Radio Nordsee International RNI
The ship
originally started test tranmissions on Short Wave and VHF
in January 1970.
Roger Day
I first
heard test signals from Radio Nordsee in February 1970 on 186m Medium Wave.
The radio ship, the Mebo 2, was anchored off the coast of Holland.
At first, there were only taped announcements by Roger Day, later, as the
DJs arrived on the
ship, live tests began.
Initially programmes were in German as well as in English.
Andy
Archer - Carl Mitchell
Roger Day - Alan West
On the 28th of February the station officially opened at 6 pm UK time.
Station opening Roger Day - Horst Reiner
First day Roger Day - Andy Archer - Carl Mitchell
In March,
I awoke one morning to find that the 186 Medium Wave signal in London
was much stronger and the DJs were announcing that the ship was heading
for the English coast.
Added
10/08/03
On
the way to the Clacton coast - Alan West
The ship anchored later that morning 6 miles from the coast of Clacton.
There was however, a problem, the transmissions on 186m interfered with either
the coastguards or the lifeboats, I can't remember which, and transmissions
stopped about 2 days later.
The station restarted
10 days later on 190m.
First day on 190m Duncan Johnson
and was
jammed by the Post Office after just 5 days,
from a site in Rochester, Kent.
Radio Nordsee changed its frequency to 217m and the Post Office jammed them again.
First test on 217m Andy Archer
It moved again to 244m (right next to BBC Radio One)
First day on 244m Mark Wesley - Alan West
and was
jammed by the
Post Office once more.
The jamming transmitter starts
On the 13th of June 1970, the station changed its name to Radio Caroline International.
RNI becomes Caroline Carl Mitchell - Andy Archer
On the
18th of June 1970, a General Election was held in the UK
and prior to this date, the station embarked on a unique attempt to influence
the outcome of it by broadcasting anti Labour and pro Conservative propaganda.
During the run up to the Election a big rally was held in London.
The Government's reaction was to increase the power of the jamming signal from
a temporary transmitter set up in Canewdon in Essex, and this supposedly caused
interference to Radio One over quite a wide area.
It should be pointed out that this was the first election in which 18 year olds
could vote and in many key marginal constituences within the range of RNI's
transmitter, Conservative M.Ps were returned at the election.
Roger Day - Alan West - Andy Archer Day After Election
Alan West - Mark Wesley Day After Election
High Quality Recording of Election Song
The labour
administration must have known it was suicide to jam the signal,
and I'm still not sure why it was done.
The station then changed its name back to RNI.
The new
Government did not stop jamming RNI although the big Essex station
was switched off.
The ship sailed back to Holland and when transmissions recommenced
the following day, the jamming did not restart.
However it was soon found that RNI transmission on 244m was interfering
with Hilversum 3, so another frequency change was made to 217m.
This
too, was found to be unsatisfactory and a further move was made to 220m.
On Saturday, the 29th of August 1970, an attempt was made by Kaas Manders
to cut the anchor chain of the Mebo 2. The disc jockeys appealed on air for
help
from the station's owners and everybody else.
The owners of RNI arrived in a fast boat and soon all was well again.
The owners
of RNI then did a deal
with Radio Veronica whereupon they were paid a large sum of money to shut
Radio Nordsee down.
The station closed on the 24th of September 1970.
Spangles Muldoon On The Last Evening Of Broadcasting
Added
10/08/03
Closedown
The station did re-open in February in 1971 but that's another story ....
|
"RNI
RNI Radio Nordsee"
This was, I think, the first jingle ever played |
||
More
recordings of RNI in 1970 can be found
HERE
offshore-radio.de
For
more information on RNI visit
soundscapes
Spangles Muldoon has a web site HERE
There's
never been a radio ship before or since that has got itself in quite so
much trouble in 8 months and Nordsee was the only ship ever to have been jammed.
The VHF
frequency was not jammed by the PO and I was sometimes able to pick
the signal up in East London when the ship was off the Clacton coast.
Had I known then that the VHF signal was vertically polarised, I would have
probably
got a better signal.
Listening
to the sound files now,complete with the jamming,
it's amazing to think that they had any audience at all, but they did.
Even now, when I hear songs which I first heard on Radio Nordsee, complete
with the jamming signal, they just don't sound right, the jamming is missing.
I've tried unsuccessfully
to recreate the jamming signal in CoolEdit.
Is there anybody out there that can?
It's also interesting listening to the VHF recordings, they have a greater
dynamic range than my local ILR does today.
I visited
the Public Records Office in Kew in 2001, because the reason behind the
jamming had bugged me for 30 years.
At the time of the jamming it was stated that it was done at the request of
Scandinavia and Italy. In the 1960s there were reports of interference
caused to European broadcasters by Radios' London and Caroline, etc,
but jamming wasn't undertaken then.
There are papers referring to the jamming, but I couldn't find any references
to the big Canewdon,
Essex jamming transmitter but there is quite
a bit about the Rochester one, including the fact that it was a
BBC transmitter, loaned to the Post Office, and the BBC requested
that their involvement was not made public.
In the last couple of years there has been 2 radio documentaries on the
1970 General Election, and I was amazed to find that no mention was made of
the propaganda transmitted from the Mebo 2 in either of them.