[Junk Box Nick]

In an early on-air commentary Simon Dee mentions the installation of Gates turntables on the Frederica (which became the Caroline North ship). In another interview he mentions that in the early days some taped programmes were broadcast "as they weren't sure how the turntables would behave at sea". Keith Skues tells of strapping pennies to the tone arm to keep the stylus in the groove when a swell was on. Though not such a problem on the forts, the Maunsell towers of Red Sands and Shivering Sands did rock a bit. They were designed to do this to accommodate the recoil from the guns.

I would say that most offshore broadcast studios were small (sometimes very small from some of the photos that exist) and would not have space for all the paraphanalia and people required back in the day for filming drama scenes. Shots of fort based stations' studios show some very primitive set-ups. Radio 390 seems to have been by far the most organised - their studios were based on those used by the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation - having said that John Ross-Barnard's description in Keith Skues' book Pop went the Pirates of life on Red Sands tells of conditions that could hardly be described as luxurious.

Probably the most luxurious studios (and ship) were those of RNI on the Mebo II, one of which was very spacious with an island console and the record library along the back wall.