ABOUT: This site will be a huge
resource of information about London's land based pirate radio stations.
The site is mostly concerned with the older pirate radio stations (i.e. those
that began broadcasting between 1989-2000).
It will be a place to remember the old pirates and to exchange recordings,
stories, images and information.
LAST UPDATE:
7th December 2008 (Updated
News & Don FM Page)
Kool FM celebrates it's 17th birthday!
Kool London 17th Birthday
Saturday 6th December 2008
Hidden Nightclub
Tinworth Street
Vauxhall
London
£15.00+bf
NEW CLASSIC DON
FM RADIO SHOW:
With DJ Renegade and MCs Nasty, Stevie A, Otek, C-Wig, & Bouncer (1994).
With just three hours to go before
the end of Don's month-long Restricted Service License, the studio was
jam packed with the Don FM family, with some of the highest listener
figures Don had ever seen.
They were determined to go out
in style! (This
recording also contains part of the Alvin Dee set that followed after).
Don is now back on air once
again on 92.9 FM and streaming online at
www.donfm.info
Tracklisting:
01) Original Nuttah (remix) - U.K. Apache & Shy FX
02) Johnny Jungle - Pascal & Kings Of The Jungle Remixes
03) It's your turn? (remix) - ID Needed
04) Digable Bass - DJ Rap
05) The Navigator - Aphrodite
06) The License - DJ Krome And Mr Time
07) I Can't Understand - MI5 a.k.a. DJ Crystl
08) Yeah Man (remix) - Dream Team - Joker Records
09) Hitman (remix) - Marvelous Caine
10) Unidentified White Label Promo
11) The Rumble (Mad Ragga John remix) - DJ Nut Nut
12) Unidentified White Label Promo
13) Streetfightin' Soul Boy - Potential Bad Boy & Chatter B
14) Dub Plate - DJ Renegade
The
PIRATE RADIO TOOLBAR is the place where you can find all of London's
pirates and the worlds finest webcasters all in one place direct inside
your browser like a radio. _
Just like the LondonPirates
site the pirate radio toolbar is run by pirate radio enthusiasts for the
love of radio and good music!
To find out more about the toolbar and to help it continue growing
please subscribe to their facebook group by clicking
here.
_
DON'T
PANIC!!! THE PIRATE RADIO TOOLBAR IS NOT SPYWARE!_
Featuring: 87.7 Uks Finest
87.7 Hightz FM
87.7 Desire FM
87.9 Shine FM
88.1 Frequency FM
88.2 Rude FM
88.4 Centreforce FM
88.6 House FM
88.7 Sunrise FM
89.4 Sweet FM
89.6 Deep FM
90.2 Point blank FM
90.8 Charge
91.6 Lightning FM
91.8 Passion FM
92.4 De ja vu
92.7 Freeze FM
92.8 Klash FM
92.9 Klimax FM
92.9 Don FM
93.8 Vibes FM
94.0 Touch FM
94.3 Obsession FM
94.6 Kool FM
95.1 Origin FM
95.6 Fresh FM
97.8 Cyndicut FM
98.3 Rise One
99.2 Dream uk
100.0 Kiss FM (ex pirate)
100.2 True FM
100.4 Rinse FM
100.8 Mixology FM
101.3 Juice FM
101.3 Eruption FM
101.4 Telford Town Radio
102.0 Chillin FM
103.0 Ice Cold Radio
104.7 Sub jam FM
106.6 Passion Radio Bristol
106.5 Force FM
108.8 Unknown FM
LONDON PIRATE RADIO SURVEY
2007:
The votes have been cast and the results
have been counted!
Over 500 people took part
in our independent survey to find out which stations made the best of 2007.
To find the overall top 10 positions,
the votes in all categories were totalled together to produce a combined score.
As you can see the clear winner is
Point Blank! The fact that Point Blank is so far ahead of the rest could be put
partly down to the way they have attracted voters through web promotion, however
for them to be in this position they must have a significant following so we
can't take this away from them - hopefully next year more stations will do the
same and we will have a more even playing field.
We feel that this is a
very well deserved win for a station that is clearly doing an extremely
impressive job at the moment. In terms of signal coverage, sound quality,
consistency and general professionalism Point Blank is on top of the game right
now. If we had to fault them at all it would be the lack of a decent website
where listeners can interact (maybe a forum or chat room would be a nice
addition in 2008?) .
There are several other
stations who made a marked impression in the survey, it's nice to see that both
Don and Centreforce are doing so well since making there recent return to the
airwaves. Passion and Don have a joint second place score of 105 points followed
by Kool FM in third.
Top 10 London Pirates (of
the 46 listed in the survey)
Position
Station
Score
1
Point Blank
1125
2
Passion/Don
105
3
Kool
78
4
Freeze
68
5
Centreforce
67
6
Rude
38
7
Ice Cold
37
8
Origin
31
9
Subjam
22
10
Shine
21
As well as finding the
best stations, the questions in the survey were aimed to find out which areas of
London have the most pirate radio listeners and which musical genres are
currently the most popular (although due to the high number of Point Blank
voters this has been skewed towards House and West London so you might want to
bear that in mind!).
There's now a new website
offering classic pirate radio sets for free download and a chance to
vote for your favourite stations from years gone by, check out the all
new
Spicefly.com!
1st ANNIVERSARY!
This month LondonPirates.co.uk
are celebrating our first birthday! We'd like to take this opportunity
to say thanks for all your messages of support and contributions towards
the site!
Also celebrating an anniversary this month is Point Blank FM who are now
into their 13th year of broadcasting in London.
