Monday, 9 April 2007

Dave Martin <...> said:

Hi Richard, The battery has been changed, so signal should be back to
normal.
Yes you are getting closer but still a fair few miles to go!

Hi Dave thanks for the reply, Yes the signal is much improved although i enjoyed all the programmes in my view the best one was Andy Walkers Land Based Pirates Theme Tunes,

There was one i didn't know about or had forgotten, That was Radio Amy and a certain Mr England, As Andy said, Whatever happened to him? LOL!!

I think the best theme tune has the one from Radio Telstar South, I know Dawn used to post on here using her real name and i was wondering where she is now?

Regards Richard

Yes it was two years ago today, in AquaCity Poprad (Slovakia), that the international service of RTI was launched – 8.00pm CET.
As an e-card from a die-hard radio person said "Another year a lot of people didn't want RTI to have, funny how people don't like new things to work. Now have proved them wrong you'll just have to keep them coming. Many Congratulations."
That's nice adn very accurate.

Eric

mail2web – Check your email from the web at http://link.mail2web.com/mail2web

Quoting a previous Dave Martin contribution:-

Yes I've signed up but at the moment I'm talking to myself, all the
people I've invited have ignored my invite! It's either my personality
or my cologne, I don't know which to blame. Still looks promising!

Aha. I've found that Eric geezer and that Mr Sharpe, and I've just found you, innit. Anybody else twittering?

I've setup a http://twitter.com/anoraknation but annoyingly can't have more than one account attached to me mobile, or work out how to swap a mobile between accounts. Damn these things that operate completely free and cost nothing! :-)

Anyway, have a look-see at some of the 'friends' that anoraknation has and they might provide you with food for thought if you want free live news from the BBC straight to your mobile, kinda.
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* Christopher England just said that *

Quoting a previous Christopher England contribution:-

Anyway, have a look-see at some of the 'friends' that anoraknation has
and they might provide you with food for thought if you want free live
news from the BBC straight to your mobile, kinda.

By the way, the 'live' news is organised via http://twitterfeed.com/ scanning RSS feeds and then automatically posting them to twitter – that might be of interest to Mr RTI, if you have RSS feeds from your blogs, etc.

Naturally of course, this twitter stuff will all eventually fall over because of all this abuse!
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* Christopher England just said that *

Quoting a previous Richard Sharpe contribution:-

There was one i didn't know about or had forgotten, That was Radio Amy
and a certain Mr England, As Andy said, Whatever happened to him? LOL!!

Recordings of Radio AMY too? Or did I just get a lovingly crafted mention?

Although the name was crap, Radio AMY was the first ever real community-access radio station in the UK. We were providing real community radio for North London, whilst in South-West London those Radio Jackie boys were just playing records and imitating ILR stations yet claiming to be community radio! P'ah!

Did I ever tell the story of how I ran up to Eric Gotts of the DTI (or whatever they were back in 1978 before the DTI) as he was leaning over the Radio AMY rig in a field, and I said, "Yes, can I help you?". D'oh!
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* Christopher England just said that *

If anybody would like to sample the delights of Merseyside's longest serving pirate dj Bert Williams, most of his Saturday evening show can be downloaded from http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=123566577202C5CB

Hear the legendary cult dj discuss observations on modern life, pirate radio, spiders and also hear him struggle with modern technology while attempting to take live texts!

What's Easter all about?

Christopher England <...> said:

Recordings of Radio AMY too? Or did I just get a lovingly crafted
mention?

Nah it was just a mention,

Although the name was crap, Radio AMY was the first ever real
community-access radio station in the UK. We were providing real
community radio for North London, whilst in South-West London those
Radio Jackie boys were just playing records and imitating ILR stations
yet claiming to be community radio! P'ah!

Are any recordings of Amy about, I think quite a few of us would be interested in hearing it??

Did I ever tell the story of how I ran up to Eric Gotts of the DTI (or
whatever they were back in 1978 before the DTI) as he was leaning over
the Radio AMY rig in a field, and I said, "Yes, can I help you?". D'oh!

