UPDATED MAY 2024
It is forty years since Laser-558 blasted its way onto the air. To mark the occasion we have the second part of the Laser Story as well as pages of
press cuttings from the period; we've added another RNI Super Hit 50 chart from 1971; and we pay tribute to Caroline South's Graham Webb
who sadly passed away on 26th April, aged 88.
Fans of the original Laser-558 may be interested to know that a man called Steve Bannister has been given a license by Ofcom to recreate the station. At the time of writing his Laser558 website is playing old Laser hits, ads and clips of the DJs -
and there is a weekly ‘Sixties Sunday’. We hear that some of the original Laser jocks from the eighties may be planning to record new shows for his station.
See the contents page and DJ Directories of the sixties, seventies and eighties for full details of this website.
If you click to follow us on our Facebook page, you will be alerted when this site is updated.
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FORTY YEARS AGO:
7th May 1984: Non-stop music tests began for Laser-558 (558 kHz, 538 metres).
24th May, 5am: Laser-558 began regular programmes 20 hours a day (see here for more details).
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SIXTY YEARS AGO:
9th May 1964: Radio Atlanta broadcast a test programme on Caroline's frequency after it has closed down for the night.
12th May: Radio Atlanta began regular programmes on 1493 kHz, 201 metres (see here for more details).
27th May: Radio Sutch started broadcasting from the Shivering Sands Fort in the Thames estuary on 1542 kHz (see here for more details).
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Britain's first offshore radio station, Radio Caroline, began broadcasting at Easter 1964 from a ship anchored just outside UK territorial waters.
She was followed by a host of other radio stations based on boats and marine structures dotted around the coast.
These “pirates” rapidly won an enormous and enthusiastic audience.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame
has been set up to honour the stars, the broadcasters, from that golden era of music radio.
This site is a tribute to the people who endured a daily battle with the elements to provide a soundtrack to the swinging sixties.
(The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame is a British-based website. It only includes those DJs who broadcast in English and could be heard in the UK. Offshore radio also flourished in Denmark,
Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel and New Zealand. The absence of the DJs from these countries in the Hall of Fame does not suggest that they are any less deserving, just that they are outside the scope of this site. Please
see the links page for details of websites which cover offshore radio in other parts of the world.)
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The inductees in The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame are listed alphabetically. To find your favourite voice from the sixties either select
it from the drop-down list below, search the site using the Google box or click on the appropriate page from the table of contents beneath. For broadcasters from the later decades, go to the Seventies
Supplement or Eighties Supplement. There are some that we know very little about - see the help wanted page.
THE OFFSHORE STATIONS OF THE 60s, 70s AND 80s
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The Laser Story (parts one and two) |
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We are very grateful to everyone who has contributed information, recordings or memorabilia to The
Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. We are always on the lookout for more so, if you have any items of interest, please get
in
touch.
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A number of the photos, stickers and recordings on this site are beginning to show
their age. Apologies for those that are of less than perfect quality. Many of the photographs were distributed freely by the various radio stations
and were intended for as wide a circulation as possible. Others have been donated to The Pirate Radio Hall of
Fame which are of unknown origin. Where photos have been scanned from books, newspapers or magazines, we have given credit.
However, if anybody believes that their copyright has been inadvertently infringed by the inclusion of an item on this site, please
get in touch and it will be removed immediately. Similarly, anybody who has supplied
audio for The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame has been credited but tapes get passed from collector
to collector and often there is no way of knowing who made the original recording. Our apologies to anyone who thinks their work has been used
here without due acknowledgment.
The name ‘Radio London’ and the RL logo are used by kind permission of Radio London Ltd.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame links to MP3s which can be downloaded by UK-based
customers from Amazon. As in a traditional record shop, Amazon offers multiple versions of some songs. It isn't always easy to identify precisely which
version is which. We have endeavoured to ensure that each link leads to the appropriate version of the relevant track - the one that was played by the
offshore DJs of the era - but please listen carefully before purchasing. If you discover that any of them are later re-recordings, please
let us know.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame participates in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme, an affiliate
advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
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