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Updated 02 Jul 2009
Info Line 0906 7669990 Jaybee info line 08707 418699 Email Caroline Studio
Alan Beech In Harlingen Slideshow Caroline History By Roland Beaney Radio Caroline Yahoo Mailinglist Azanorak MP3 Recordings Archive
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If you wish to hear Caroline by the Fortunes, listen now on the Offshore Jukebox (See link left) |
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The Peter Antony and Dave Fosters Interviews New to Woodley Net are interviews with Peter Antony and Dave Foster. Peter Antony is one of Radio Caroline's newest presenters and well remembered from his days on Radio Luxembourg. He was on board the Ross Revenge on Saturday 12th July 2008 and presented a show as part of the summer of memories. Read the interviews with Roland Beaney HERE Message From Bill Barnes Hi all, In issue 126 of the July August Horizon Magazine we have... New pictures of the Caroline DJ`s from the real boat that rocked in 1967 to the aftermath of the 1989 raid twenty years ago HORIZON is as packed as usual. Back to the present day we have Tony Paul on the fun of presenting Caroline's breakfast show from Los Angeles and station manager Peter Moore on the good and bad of Caroline being featured in the press and movies. We have a feature on Sixties transistor radios, more on music for today's Caroline by Caroline's Alan Watts and a visitors view of Pirate BBC Essex from Harwich All the latest Radio News, Pandora's Rockbox on summer Festival & The Captains Log regards Bill Horizon Magazine Example (PDF)
Radio Caroline On Your i-Pod Or MP3 Player
Nearly all Radio Caroline shows are downloadable from the Azanorak2 website. This will enable you to listen to Radio Caroline on your i-Pod or MP3 player. Just go to the Azanorak website and download the show you want. This will be in a Zip format. Click "Azanorak MP3 Recordings Archive" link above. When you extract the MP3 and you are asked for a password enquire at the Radio Caroline Yahoo Mailinglist Your Top Fifteens
If you have had a Top 15 played on Cliff Osborne's show and wish to download it to your computer, click HERE to see all year 2008 listings and link to download site at Azanorak Radio Caroline Back Live, From New Studio Radio Caroline have now moved their studio to a new location following the broadcast from Earls Court. For a few days problems led to the station not being able to offer a full programme schedule due to a technical fault but on Friday 5th December at 10am the new studio went live with a programme from Pat Edison. This was followed by a programme from Jim Ross. This new facility should give the station a good base for the future and any new move will hopefully now be to the Ross Revenge. For a while there was some interference to the output but this problem has now been solved after a short break late on Friday morning. The station continued broadcasting during this period with continuous Caroline music and a few recorded shows. The only live show was the 60's and 70's show with Barry James although he had a cold.
Message from Clive Pearce (Ex Ross Revenge Crew Member)
Hi There, hope I find you and yours are all in tip top health and enjoying life. If you want to see me in action and all that I have been doing of late go take a look at my short films 'Take that Grouville' and my new one 'Broad Bean Down', a take on Black Hawk Down. It might not make a lot of sense to you as it is very local (Jersey) humour and GST is our recently introduced equivalent of VAT, Kindest Regards Clive Pearce. View films on this site by clicking HERE
Caroline Movement History
A John from Norfolk who was once a Caroline Movement member wrote to remind me that the early founding members of the CM were Geoff Baldwin, Andy Thompson later known as DJ Andy Johnson, and Brian Bannister who is now sadly dead. He tells me that he is sure there were others involved in these early days but the real credit of the CM goes to Geoff Baldwin. The first editor of the CM Bulletin was Andy Thompson, John Burch then took over from him. I am pleased to be able to put the record straight John, I am planning to do an article on the Caroline Movement and would be pleased to hear from anyone who has info on the movement in those days.
The "Ross Revenge" At Sea
The two pictures below were given to me (Roland) recently. The one on the left shows the Ross Revenge with its original aerial mast before the great storm in October 1987 from which it survived. The other photo was believed to have been taken in 1993 in Clacton showing the temporary structures that were erected at sea. These temporary structures are still standing and used today for RSL broadcasts. More details about the Ross Revenge on http://www.rossrevenge.co.uk When you look up at these structures it makes you wonder how they managed to put them up at sea.
