On board the Oceaan 7 were the Captain and the  crew, the engineer Peter Duncan and myself, Programme Director Roger Gale, DJs Paul Burnett, Hal Yorke and the Rev. Hedley Pickard, the radio vicar from Bempton on Flamborough Head who was to bless the station's launch.

 

We were accompanied by two RCA engineers, including Tony Euwtondale who leapt on board in very rough seas. We were testing the equipment on low power with the Beach Boys party album playing.  Many of the ships crew were hanging over the side and heaving up their lunch, it really was a rough day.

 

I was below decks in the studio working on finishing some cabling when I heard a tremendous crash. The whole vessel shook violently and we started to list right over. It was a very frightening experience and I had to crawl along the side of the ship, along the companionway and up onto deck to see what was happening. 

Our lovely new mast, all 162 feet of it, had come crashing down and was now hanging over the side of the ship. Chunks of broken insulators were flying about all over the place and shattering, with pieces of porcelain flying off like shrapnel.  There was debris all over the deck, loose guy cables from the mast and the gleaming new copper antenna wires whipping around all over.

 

I saw members of our crew led by the PD Roger Gale, who was leaping around to dodge the flaying cables. There was a bit of blood about too, as one of the crew had  lost a finger while hacking at the steel hawsers to free the mast with a fire axe.  

 

I witnessed Roger Gale hanging over the sides of the ship with an axe chopping at the cables in a gallant attempt to free the vessel from the mast; we were in real danger of being dragged over by the mast. Roger was in real danger of being swept away by waves which seemed determined to drag him, and the crew members holding on to him, into the icy waters of the raging storm.

 

One of the guy wires had wrapped itself around the propeller so we now had lost steerage and the Oceaan 7 was helplessly wallowing in the boiling cauldron of a real North Sea storm.  We were certain that we were in danger of capsizing and sinking with the remains of the mast hanging overboard. It was causing our listing vessel to take on water and we all were in fear for our lives. The dream of great radio for Yorkshire was about to slip beneath the waves.

 

Yes, we owed our lives to Roger, to the captain and his crew who fought with their lives to save the ship and our dreams of  RADIO 270 with freedom of speech for Yorkshire and music for the youth of the day.

 

Roger, the seamen and the captain were eventually able to disentangle the rigging and ditch the very expensive aluminium aerial mast into the raging sea. Once that was done, Bill Pashby was able to come along side and throw us a line so he could tow us into port. Due to the stormy weather, his cobble had been forced to stand off our port side about half a mile away while the battle with the mast was taking place.  

 

With the tow line secured we were able to limp in to Scarborough harbour well-shaken, very  tired and very depressed.  We were all wondering if  this was the end of the dream of RADIO 270, a  local radio station for Yorkshire and great music for the young at heart.

 

Tony Uewtondale, the senior engineer at RCA Europe sent a letter to the RCA headquarters saying that neither he nor any  RAC engineers would ever again work to commission broadcast equipment at sea, saying that it "simply wasn't worth the lives of the RCA team." 

 

The Tunstall Byers management allowed a late start the next day that went down well with the staff.  After lunch we packed the equipment, the cables and other odds and ends into the cars and vans and it was quite dark by the time we had finished.  Picture this: its the ded of night the replacement studio equipment is loaded in to a hired white van. (We chose white so if its followed by the government or GPO its colour will take on the surrounding colour of the lit in the dark It makes the van difficult to be identified It will seem to change colour in the different lights) The GPO had us under surveilance, we already knew that and were waiting for a chance to stop us.

 

There were quite a few cars and vans making up a convoy, led by Roland Hill a chicken farmer and a member of board with his Mercedes Benz with the cracked wind screen. The car was  covered in mud from his farm yard and there were a couple of dead chickens on the back seat. These were bound for the ship too, so the cook could provide us with fresh meat.  The car also had a couple of DJs sat on two large wooden boxes of records in the back. The seats had been removed to make more space available for radio equipment and the DJs' gear. There were six or seven cars and vans in the convoy, snaking its way down the road to Grimsby,  all packed to the gills with our clothes and various items of radio gear.  We must have looked very strange and every bit a bunch of pirates -  the only thing missing was a pirate's flag! It really was very exciting times for us all;  we were all delighted to see thing's finally coming together at last.

 

We arrived at the dockside, unloaded our gear and went straight to work, wiring and installing equipment,  working through the night.  Along with Harry Drake from Tunstall Byers we were kept busy soldering connection s  and running and pulling cables. Most of us were on a high with excitement and anticipation. Quite a lot had been achieved -  tthat broken section of the mast had been replaced and all the snapped cables and smashed insulators replaced. The mast and its guy wires had now all been re-rigged to insure it wouldn't resoinate at any harmonics of our main transmission frequency.

