1958 - 1960Sixties City pirate radio and 60s broadcastingSixties City

Offshore Pirate Radio


These pages tell the story of offshore 'pirate' radio from 1958 to 1970. They have been split up purely to improve their loading speed therefore the years stated are only approximate as they do tend to overlap to some extent.





1958 to 1960               1960 to 1963              1964

1965 to 1966                1967              1968 to 1970

Pirate Stations    60s Radio Images   Pirate Jockeys   Pirate Radio Sounds


In the beginning . . . .
�.it was sometime around July 11th in the summer of 1958 when a small ex-fishing boat called 'Cheeta', owned by lb Fogh and Pete Jansen, was moved to a location south of the island of Ven off the coast of Denmark to begin test radio transmissions in Danish on 93.12MHz under the name of RADIO MERCUR. The programmes had been pre-recorded at their own studios in Copenhagen and were broadcast between 6a.m. and midnight.

It had been on air for less than a week on July 17th when transmissions were interrupted by 'Cheeta' losing her anchor and ending up aground outside Malmo. After necessary repairs she returned to her original position and recommenced broadcasting on August 2nd. To prevent interference with a Swedish land-based radio station the frequency was changed to 89.55MHz on August 29th and two days later, with increased power, 'Cheeta' also made experimental broadcasts in Swedish under the name of SKANES RADIO MERCUR. It had been realised by then that this small boat was completely unsuitable and the owners started to make arrangements to acquire a second, larger boat.

During November 1959 a group of people including Gordon McLendon, Bob Thompson and Jack Kotschack acquired the ex-cargo boat 'Olga' ( previously called 'Margarethe' ) from which they planned to operate a Swedish commercial radio station to be called RADIO NORD. The project experienced many setbacks and for various reasons took over a year to get onto the airwaves.
From late November 1959 a company called Anstalt Veronica ( the name was derived from the original project title VRON which stood for Vrije Radio Omroep Nederland ) had also been converting a vessel, the ex-German lightship 'Borkum Riff', for radio broadcasting.