GunFleet.com
Title
When Pirates Ruled the Waves
Description
On 27th March 1964 Radio Caroline began broadcasting from a converted Danish passenger ferry the M.V. Fredericia, renamed 'Caroline'. The ship was anchored off Felixstowe, this was the start of the history of British Pirate Radio. The arrival of Radio Caroline was reported in the Daily Herald on 8th April 1964, there is a copy of the newspaper article in the offshore archive of this site. This site contains probably the largest collection of Pirate Radio photos anywhere on the web and includes my favourite land-based ones as well.
Skyport Radio was one of the first land-based Short Wave pirate stations and began transmissions in 1971. A few visitors have asked where the name came from; other than the obvious proximity of the station to Heathrow Airport (the planes could often be heard in the background of programmes). The name was actually chosen from an old 1966 Post Office Telephone Directory, in those days numbers in the London area were the first 3 letters of the area name followed by 4 digits. The dialling code for Heathrow Airport was SKYport, or 759
Radio Jackie was the longest surviving, and most well known of London's Medium Wave stations. Many visitors have written pointing out that Radio Jackie was not the first land-based pirate station, I am well aware of that, they were however the most consistent and probably broadcast more hours than any other. Many people claim to have been the first, perhaps that distinction should go to those pre-war experimental stations who decided to liven up their broadcasts with a few gramophone records!