 

The replacement antenna had problems in that it wasn't possible to get the pre-tensioned phosphor bronze cable in time for the re-launch. All we could obtain was standard stainless steel wire that stretched after a short time and caused problems for several weeks, each time it stretched the transmitter needed retuning.

 

 

 

There has been much debate about the first record heard on Radio 270. The first music played when the station eventually began official test transmissions on  June 4th was Strangers in the Night by Frank Sinatra.  When Roger Gale officially opened the station the following week, the first track played was Wild Thing by The Troggs.

 

However, the first transmissions were months earlier, just immediately prior to the mast collapsing on April 1st.  Neither of those records were even on board at that time and there was very little music in the ship's library.  The actual record played, over and over again, was a newt LP by The Beach Boys, called Party!

 

It has some great tracks and really does sound like it was recorded at a party. The three and a half minute version of Barbara Ann is probably the best known, as it became a Top 10 hit in 1966, but all the tracks are well worth a spin.  You can hear it, or order a copy, here (or just click on the cover).

 

 

 

On more than one occasion I can remember when we had come in to get supplies and a sea fog

had come down overnight, so thick that there was zero visibility. When it was approaching time to open up and start another day's transmissions we were still in harbour!  If the GPO couldn't see us, and we couldn't see them, then that which can't be seen can't hurt anyone, that was our motto (The GPO was responsible for telecommunications and all radio broadcasting at that time.) We simply switched on as normal and broadcast from the harbour; noone said a word but everyone on the harbour seemed to know. We just had to be back out at sea before the fog lifted!

 

The adventures above all took place 50 Years ago now, and its remarkable how things have changed.

Perhaps I shouldn't mention the local police beat officers who often came onboard when we were in port for provisions. They came on board for a cup of tea and coffee and to get out of the wind.  Don't forget that at that time, the police didnt have personal radios and they travelled around on push bikes.  I was commonplace  for them to seek comfort wherever they were able. 

 

We were supposedly outside the 3 mile limit (British Territorial Water) when on air and good boys.  As far as the police were concerned, they just acted like Lord Nelson who put a telescope to his blind eye and said "I see no radio ships".

 

The harbormasters at Scarborough and Bridlington used to listen to us and we played them requests and dedications and helped our fellow mariners in many ways. We had long range radar aboard the Oceaan 7 and Captain Hogson would help local fisherman in poor weather conditions and fog. 

 

The fishermen would call us on their radio-telephones and our captain would ask them to turn in a circle so that we can idetify their vessel on our radar and give them their exact  position.  We were after all in The Pirate Lark, and  not the Navy Lark' (Left Hand down a bit!).

 

There was no GPS or SatNav in those far off radio days of yesteryear; ships and aircraft would navigate by taking a bearing on known transmitter and home in on that.  The powerful Radio 270 transmitter became a beacon for many and ws often used instead of the official coast sttions, which just sent a more code identifier - with Radio 270 they had news and entertainment too!

 

The local fishermen would often come along side and throw fish to us in return for us playing requests for girlfriends and wives.  Most local Yorkshire people were grateful to hear some local voices on the radio instead of the BBC 'stuffed shirt' voices from London that they had been used to.

 

The Radio 270 programmes were originally to run for 15 minutes and with the idea that they would be sponsored by the advertisers, similar to the way Radio Luxembourg had been run previously. But with local business sponsoring the programmes, these  were to be made in the studios that Radio 270's Chief Engineer, Peter Duncan, had built in Newcastle. 

 

The plan was for most of these to be programmes of the magazine type, with a variety of topics discussed between the records.  There would be visits to local events and factories in the "Down Your Way" style to promote regional tourism etc.

 

A health advice program was scheduled and a Radio Doctor was planned. 270 had a Radio Vicar had been appointed, Reverend Hedley Pickard from Hunmanby, near Filey.

 

A number of programmes had already been produced as well as some pilots, but these were not suitable for the new format. The revised programmes would include more popular music and require a simpler method of delivery that could be easilly produced live on board the ship.

 

The new revised programme format would be more poplar music based and require a much simpler programme type that could be made and presented live from on board the Oceaan 7. 

 

 

The Oceaan 7 was a converted Dutch fishing vessel, formerly sailing out of Scheveningen, with the usual configuration of a mizzen sail rigged aft. This steadied the vessel, effectively making her bows point into the wind. Avoiding having the wind beam on helped tremendously to cut down rolling and other side to side movement, for which we were very grateful.  We were often to face rough weather off the Yorkshire coast; unlike the Thames Estuary, there are no offshore sandbanks to hide behind near Scarborough - you are exposed to the onslaught of the sea and northerly and easterly winds could fetch up very heavy seas.