Further To Article And Photos Above John Cronnelly Writes
The hurricane took place on 16th October, 1987. The mast fell down on 25th November, 1987. This was due to the ship being side on to the waves and rolling at 40-45 degree angles. They couldn't turn the ship into the waves as one of the motors for turning the rudder was off the ship being repaired. The stays had become slack because of the hurricane and the ship was waiting for riggers to go out and tighten them up and also replace the broken egg insulators. As regarding the photos, the one taken allegedly at Clacton looks like it is actually Bradwell, where the ship went after leaving Dover Harbour in October, 1993. I think it is Bradwell, as the ship looks like it is facing Maldon as the tide is going out. Also there is a river bank on the right hand side of the picture. Hope this helps. Regards Rockin John Cron Many thanks to John.. Caroline Flashbacks
Another show that became popular was the Frinton "Flashing" Hundreds of motorists would park their cars on the seafront at Frinton and Walton on the Naze and flash their headlights out to sea where the ship was at anchor 3 and a half miles out. The DJs would stand on the deck asking questions and the motorists would flash their headlights with two flashes for no and one for yes. Apparently it was an incredible sight to see all the cars flashing their headlights on command. It must be remembered that the guys on the ship were very cut off and had no phones except for emergencies so this was a way of contacting the listeners for them. I suppose this was the first interactive service another first for Caroline!!! Various boats were taking visitors out to the ships from the Essex coast. The DJs looked forward to these visits as life could become very boring on board because some of them stayed out there for several weeks at a time. The ships could be seen from the shore and many people particularly those on holiday during the summer would go out to see them. The staff on the ship would leap about on board when they saw a boat approaching and shout out greetings. If you were very lucky and the sea was calm the boat would go up very close but contact with the ship was forbidden and you could not go on board without going through customs.s. |
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Radio Caroline History
Radio Caroline first started broadcasting at Easter 1964. I was on my school holidays and getting a little bored. I had a cassette recorder and every week I recorded the top 20 chart show from the BBC Light programme on Sunday afternoon. There was not much music on the radio those days and so I could play back the programme over and over again. I listened to some of the Dutch stations at the time and workers playtime, music while you work and listen with mother were the highlights of the BBC weekly offering. Radio Luxembourg was the only pop music station on the air during the evenings with a strong signal that faded badly. I was tuning the dial when I found a very strong signal playing pop music. Suddenly a voice said "This is a test transmission for Radio Caroline on 199 your all day music station" It was Simon Dee and Chris Moore. Little did I know how this would change my life. This was BBC Radio's biggest challenge and the beginning of a radio revolution for he UK. Soon many other stations joined them on boats and forts in the North Sea. Radio London, Radio City, Radio 390, Radio England. Britain Radio. Caroline North (Irish Sea), Radio 270 and Radio Scotland also arrived. I made my parents take holidays in Clacton so that I could visit the ships on boats from Walton on the Naze and I remember leaning over the side of the old Mi Amigo talking to Tony Blackburn and Roger Day getting them to play my requests on the Big Line up programme at 4pm. This fun went on until 1967 when the government passed a law banning these stations and all but Radio Caroline closed down. On August 14th 1967 the government's bill to silence all the stations was made law and all the stations closed down except one and that was Radio Caroline. I was supposed to be working that day but at 2pm I disappeared into a stack of boxes of light bulbs for an hour with my transistor radio and earpiece and listened to the last hour of Radio London. I will never forget that last hour they closed with "A day in the life" by the Beatles and Paul Kay said, "Radio London is now closing down". I turned over to Caroline and heard Johnny Walker say, we welcome all the new listeners and Caroline continues. Luckily no one seemed to have missed me all that time and I still had my job. Caroline's programmes that evening were un-missable and the midnight "We shall overcome" and Johnny Walker sailing up the Thames story was legendary and radio at its best. Caroline continued for some time but found it difficult with money running out. I remember tuning in one day and there was nothing there and later in the day I heard the TV newsman say that Radio Caroline's north and south ships had been towed away to Holland due to unpaid bills although there has always been some doubt about that. They broadcasts