No!! Do tell!!

Richard

Anorak Nation <...> said:
What's Easter all about?

I would have added another category, Make sure the large supermarkets etc continue to be shut on Easter Sunday!!

We went out with my Son yesterday and it was such a pleasure to drive about with not so much traffic on the roads.

Richard

Quoting a previous Richard Sharpe contribution:-

Are any recordings of Amy about, I think quite a few of us would be
interested in hearing it??

I have none, alas. But there may be others out there that do. It was 1978 though, so in the era of open reels and cassettes. If anybody did record it, it'd be interesting to see what they've got.

Did I ever tell the story of how I ran up to Eric Gotts of the DTI (or
whatever they were back in 1978 before the DTI) as he was leaning over
the Radio AMY rig in a field, and I said, "Yes, can I help you?". D'oh!

No!! Do tell!!

We had a brilliant site which served our catchment area of a number of London boroughs (we were not intended for DX), and normally nobody went by it at all. However it was a really hot summers day after a few weeks of being hot and so locals were doing that going out for walks thing they do. Because of the heat, we were running the rig 'naked' to stop it melting under its usual cover.

So, people walking by could see the rig and the mega lorry batteries and were stopping to take a look. We'd had different people stopping and poking at the damn thing all day. Of the station's 'staff' that were there sitting a safe distance away having a 'picnic', we'd take it in turns to run over to try to stop people killing themselves and say it was taking some weather measuring device and don't touch.

I'd just dealt with one couple, when, before I could get back to the 'picnic' area these four blokes appeared from nowhere and were hovering over it. Hot and exasperated at having to go back all the time in this boiling hot sun, I ran back and said, "Yes, can I help you?".

I can't remember the next exchange properly (just never forget my opening line!), but it was something like, "You can. Would you mind telling us what this is?"

At this point I instantly twigged who they were and even recognised Eric's face, but it was all too late and I'd said the "Yes, can I help you?" bit.

"Is this yours?" said Eric.

"I thought it was yours," says I panicking.

"Why would it be ours?"

"Well, aren't you operating a pirate radio station?" says I, "I've just DF'd you and been waiting for you to come here so's I could meet you."

Anyway, they identified who they were and we got into a verbal tug-of-war about whether or not I'd really actually DF'd it, with me clutching hold of a radio I had at the time with a rotating rod thing on the top. (Actually very deaf and perfect for using right next to a rig, useless at doing any DXing at all!)

Despite the highly incriminating beginning part of the conversation never being mentioned again, they took my name and address (I mean, why would I refuse to give it, I'd done nothing wrong apart from DF the station, right?) and I eventually got a stern letter telling me I had been breaking the law by listening to unauthorised broadcasts and I mustn't do it again.

But, back on the day in question, I eventually left them after saying it was a shame they weren't the operators of Radio AMY as I thought the programmes were really good and I was disappointed I'd not met them. I just walked off as if I really was nothing to do with it. Lucky they never had the power of search. I had the next program tape and a few spare things on my person. Don't think I could have explained the spare 813 valve either.

Sigh. Happy days.
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* Christopher England just said that *

Great story!

I'd never heard of this Radio Amy on account of being a bit young and having never lived in London so I decided to Google it to see what I could find out. Know what I found?

Nowt, that's what.

Although I did find this article about your friend, Mr Gotts.

http://www.gunfleet.com/page10/files/page10-1016-full.html

Quoting a previous Gash McGash contribution:-

Nowt, that's what.

It's a conspiracy, see.

As it was one of the North London pirates, and had no connections to or with those South London ones, it doesn't have the folk 'keeping it alive' that those South London pirates have.

Indeed, most of the 70s/80s North London pirates are 'written out' of the chronicles that appear from time to time, including the excellent videos made about the era. Yet, when you consider the numbers that used to respond to them, they definitely had their audiences.
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* Christopher England just said that *