 

We rendezvoused with one of Bill Pashby's fishing cobble's as we got close to Scarborough and that transferred the team of DJ-presenters,  records and some engineers from RCA.  They hadn't been to sea before and they had to leap on to the boat as the waves lifted  their vessel level with us. It was very stormy weather,  the fishermen said it was one of worst storm's in living memory. They were not happy bunnies, having to leap for their dear lives!

The antenna installer was already aboard as he had sailed up with us from Guernsey to pre-tune the antenna.  The mast was constructed from aluminiuml,  and the cage of cables forming the radiator was made of phosphor bronze. It had been pre-tensioned for stability and to improve its radiation characteristics. 

 

The length of cable had hoops along the cage's length to spread the wire out and give a constant diameter to the cage. This helped increase the bandwidth of the antenna giving much better audio fidelity than a narrower radiator would give.  The cage looked a bit like a long sausage, thus it was often known as a sausage aerial.

 

The antenna design was quite clever for the time;  it was end fed from the deck tuning house and had a very short feeder which was  low loss coaxial cable, 3 inches in diameter.

 

The antenna was configured as a folded monopole, with the mast being at earth, grounded to the ship's keel.  This avoided having the mast mounted on large porcelain insulators, as was generally the case until the 60s. If a base insulator had been use it would have been under extreme stress with the constant movement of the vessel and the weight of the mast.  It was known that other radio ships had problems with their base insulator-fed masts cracking and failing,  not what you want out at sea!

 

We managed to run the transmitter exciter up on test and then we put out the Beach Boys 'Party'  LP for a while.  I don't now if many listeners heard us but we wear trying very hard to get a signal out.  We were working to finish the installation of the equipment in between frequent bouts of sea sickness in very choppy seas. I had met some RCA engineers when they were working on assembling the Radio Scotland station aboard the Comet lightship in Guernsey,  but that's a story for another day.

 

 

By this time we were off the Yorkshire coast and battling the storm. A tremendous swell had been building up all day when suddenly a huge wave smashed on to the Oceaan 7 .There was a horrendous crash that shook the boat as the top 12 meters of the transmission mast crashed down on to the deck.

 

This caused a tremendous list to the Oceaan 7.  There were steel hawsers from the broken rigging trailing over the side of the boat and the snapped-off length of 12 meter sexction of the mast.  Bit of the aerial were scattered all over the deck and cable insulators were shattering like shrapnel. These bits were flying  all over the deck and we also had to contend with being in the teeth of the a force 10 storm. The squall, the gusts and heaving seas were breaking over the deck, the steel hawsers from the mast's rigging were  whipping about and wee were all soaking wet, freezing cold and in genuine fear for our lives.

 

The ships crew were absolutely brilliant but the guy who must be remembered for his quick thinking and action was our program director at the time,  Roger Gale.  He seized a fire-axe and began chopping through the cables.  Roger and the crew used hacksaws and that axe to literally save our lives. If they hadn't reacted fast enough we would have seen the Oceaan 7 capsized and sunk.  The dream of local Radio 270 wood have been lost for ever.

 

Eventually we were able to limp into Scarborough harbour,  well shaken up and not knowing if that would be the end of the adventure and not knowing if Radio 270 would ever hit the airwaves.  We owe a lot to Roger Gale and the gallant marine crew.

The RCA good guys team of RF engineers were led by Tony Untendale.  They were not happy about having to come out and do the final installation at sea as none of them were sailors.  They were brought out to Scarborough by one of Bill Pashby's fishing cobbles, along with bulky test gear. 

 

After their nightmare of a ride in heavy wallowing seas they had to scamble onto the Oceaan7, not a job for unseasoned sailors. But the day when the mast came crashing down was the end of the line for them. They were scared witless by the experience. Tony  sent a memo to their European head office to say that in future they would only carry out work in harbour and that they wouldn't ever go to sea again.

 

And so the day ended for us,  safely tied up in the harbour. Just glad that no one had been swept overboard!  We didn't know what the future would hold and most of the directors were quite despondent as they had personally invested a lot of money, time and their reputations on the venture. 

 

The launch party had been totally ruined and the newspapers were very anti-Radio 270.  A lot of  press advertising had been sold by the papers in the form of "Good Luck" messages; those clients would likely be hopping mad and the local business wood all cancel their news paper advertising contracts. And it wouldn't be of any help to us in our efforts to sell air time!