PointBlank
PIRATE RADIO: AN
INCONVENIENT TRUTH
Feederz sets out to dispel some common misconceptions and reveal the truth about
pirate radio in Great Britain.
Click here to read the article.
OFFSHORE PIRATE
ANNIVERSARY:
This year marks the anniversary of an
act that was passed to close down pirate radio stations that broadcast from
ships moored off Britain's coastlines such as Radio Caroline and Radio London.
Using AM transmitters with 10-50 Kilo Watts of power meant that their signals
could be heard throughout most of central Europe. Almost all of the pirates at
the time ceased to broadcast, the two ships of Radio Caroline (North &
South) made a defiant move to Holland where they continued to broadcast into
1969. The Act which was passed on August 14th 1967 marked the end of an era in
pirate radio broadcasting and in 1990 Radio Caroline (founded by Ronan O'Rahilly) was forced to cease broadcasting from the sea (although to this day
it still broadcasts via satellite radio and the Internet!).
How do offshore pirates compare
to land based pirates?
Maybe it's simply because of their age, but for some reason the offshore pirates
of old tend to be seen in a more favourable and romantic light than the land
based pirates of today. However the main driving force behind both forms of
pirate radio is exactly the same.
That is to deliver free and groundbreaking music to their audiences with a
minimum of regulation or interruption. The reason pirates have moved in
land is two fold, firstly there is no longer free water where stations can
broadcast outside of the UK's territorial limits and secondly the move away from
AM to FM which means that the transmitter covers significantly less range and
therefore needs to be situated much closer to the listeners.
Although times have moved
on and the music has changed considerably the demand for free broadcasting and
listening still remains. The pirates of old created names such as Tony
Blackburn, John Peel, Kenny Everett, and Dave Lee Travis whilst the land based
pirates of today have brought us names such as Norman Jay, So Solid Crew, MC
Skibadee and Ms Dynamite.
Two of London's biggest ever
stations have returned. The almighty Don FM, Flex FM and the early pioneering Centreforce
have returned to the London airwaves.
We're extremely excited about these
new developments and will return soon with more information about the
histories behind these big names and their plans for the future.
Don FM
have joined forces with the long running Flex FM to
form the United Pirates Of London and look set to be back with a bang
bringing something very special to the FM dial once again (perhaps this is the
kick up the arse some of the more complacent/stagnant stations needed).
Livestreams are currently in a test transmission phase and they have even
created a dedicated toolbar to add to your browser (click here to download it:
www.don.fm/toolbar/dontoolbar.exe)
The FM frequency
is still unconfirmed at the time of writing this so we suggest to keep an eye on
their forum for more information at
www.donfm.info. As soon as the frequency is made
official we will update you right here!
- *UPDATE* - the
new frequency is 104.2FM
Centreforce
was one of the very first land based pirates to regularly play house and other
forms of dance music, established in 1988 on 88.3 it has now returned to 88.4.
Although the lifespan of the original Centreforce was relatively short, the fact
that they were doing something so different so early on made them stand out.
This helped them to establish a name that has stood the test of time. Another
station broadcasting in this early era was Sunrise - both were followed shortly
afterwards in the early nineties by the likes of Fantasy, Dance, Kool, Trance,
Touchdown and Don.
We'll be keeping
a close eye on both of these stations and will be looking forward to see how
many of the original DJ names make a return to the dial alongside the newer
talents. Good Luck Guys!
LONDON PIRATES
T-SHIRTS!
Pirate radio headz
can now reprazent by wearing the official London Pirates
merchandise. Choose from a selection of high quality garments including
T-Shirts, Hoodies and Record Bags (available courtesy of Future Freak) Double
sided
T-Shirts start from just £12 plus £2 p&p.
To order yours now simply
follow the link below to the Future Freak website, then choose your garment
type, size and colours.
The first Don FM and Touchdown clips are now available to download
simply click through to the
Audio page. This is just the tip of the iceberg for the audio
clips that will become available over the next few months.
Click Here to see the Kool FM
video feat. Eastman and Profile
Kool FM recently celebrated it's 15th birthday and
OMFG! Who was there?
What a wicked night it was :
) We spent plenty of time in the oldskool room
listening to Jinx & Funky Flirt but the D&B in the
main room was also absolutely firing all night long.
Out to the full crew who reprezented and made it a
night to remember.
DON FM RECORDINGS! One of
the main things that LondonPirates will offer is the
ability to share and download past recordings of
Pirate stations broadcasting between 1989-2000. We
are currently in the process of organising and
uploading recordings from one of London's premier
stations from 1994-1997 Don FM.
Click Here for a
preview of what's to come.
Established in South London by Nasty V and Ezee D
Don's main frequency of transmission was 105.7.
Don's popularity grew so quickly that in 1994 it was
to become the first ever Jungle station to acquire a
28 day legal Restricted Service Licence (RSL).
Unfortunately the exorbitant cost of licensing in
the UK and the restriction in not being able to run
an RSL back to back meant that Don was unable to
continue broadcasting legally. After spending some
time campaigning on AM Richard Branson's Virgin
Radio succeeded in obtaining a long term licence on
105.8 in 1995. Don returned after it's RSL
broadcasting on 107.9. Don eventually passed on but
Ezee D and some of the other crew turned their
attention to it's younger sibling station Flex FM
103.6 but that is where this story ends and another
begins.
MASSIVE RESPECT
TO ALL OF THE OLD DON FM CREW!
Be Don Or Be
Gone!
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this site a massive success we need you to help us by contributing any
pirate related information you might have, please check the
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find out more about how you can contribute. We also need you to spread the word
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