That story about the cops stumbling onto it, asking for a shoutout, and then leaving it alone is pretty cool. I wish we had a pirate radio scene like that where I grew up, sounds like a blast.
those were good times, the 80s and 90s. I also had a transmitter and we ran every day with about 300 watts, which was quite a lot for that time. now they have a few kilos of watts. we are in the Netherlands I am still dx'ing at night every now and then because in the Netherlands if a radio control service comes along then you have a ticket of a few thousand euros. it's in your blood once and it always tickles. Nice video ✌🤪👍
Great work dude, absolutely spot on. Got me thinking, nowadays we could fly a transmitter on a drone, land on the biggest block of flats, then fly it back again. Maybe not 200 watts though. 😄
There was a pirate station near me in the West Midlands i cant remember the name of it but my brother would always be playing it, this was probably around 2005/6. The locked in locked on thing instantly reminded me of that haha Its a shame that these things were always taken down, by the sounds of it they earned their place in the culture and on the airwaves, couldnt they just let them carry on??
I really like your videos, both antenna stuff and those about pirate radio stations. Keeper up You good work! Since I'm from Norway I never got to listen to British fm but these histories are really interesting. In the late 80's and 90's I used to listen to a lot of jungle/drumandbass radio that was transmitted via satellite radio, mostly on tha Astra network. I guess these also was linked to some pirate stations as well? Would be really great if You know anything about this and have any information about the pirate satellite radio stations that transmitted in the 90's.
Soulnation 104.6 was Manchester's biggest pirate (Although Tony did not like anyone calling it that and much preferred the term Unlicensed) because they pushed out the strongest signal, broadcast 24/7 and ran a more professional outfit with top equipment and presented in a more commercial station way during the day with playlists etc and then more edge to it in the evenings. Sadly they just got too big with complaints to the DTI from Manchester top commercial stations and on their 2nd Birthday gig at a nightclub in Sale, the DTI took their opportunity to do their raid and take Soulnation down.
Why didn't they use a mustard tin Microwave Transmitter which would only cost 1£ or less that could be picked up by a matching Microwave receiver that would drive a high power transmitter.
The excuse was "The frequncies they use are close to emergency frequencies". So why didn't they go digital for emergency services, and allow pirates to use analogue services for easy accessibilty, and song promotions?
@@RingwayManchester Too bad. Sounds great, I would like to hear it in full. Sounds kind of familiar. Technicolour/Komatic/LSB/Random Movement/Seba like... Shazam does not know it, but that happens sometimes. Anyway thank you for the documentary. I never heard a pirate radio in CZ but according to "pira cz" web, there were some, some transmitting for 7+ years.
