caroline got two of those small community license and not soul nation. Over in Orfordness BBC radio 1 formerly, and their latest license formerly BBC Radio 1 Lancastshire?
Nice video Lewis but some of your last points are incorrect. There are very many places around the country where community stations out perform commercial stations in reach. Research by Ofcom showed across the county Community radio accounts for 10% of listeners. This figure is used by DCMS Audio Content Funds when assessing the reach of funded programmes. Sadly there are still countless occurrences of commercial stations making life difficult for community operators, including with advertisers and complaints to Ofcom.
We'd used 104.6 for a while in about 1992 testing. We ended up conceding it and moving further and further up the band over the next couple of years till cometh the end in November 95. That frequency was reallocated for a BBC Manchester relay, and I was convinced at the time that this was purely to occupy it from further pirate use. I'm sure Soul nation were using band 1 links for Whalley Range at the start rather than exotic microwave stuff. Memory fades. Long time ago......
Sorry, but from day one Soul Nation used Spread Spectrum Switchable Frequency Links. We never used any other type ever, as we didn't own any. The equipment we used was far too valuable to risk by using a bog standard link system, hence only ever suffering one studio raid through our time on air.
I'm trying to remember which one it was. Studio in Whalley Range, sending two programs out at once, fairly low level block in Hulme / Moss Side with the transmitters on, two VERY obvious band one dipoles at jaunty angles bringing the links in. Circa 93 ish?
They made kiss FM London apply twice for their licence and Rinsed them of £50k . while jazz Fm London got it easy sadly Kiss Fm got brought out years ago. Radio Authority Only want same old same old clone Stations. we where on air for six years in London 500w Tx PLL no vfo rubbish. lots of lost rigs no studio raids thankfully Mr paranoid me made sure of that Good Video Lewis.
Again, in the radio industry it seems it's who you know & how deep your pockets are that count. Jazz FM had nowhere near the listeners Kiss did, so it beggars belief the constant pressure they were under, whilst the upper middle class Jazz FM seemed like a wealthy old boy's network plaything. Jazz is another dreary station that I couldn't bear to listen to... 🙄
@@JustAnthonyX Very many of the 60,s pirate radio DJ,s on ships etc were middle class. It is ok when they do it sort of. But if your joe public mr average Tower block your Public Enemy number one. It is a big club and we are not in it 🧐
One of the most striking statistics in this presentation is that GMR (BBC Radio) only had 3% of listeners. In 2021, they still only have a 3.7 market share and appeal to 11% of Northwest listeners. As for BBC Radio Manchester, it only serves to propagandize Mayor Burnham's loony ideas, such as CAS, via 'useful idiot' presenters such as Mike (I was working class, but now live in Diggle) Sweeny. Scrap the license fee now!
Such a shame that IP radio and cable internet hadn't quite developed by then in the UK. These days, its not difficult to hook up your mobile to the stereo and tune into an IP address and listen live. Especially with today's unlimited data plans.
Any idea what the name of the track is at the start and end of the video? I recall listening to pirate stations coming out of Newcastle sometime in the 90s, what originally got me hooked on electronic music. Love the videos, keep it up.
Soulnation was defo on another scale to the other unlicensed stations and some licensed ones too, I think it achieved what Mike Shaft would have liked Sunset 102fm to have done. I remember a TV program where Tony had a go at Mike over Sunset and it not giving enough airtime to Black Music DJ's from Manchester.
100% agree with that Paul. Mike hated pirate radio with a passion so I'm sure he was proper vex when SN came along not long after Sunset collapsed. And alot of the Sunset DJs subsequently joined SN too. I also remember Mike Shaft being interviewed on Granada TV by the late Tony Morris where he ripped into all pirate stations in Manchester at the time. Looked to all the world a very bitter man.
@@snowmanbuzzfm It may have been that where Tony ripped into him as think it was a late evening Manchester debate show. Wish I had recorded some of these programs now like the one they did on Soulnation where they were all sat around a table and Tony was not happy about something someone had done.
@ 8:42 is that "Gordon West" the amateur radio personality from California ? About this, it seems like this station should have been granted a license...
@@JustAnthonyX I didn't think it was the Gordon West from California... but one never knows. The U.S. Gordon West also broadcasts from home. Radio is radio...