 

There were some very stormy Board Meetings  throughout April to decide what to do. The outcome was to push ahead and send the Oceaan 7 to the nearest deep water dock, Grimsby,  for repairs and have replacement mast fitted.   A staff meeting was held with all the crew and enquiries wear made about how the antenna and the transmitter could be made more rigid.

 

The storm had ripped of some mounting bolts on one of the power transformers and it spent a while crashing around inside the cabinet.  While 'on the move' it had an argument with some high voltage condensors and some valves had also been smashed in the same affray. That stray transformer had a lot to answer for while it was crashing about loose in the cabinet, all thanks to some mounting bolts failing.

 

The directors decided to put all staff on half pay while repairs were carried out on the Ocean 7. It was announced that I was to go to Tunstall Byers, the electronics firm at Askern near Doncaster,  to assist in building new a studio for the Oceaan 7. Tunstall Byers are still running today and they now make most of the assisted phones and signal alarms for disabled people.

Chief Engineer Peter Duncan had gained his experience at Scottish Television in Glasgow (now called STV) and using his experience had followed the routines and principles adopted in television for sound.  The production and network techniques revolved around  a lot of the output being pre-recorded. The original studio that Peter built was designed with those criteria in mind and was perhaps a little bit "over-engineered."    

 

There was huge board room battle and Peter Duncan was removed from his post as Technical Director and replaced, with the land based studio being closed down. A few days later, Peter crept on board the Oceaan 7 in Grimsby docks while the crew, including the night watchman, were across in the pub. Peter Duncan's men stripped out all his studio equipment from ship. 

 

The crew and the watchman had quite a bit of explaining to do the next day, but they were all sacked. Paul Burnett & Hal York were given more work standing in for them to stop any further visitors coming on board and security was very tight. They were assisted by Wilf Proudfoots young son, Ian, still a schoolboy then, who qualifies as the youngest ever Radio 270 staff member.

The good relationship with TB meant they were happy to call on their team's experience in clubs to get a more suitable live studio designed and installed on the Oceaan 7 in record time.  The company also were agents for  for Revox tape recorders, which were at the cutting edge of technology having developed multi speed recording.

 

Revox had also developed multitracking and were at the forefront of such techniques. This kit became very useful for commercial production work,  also though Radio 270 offered 'live reads' of commercials too. The Revox  equipment had remote start and stop capabilities, quite unique for the time.  They could also trigger a another tape recorder using stop foils spliced into the tape.

 

The Garrard 401 turntables on Radio 270 were fitted into gimbals which were heavilly weighted and allowed them to remain reasonably level, meaning the station could continue playing vinyl records even in the roughest weather.  

 

The day before we went to Grimsby For the refit and storm repairs,  Tunstall Byers held a works outing. I and some of the other Radio 270 Good Guys were invited too, so we all climbed into coaches and headed to the Top Rank Suite in Doncaster to celebrate the completion of the studio build.  In 1966 this was THE best place for miles for a night out; a former cinema it was now luxuriously furnished and had a superb maple wood dance floor. Paul Burnett had worked for Top Rank just months before, at another of their clubs on Teeside.

 

I had a little problem though; the  Top Rank clubs at that time had a very strict dress code - NO TIE? NO ENTRY! I had to borrrow a tie from the doorman, but I  bought him a few pints.  There is always a way to overcome any problem!

 

Boy, those Tunstall Byers wiring woman really knew how to rock! They set the house alive with the most energetic dancing moves, ably assisted by the engineering staff and metal workers.  A great time was had by all that night and were very merry as we piled back on the coaches for the ride back to Askern and surrounding villagers. A lot of rioteous singing took place all the way back up the A19 to Askern. It had been a long day but really good fun to let our hair down.  (Thankfully, photographs of this evening are not available!)

Radio 270 came to be Yorkshire's very own local station with a fair reach into Holland and the low countries and beyond. (for a large scale coverage map of Radio 270's regular daytime audience see HERE).  With the aim of becoming friends of the community, which was achieved from the sale  of car stickers at a penny each to benefit blind people, for whom radio is of course a boon. Radio 270 also gave up valuable air time to the student unions in the region, for debates and discussions, to promote their Rag weeks, and  for many other charitable works.

 

Radio 270 also gave many young people jobs and a start in real local radio. A few of us went on to professional careers in the recording and music iindustry, in  TV and radio announcing and in commercial TV production,  film  sound  and effects production. I have all ways been most grateful to that little boat with the big mast and the start It gave me and my shipmates.

 

Yes life could be tough at times, such as  chipping ice off the antenna tuning house in the dead of winter in the dark at the start of the broadcast day.  But the friendships and comradeships forged in those dayswill remain with us all till the end of our days.  How we miss those far off radio days, when life was simpler and we had our RADIO FUN. And the world was a better place.

