A Nova envelope from 1982 (courtesy of DX Archive).
There’s plenty of Radio Nova material available online already and we don’t intend to compete with that. Here is a selection from our the Pirate.ie collection of airchecks of Radio Nova from 1984 to 1986. We also include two recordings from the Nova satellite service from the UK in 1988 which was relayed on FM in Dublin and used as an overnight service by some stations.
A Radio Nova holiday giveaway from 1985. The presenter is Dave Harvey.The famous Radio Nova £10 giveaway from 1985. These two examples are followed by the top of the hour ident and a weather forecast from John O’Hara.A promo for DJ Rick Dees of KIIS-FM in Los Angeles whose Weekly Top 40 was syndicated on Nova. This is from 1986.A Bill Mitchell ident for the Radio Nova satellite service from the UK, as relayed on 94.9 FM in Dublin in 1988.A top of the hour jingle and the IRN service followed by an aircheck from the Radio Nova satellite service as relayed on 94.9 FM in Dublin in 1988.
Listen to interviews with former Nova presenter Tom Hardy (RIP) here and newsreader Bryan Dobson here. You can hear historian Eddie Bohan describe the growth of Radio Nova here.
Q102 launched in 1985 with all the knowledge of Nova and Sunshine and a lot of investment, starting with a clean slate. See further information on DX Archive.
This was the imaging for Q102.
These files were donated to the archive on 1st January 2019. If you have similar tapes/carts/reels/files consider donating the audio to the archive here via donations@pirate.ie
Q102 promotional material (Alan MacSimoin collection).
The Dublin pirates were not all about pop and some stations served niche audiences or specific demographics. One station playing easy listening and classical music was KLAS which broadcast on 98.5 FM from late 1986 until the end of 1988. The station was established by Radio Carousel boss Hugh Hardy from his home in the suburb of Sutton but after a change in management it changed its name slightly to Class Radio and moved to the city centre.
This recording features the initial set of KLAS jingles. More information about KLAS is available here.
Broadcasts of Dublin station Q102 were disrupted in July 1986 by a mysterious ‘phantom’ who managed to break into the VHF link to the AM transmitter and disrupt normal programming on 819 kHz. Anoraks UK reported receiving anonymous calls from Dublin to say that the ‘ghost’ of Radio Nova was to return and later that day, Radio Nova jingles were broadcast on Q102’s AM frequency (Radio Nova had closed in March 1986). A person on a bicycle with a rucksack and home-made dipole was spotted near Q’s transmitter site but escaped before engineers could catch up with him. The ‘Phantom’ also called Radio West’s Sunday Anoraks’ Hour to threaten further disruption. This mysterious recording includes references to that programme and also cheekily edits a Capitol Radio jingle, changing it from ‘Move over to Capitol’ to ‘Move over Capitol’. This was apparent hint that Capitol would be the next target!