@@baronedipiemonte3990 It's the same guy, but he lives & broadcasts from his dining room in Stretford Manchester, but keeps telling people he's some international superstar DJ transmitting from California! 😳
Hi, I know nothing about this subject but I find it fascinating! How did they gain income if they were illegal? And if they used a PO Box how come they were never found, caught etc? Genuine questions 👍🏼 Ian
Hi Soul Nation's revenue was derived mostly from advertising & to a far lesser extent large scale events. We had corporate and statutory body advertisers like Top Shop, Norton Barrie, Sony, Warner Bros, Odeon Cinemas, Greater Manchester Fire Aervice, Greater Manchester Police, Manchester City Council & many many others. Some contacted us over the phone, but the big concerns did so through media intermediaries who handled their Marketing accounts & it was made clear the radio aspect of their campaigns were to go to Soul Nation FM. This way, their hands were clean & they were safe from prosecution. We had Royal Mail on lockdown, as they collected our PO Box mail & delivered it to our studios. We credited Postman Phil as being a part of our team & they loved it & were proud of their involvement. When the Radio Investigation Unit contacted them, they essentially told them to sod off. Soul Nation 104.6FM belonged to the people of the Northwest, as without them there would've been no us. 🙏🏾
@@JustAnthonyX Wow an explanation from someone who was there! Thank you for taking the time to answer! So essentially it was unlikely that a Companies advertising with you were unlike to be prosecuted? I love the Post Office bit! 😂 I grew up in Northern Ireland and because of the civil conflict bat the time it was a serious offence to have unlicensed broadcasting equipment, scanners and receivers as they could be of benefit to any of the bad guys bombing the place! I feel I missed out on the Pirate Radios and stations such as yours. We probably, on a good day, picked you up in Manchester, but I had left the UK at that point. Thank you again Sir/Madam! Ian
@@bugler75 I've been to Belfast just after the GFA was signed. A beautiful city, in a crazy situation. Yes, the big companies kept one step away by using Marketing companies. This way they could legitimately claim they handed a budget to their media partners to spend as they saw fit to reach their target audiences. The Marketing companies claimed they thought we were legal. They'd run the adverts until they were threatened with prosecution, but by this time the adverts had been running for months anyway, & many had run & expired before the Radio Investigation Service had got round to the companies mentioned in the adverts. We used the revenue to become the first digital radio station in the UK. By 1995, we'd stopped using Digicarts, CD's & Cassettes to run jingles, adverts & most daytime music, & started using a new audio format called MP3 on desktop computers instead. 😎🙏🏾
@@JustAnthonyX That’s a great claim to fame , going digital and using that magic called MP3! Belfast was a crazy place to grow up in but we kids didn’t know any different. It was bizarre for us to come over to England and see no Army patrols or police with no guns. Now it’s a fantastic place to come to. The local music scene is as innovative as ever, in all genres. Please come back sometime and see for yourself ! Thanks for all your explanations, it’s clear to me know and has answered a question I’ve been thinking about for a little while now since discovering this channel. Genuine thanks again ! Ian
@@bugler75 No worries mate. Glad to answer any questions you had, & yes, I'll return to North Ireland one day. The people were brilliant with us on both sides, which made the troubles even harder to understand. I was snapping pictures of those grey armoured army Land Rovers we see in Mainland UK. We'd only ever seen them on the TV & it was crazy seeing them & the painted curb stones & murals for real. Hopefully things are a lot more settled now & I pray that peace holds, albeit Brexit seems to be threatening it. 🙏🏾
Sunset wasn't aimed at our people & was viewed by Soul lovers as a major disappointment. When they got their licence in 1989, all the pirates bar the Reggae stations came off air. However, after hearing what they were playing, it heralded an explosion in Urban Music pirate radio stations again, as the music Sunset played engaged with few from the Northwest's inner cities. This is why Sunset struggled to make a financial success of their venture & they basically went bankrupt as they couldn't pay staff, licence fees, rent, utility bills & transmitter fees. NTL cut them off for non payment in 1994, so Sunset approached us for a transmitter, because if an ILR station goes off for more than 24 hours & it's not down to an act of god, or a power cut etc, they automatically forfeit their licence. Myself & Tiny G got them back on air with 10 minutes to spare! After getting them back on, a deal was struck with the owner Hassan that Soul Nation would take over their station, but unfortunately Norweb cut their electricity off a few weeks later for non payment of electricity bills & they passed the 24 hour off air agreement so their licence was revoked anyway. Mike Shaft blamed Soul Nation for Sunset's demise, but in truth most people found Sunset sedate & boring, whereby they loved Soul Nation's blend of Street Soul, R&B, Rap, Jungle & House music. It wasn't our intention to affect Sunset, but whoever they were targeting their music output at, it wasn't us, so unable to gain sufficient listeners & advertising revenue, they struggled to remain solvent & eventually folded.
@@JustAnthonyX I remember that situation about Sunset here in London, that they had debts of £25,000 and many DJs such as Pete Haigh were calling for Richard Searling to save the station but a friend of mine who worked in the Accounts Department at Chiltern Radio said that he would need more than between £1-£2 Million to settle the debts. However Searling didn't want to know!
@@JustAnthonyX that’s good to know as we move into the digital dab era as that’s where I’m heading after 21 years should be fun application is done Ultimate beats radio Ltd
So a harmless and indeed, laudable example of black entrepreneurialism was crushed by the civil service blob at the behest of corporate market incumbents, and under a Tory govt that should be encouraging exactly this kind of thing. But then as now, the civil service runs the government and not the other way round. I doubt Michael Heseltine, the Sec of State at the time, even got to hear about this.
