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General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc. |
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21st Aug 2014, 7:52 pm | #1 |
Heptode
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The First Pirate (Radio Normandie)
Programme on BBC Radio4 Extra at 8.30pm tonight, the story of Captain Plugge - founder of Radio Normandie.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0075rby Andy
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21st Aug 2014, 9:12 pm | #2 |
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Re: The First Pirate
Just listened, very good.
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21st Aug 2014, 9:45 pm | #3 |
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Re: The First Pirate
I, too, found the programme interesting, though no doubt much of the story was also included in a Radio 1 series 'The History of Pop music Radio' , presented by Noel Edmonds quite a few years ago now. BTW was R. Normandy, strictcly speaking, a Pirate station?
Surely it would have been licenced by the French Government? A question - How many members had heard of Captain Leonard Plugge before hearing tonight's programme? |
21st Aug 2014, 9:57 pm | #4 |
Dekatron
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Re: The First Pirate
Thanks very much for flagging this up. I know Fécamp quite well, as my late brother-in-law had a house there until his death a couple of years ago. Fécamp has excellent reception of UK Medium Wave transmissions during the day. I can confirm the lack of awareness of its existence locally. I agree that it was no more a pirate station than Radio Luxembourg was, as it was legally set up under French law.
My late mother used to recall how awful the BBC's pre-war Sunday offerings were, and said they usually listened to Radio Normandy. It must indeed have been highly profitable to cover the cost of making recordings on 35mm optical film, where 1000' of film was needed for 10 minutes. Last edited by emeritus; 21st Aug 2014 at 10:03 pm. |
22nd Aug 2014, 12:19 am | #5 |
Dekatron
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Re: The First Pirate
More info here: http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/RADIO_NORMANDY.htm
The term Pirate appears to refer to the man, for some reason, not the station itself. |
22nd Aug 2014, 10:35 am | #6 |
Octode
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Re: The First Pirate
Didn't hear the programme - will try the iPlayer - but I seem to recall that CPL's first venture was a programme from Radio Paris sponsored by Harrods. So yes - known to me.
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22nd Aug 2014, 2:45 pm | #7 |
Octode
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Re: The First Pirate
Can I claim to have pre-dated this by broadcasting Swanage pantomime using a No. 38 set on around 3 mc/s many years ago?
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23rd Aug 2014, 1:41 pm | #8 |
Octode
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Re: The First Pirate
Caught it on the player. Though I knew a bit about Captain Plugge and his radio exploits I learned a lot more about him from this programme. He seems to have been a colourful character - as a lot of these pioneers invariably are.
Describing him as a pirate was using a bit of license but I conclude that this was to draw the obvious parallels between his operations and those of the sea-borne stations that came later. The station at Fecamp was an authorised station and his was a straightforward business arrangement. The fact that Radio Normandy and subsequent stations beyond UK borders became a thorn in the side of the BBC and government is another matter. I think that there was some controversy about Radio Luxembourg's long wave transmissions in the 1930s as I believe Luxembourg did not sign up to the band plan of the time and there were protests about the frequency they were using. My father told me about listening Radio Normandy and Luxembourg and how miserable and dour the BBC output was on Sundays. There was a 1930s Pye woody in my grandmother's house and a wire down the yard - I have the remains of this set. These stations have have never gone down well with the establishment - for the obvious reason of lack of control over a powerful medium - and so their operations have been hindered where possible. The disallowing the use of high grade telephone lines to Radio Normandie in this case. Luxembourg seems to have been tolerated, especially in the latter years when it was a night time station for teenagers on 208m. The offshore stations were always a problem for government and more recently Atlantic 252 caused a bit of disquiet, though, in the case of the latter, I guess the by then established UK commercial stations were probably the unhappiest at their activities. Even after the establishment of local commercial radio in the UK it seems that national commercial broadcasters have always been perceived as a threat so commercial stations were kept local and it took until the 1990s for Classic FM and Virgin to be authorised. Now with satellite TV, DAB and the internet borders are well and truly down yet, despite that, in radio terms at least, the BBC has become unassailable. (Lord Reith is probably rotating like a centrifuge...) |
28th Aug 2014, 12:12 pm | #9 |
Octode
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Radio Normandy
Following the "The First Pirate" there is a new 'Archive on 4' documentary about Radio Normandy an Captain Plugge on Radio 4 next Saturday at 8pm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04frcvv |
29th Aug 2014, 8:36 pm | #10 |
Octode
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Re: The First Pirate
Well, he would have been, especially as his predictions of what TV would become have turned out to be so accurate.