 

RADIO 270 

This book forms the perfect introduction  and contains enough advice and advanced instruction to be valuable to more experienced DJs.   It's informative and  easy to understand for all levels and provides lots of tips and ideas to make it in what is now a very competitive world.  But one that can bring untold riches, fame and fortune if you get it right! 

 

The book is written in an entertaining no-bullshit style, with a healthy dose of realism.  It includes everything you will ever need to know, from illustrated tutorials on mixing techniques and styles, digital mixing, tips on buying the right equipment and records. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  RADIO 270

 

 

Bill had years of experience at sea and came from a long line of Scarborough fishermen. His family are still well-known in the town.There was very little that Bill didn't know about the sea and boats.  He told me to hang on and he went to the galley and coming back with a stack of Jacob's crackers.

 

"Here Stephen, eat some of these" Bill instructed me. "They will soak up the bile in your stomach and you will feel better with something for your heaving belly to bring up."

 

No one ever spoke a truer word, they worked a treat.  I now never go to sea with out my dry cracker biscuits. Bill was a fine seaman, a great bloke and allways had our safety and welfare at heart.

There were two positions available as watchman on board the ship while it was in harbour at Grimsby. The port was ideal  as they had suitable cranes in an enclosed dock for the aerial mast to be rebuilt. Those guys had to stay on board while repairs were carried out, although they would receive their normal rates of pay.  The chance was given to the staff to take part in a lottery to see who would get the watchman positions.  That was thought to be the fairest way to decide. 

 

Some of the guys quit the station there and then at Scarborough and were never seen again, having quit their previous jobs. The  lottery winners were DJs  PAUL BURNETT & HAL YORK.  They also had a young apprentice for a while in the form of IAN PROUDFOOT, Wilf's son, but he had to go back to school after the Easter holiday. 

 

A new program director had been appointed Neddy Noel, who had  experience in Australian radio.  The Radio 270  board of directors had decided to take his advice to change the program format. 

 

The  original idea had been to produce most of the programmes in a land based studio and send tapes out to the ship for transmission, with only the news bulletins done live on board. (A specialist Eddystone communications receiver was installed on the Oceaan 7 for this.)

 

 

 

The studio equipment now needed to be replaced, this time with something more suitable for live presentation ohe main microphone, an AKG, was originally mounted on a desk stand, however this was a bity impractical for the DJs when trying to juggle records, tapes, and a bucket to be sick into!  Engineer Stephen Muirield had the solution though and made a long arm bracket which was mounted at the top of the panel, which gave more space on the desk for the DJ.

 

The the right of the DJ were two Garrard 301 turntables, mounted in gimbals. These were a mechanical device that kepty the turntables roughly horizontal, by using gravity.  The DJ and everything else on the ship may have been rocking, but the platters stayed roughly horizontal.

 

Radio 270 did invest quite heavilly in good quality audio kit, unlike some of the other stations that tried to adapt domestic equipment.

f programmes. I had an exciting time developing the new equipment at Tunstall Byers near Doncaster.  Their engineers were on the ball and had excellent ideas for equipment design for the Oceaan 7's very cramped studio, having previously designed and built disco playout equipment for several night clubs in Yorklshire.

 

The new Radio 270 studio had almost all the broadcast audio equipment constructed in a vertical rack, which was designed to fit the curvature of the vessel  behind it, beiung jam tight against the side of the ship's port side.  This meant that much of it was able to be pre-wired and tested at the TB factory and it just needed to be dropped in place on board the ship.  This saved a great deal of time.  As well as the TB team's experience installing equipment in night clubs and discotheques,  they also had a hi-fi shop and so could appreciate good sound quality.

 

Tunstall Byers also had a very friendly work force and a  new metalwork shop, equipped with  some very useful tools and a huge metal press. This had the ability to stamp out boxes and cabinets for  medical remote call units. 

 

 

 

 

Key Rings 

Wheras a few years ago, 90% or more of radio listening was done on Medium or Long Waves, the majority of radio listening in Europe is now to digital stations - either DAB or ONLINE. DAB is a system in which one local transmitter carries up to 30 radio channels, and  "ONLINE" is where listeners 'tune in'  to broadcasts over the internet.

 

This new book by Paul Rusling describes the transformation of the radio broadcast medium, how and where the trailblazers made it happen. Those pioneers included Radio Caroline, which provided the inspiration for Radio 270.

 

The ONLINE RADIO BOOK describes the development of the world's most popular medium and the evolution of radio and t he future of broadcasting.

 

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