MONITOR SPRING ISSUE 1972 - Page Eight - an ex-US AN/FRT/13 or something similar had been purchased. This was not an easy rig to modify as the frequency coverage was nowhere near the MW and the rtty and other facilities such as the frequency synthesiser were not of much practical use. In my absence that rig was made virtually useless as Don decided he would get it going on the MW. To cut a long story short, after numerous arguments I was allowed to take a more active part in the building of the station and the 1760 watt mod tranny from that rig was combined in what became the main City tx. The line up was a 1034 kHx osc (using my home-ground rock) with a 6AQ5, an 807 buffer into an 813 which drove 2 QY5-500's in the PA modulated by a pair of QY4-400's which were driven by the old Geloso amp. This was the most reliable rig and it ran about 2 kw input. By now Ian West had joined the station and both being amateurs (G3SZC and G30UV) we knew that which we were after, and we certainly tried. The next mad scheme we knew of was the purchase of a 10 kw tx from the USA. This duly arrived and proved to be a home brew lash up of a commercial tx. It was in three large cabinets, each about 8 ft tall 6 ft wide and 6 ft deep. The relay and switching cabinet suffered a disaster before it even got on the towers - the ropes on it broke and it fell off the winch into the sea. It was rather lucky that the Offshore One was not under it at the time or it would have been even worse. The next day two divers came out and put strops round it and it was hauled on board. Complete with the tx came two of the Caroline engineers, Karl Thomsen and another chap. Together with Ian the whole thing was stripped down and washed in fresh water to remove the sea water and then laboriously reassembled. I did not spend much time on that as when it eventually came on the air it was always breaking down; it had seemed a waste of time to begin with. The most expensive burn up was the 10 Kw mod tranny, which Reg had rewound. In the end Ian and myself concentrated on keeping the home brew on the air and that was how it carried on until the end. During our stay we even built a new studio so we were one of the first stations to have two studios. The problem was always keeping the home brew rig on the air and that RF out of the audio but we did win in the end and we even had our own volume compressor installed to keep up the "talk-power". Besides the radio side of the station we both spent many hours cooking, working on the diesel generators, building and even plumbing. (We had the original oil-fired central heating going and this really made the otherwise not so clean place quite habitable and comfortable). I suppose the biggest improvement was the installation of the 200 ft vertical tower - with the mere 2 Kw we managed to put out an extremely potent signal as we always kept the modulation level quite high and infact the Caroline engineers were under the impression that we ran in the order of 10 Kw!! One thing I should like to make clear is that I do not support those who pollute the MW with their Sunday morning inane chats; this is just plain piracy and is most irresponsible. I do not however, object to those who try to put on decent shows without making anti GPO comments etc. Good luck, 73, cu sn". SIGNED: PHIL PERKINS (G30UV) ** CHECK LIST OF CITY DJ'S ** Karol Beer, Colin Brian, "R.W.B" (Ross William Brown), Woolfe Byrne, Candy Calvert (the taped "Candy's Pop Shop" show), Tony Carrell, Alan Clark, Ralph Cooper, Cliff Cottell, Chris Cross, Rick Dane (to Radio Caroline), Tony Daniels, "Terrible" Terry Dawson (we'll believe it!; our own Andy Archer), Alexander Dee (to Radio 270), Keith Delmont, Dick Dickson (also engineer/to Radio Essex), Peter Dolphin, Tom Edwards (longest serving & Chief DJ), Paul Elvey (also an engineer), Johnny Flux (to Radio London as John Edward), David Gilbee "Big G" (to Radio 355 as Dave MacKay), Martin Green "Little G" (from Holland), Mike Hayes, Ben Healy (to Radio Scotland), Peter Jamieson (the taped "Basildon Request Show"), Eric Jay, Phil Jay (the taped "Disco- mania" show), Peggy Knight (taped shows), Paul Kramer, Adrian Love, Ian MacRae, Eric Martin, Rick Michaels, Ed Moreno, Janice Nicholls (the taped "Gulliver Staff Bureau Request Show"), Mike Proctor, Martin Ross, Bob Spencer (to Radio Scotland), Gary Stevens, Martin Stevens (the free radio photographer), "Dennis the Menace" Straney (to Radio 270), Leon Tippler (to Radio 270), Graham Wallace (to Radio London as Mark Roman), Mad Ian West (also engineer), Jeremy Wilde and Geoff Woods. ENGINEERS- In addition to those already listed there were: Don Witts, Tony Pine, "LAC" Johnny Short, Phil Perkins and a character known as Farmer Jim. The above list is the most comprehensive ever published. If I have inadvertently missed anyone out I apologise - any omissions or amendments should be forwarded to the Editorial Office. Well Campaigners, that brings us to the end of our Radio « « « to the previous page to the next page » » » to the "Monitor Originals" index page ... or ... to the Monitor Magazine home page