However, he opted for cremation - giving the reason that he "didn't want to spend eternity turning in his grave". |
30th Aug 2014, 11:57 am | #11 |
Dekatron
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1930's Broadcasting Challenge R4
Tonight's Archive on 4 looks promising. Magnate Leonard Plugge [1889-1981] and his European based non-BBC radio stations. New one on me! Dave W
Just looked at the Wikki page-very interesting. |
30th Aug 2014, 5:34 pm | #12 |
Dekatron
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Re: The First Pirate (Radio Normandie)
Thanks for moving my post Mods-I hadn't noticed Andy's existing thread. Looks like a bit of duplication there [both for me and the Beeb] although the Archive Hour program seems to be a completely seperate production that's twice the length. The "First Pirate" is off the i-player
now. Anyone got a recording? Dave W Lord Reith and J L Baird were at Public School together. Not a good experience for the inventor and it may well have had some bearing on Broadcasting history! Last edited by dave walsh; 30th Aug 2014 at 5:40 pm. |
31st Aug 2014, 9:02 am | #13 |
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Re: The First Pirate (Radio Normandie)
I listened to the 'Archive on 4' programme about Captain Plugge very interesting, although there was some duplication of material used in the 4 Extra programme (The First Pirate) No doubt inevitable, since surving recordings from 80 or more years ago cannont be extensive. Maybe I should have taped both the programmes, but didn't!!
P.S. If I may be allowed to say so here, perhaps the BBC wouldn't have become the dominant organization it is today if things had been different in the early days. E.G. On both programmes someone said that 'maybe there is something in commercial broadcasting' (or words to that effect) that we should consider, but nothing did change until ITV started in 1955 Last edited by 'LIVEWIRE?'; 31st Aug 2014 at 9:08 am. |
31st Aug 2014, 3:12 pm | #14 |
Nonode
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Re: The First Pirate (Radio Normandie)
A very interesting programme. I did not know much about R Normandy until yesterday. Some fascinating characters involved and covering much of the southern UK with just 5kw's!!
It sounded like the equipment they were using was very primitive and basic even by those day's standards.
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2nd Sep 2014, 10:04 am | #15 |
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Re: The First Pirate (Radio Normandie)
Presumably, R. Normandy could cover a large part of Southern Britain with only 5kW because (a) they were on 274m (1095kHz), (b) there were fewer stations on air back then, and (c) their English programmes went out after midnight, although I'm sure someone said that on Sundays they broadcast in English during the daytime hours.
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2nd Sep 2014, 6:34 pm | #16 |
Octode
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Re: The First Pirate (Radio Normandie)
It was common in the 1930 to put up a long wire aerial in the garden and with fewer stations and a much lower noise floor the station would probably be heard fairly well. Not long before that a wire was essential for listening on a crystal set. Also radio or rather 'the wireless' back then was a new and novel medium and after only recently having to hand around the headphones on the crystal set, listening to what we today would consider a weak signal was quite acceptable, especially if they were transmitting programming that you liked that was unavailable elsewhere.
5kW was probably a fairly hefty transmitter back then. Back in the days of the offshore pirates most were using not more than 10kW (only 3dB stronger than 5kW) and yet I heard many here in the midlands. It's amazing what we today consider acceptable and unacceptable broadcast quality. (The FM v DAB debate for example - but let's NOT go there.) With 40 years since the Dutch Marine Broadcasting Act just gone by I dusted off a cassette of recordings that I had made in the early 70s of Caroline and RNI and I am amazed with what I/we put up with listening to those stations, heterodynes, crashes, bangs, and co-channel interference, not to mention the fading and phase distortion. Yet at school we all listened to these stations and the famously fading Radio Luxembourg on 208m. It's amazing how far a few watts will go. I listen regularly on a vintage transistor portable to BBC Hereford & Worcester on 738kHz. I am 25 miles from the transmitter and whilst not the strongest station on the band it is quite acceptable. Curious to see how far away I could hear it, I listened on my car radio travelling down the M5 and only lost it at Weston-super-Mare. I understand the TX is a mere 17 watts. |