eventually returned from the Mi Amigo and they continued until the old ship sank in early 1980. Many people thought that they were gone forever but we know Radio Caroline and they returned in 1983 on another boat, the Ross Revenge an ex Icelandic trawler. In the hurricane of 1987 the mast , which was the highest ship born structure of that time was weakened and it blew down a week later. But they were soon back on the air when a temporary structure was erected at sea. Laser 558 joined them and although up to then the government had taken little interest in them Laser with its top 40 America style format changed all that. Caroline was relying on the Dutch programming to provide them with money to pay the bills but soon the Dutch and British governments raided the ship and closed it down taking away most of the transmitting equipment. After a couple of weeks they again returned when Peter Chicago found enough equipment to get the transmitter working again. Eventually they went adrift onto the Goodwin sands and incredibly were towed off by a Dover Harbour tug and taken to Dover. This was one of the only times a ship has been rescued from these treacherous sands. This began a remarkable comeback by Caroline. Because of a restriction order placed on the ship forbidding it to go to sea much work had to be done by the northern repair group before they could get the ship out again and all this work was carried out by volunteers free. The salvage bill was paid after great support from Dover harbour board and the Ross Revenge Support group which became the Radio Caroline Support group. The ship then moved to various locations around the Kent and Essex coast before settling at Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey where I visited the ship and saw the amount of work that had been carried out by the dedicated team. The ship was looking much more respectable now. Some money had been raised with the Radio Caroline support group and R.S.L broadcasts from the ship and one of these had taken place in London when the ship proudly sailed up the Thames to Docklands as in the Johnny Walker story. This nearly proved costly to Caroline because they only just moved the ship before the devastating IRA bomb blast that would have damaged the ship. The successful Docklands RSL raised enough money to pay for the ship to go into Chatham Dockyard for an inspection on the dent that was the result of their running aground on the Goodwin Sands. In August 1999 the ship was moved to the end of Clacton pier for the summer and another R.S.L broadcast took place. During this time talks were taking place with an organisation that were trying to bring back Radio Luxembourg. The plan was to use the Ross Revenge as a studio moored in London Docklands and relay the programmes up to the Astra satellite from the ship until a permanent studio could be built. This would have brought in lots of money for Caroline and a rebuild of their studios. From Southend the ship was moved to a temporary mooring in the River Medway. This proved a disastrous move for the ship because at Christmas a storm blew the ship adrift, it just missed another ship and went aground on mud flats. Tugs from Medway port authority had to be called out during their Christmas break to tow them into Sheerness harbour at great expense. Since then the ship has returned to Queenborough. After all that Radio Luxembourg never returned. Later when EKR who were broadcasting from the Maidstone studio's ran out of money they offered some free airtime to Caroline. Caroline decided to take up the offer and gradually the hours of transmission were increased until they were broadcasting seven days a week. When the analogue closedown took place Caroline decided to go digital and after a break of a month resumed in splendid digital quality from Maidstone. Broadcasts were also streamed from the web by the Dutch supporters on www.radio-caroline.nl In August 2004 to celebrate their 40th birthday they moved the ship from Rochester to the ferry landing stage in Tilbury. They had an RSL covering much of South Essex and North Kent on Medium Wave sending the signal over to the Maidstone studio's using an ADSL link to uplink to Sky, Worldspace and the Internet. Presently Radio Caroline are now broadcasting from another studio in Maidstone, using an expensive link to get the signal up to London for uplinking to the Eurobird satellite to Sky Digital EPG 0199 but the audio signal is in mono. Their signal is also uplinked to the AfriStar Satellite for Worldspace Radio's, this is a portable radio with a small satellite dish attached to it that covers most of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The Internet stream is now in super stereo and usually very solid and listeners can tune in all over the World. They are also heard on DAB occasionally in Italy and on Saturday and Sunday nights can be heard on FM on the French and Italian Riviera's. This has all be achieved with thanks to many unpaid volunteers that have worked tirelessly for the station. Remember, Caroline can be anywhere. by Roland Beaney
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