ABC Power 104 letterhead from c. 2000 (courtesy Ian Biggar)
ABC Power 104 was a Waterford station broadcasting between 1992 to 2001, one of the significant stations from the second wave of pirates following legalisation of independent radio. Its roots were in ABC, a professional pirate that broadcast from Tramore and then Waterford City from 1982 to 1988. The station returned under a new name in 1992, stating that it wanted to provide an alternative to local licensed service WLR. Full-time broadcasting began at Christmas 1993 and ABC Power 104 began campaigning for an expansion of local radio in the Waterford area. According to a station leaflet from c. 2000, ‘although Waterford already enjoys one excellent local radio service, one station cannot be all things to all people. The trade off is that the young people of Waterford are poorly catered for when it comes to programming as the existing local services target the older and traditionally safer demographic … without us there is no choice in local radio’.
In 1999, ABC Power 104 was invited by the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC, the predecessor to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland) to prepare an expression of interest in operating a full-time station. The licence for a regional youth service for the southeast was eventually awarded to Beat 102 103, which was linked to ABC’s old rival WLR. Beat came on air in 2003.
This recording is of an interview from 1998 by Pete Reid (Simon Maher) and Gerard Roe with Andy Ellis of ABC Power 104, broadcast on Dublin pirate Phantom FM. Andy was one of the founders of the original ABC in 1982. Thanks to Gerard Roe for the donation and to Ian Biggar for background.
This is another recording of the early days of Waterford super-pirate ABC, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its humble beginnings in March 1982. The recording was made from 12 noon on 30th March 1982 on a drive towards Tramore from Waterford City and begins with a crackly signal on 729 kHz AM. Transmitter power was low and covered only a few miles but the recording later switches to a patchy 101.3 FM and reception improves as Tramore is reached. One of the station founders Clive Derek has just finished his show and reads news headlines at midday before handing over to another of ABC’s instigators, Andy Ellis. The station was located in a caravan in Tramore for the first two years of its existence and moved into Waterford in mid-1984. It went on to become one of Ireland’s most popular and successful pirates of the era.
ABC is discussed by author Brian Kennedy in Radio Blaa Blaa, a history of Waterford pirate radio published in 2012. An extract from the book gives a flavour of how the new station shook up the local radio scene:
Straight away the station’s approach to broadcasting made people sit up, if only for the fact of hearing foreign voices over local airwaves. The structure of ABC in those early days was a format brought over from stations like Radio Caroline and the Voice of Peace which the guys had been part of. Everything would be playlisted, bar some weekend shows, which worked perfectly. Nobody could go off on a tangent or deviate from what they were required to play for fear of losing the crucial listenership which was so important starting a new radio station.
Several hundred LPs and 45s would be purchased whilst local man Dick Cole, the owner of Buywise Carpets, donated his old singles collection. With money needed for equipment, vinyl, rent and food the four guys were soon down to the bare bones. There was a single £20 note in the kitty when the lads obtained their very first advert from Heffernan’s Fuel Centre in Tramore.
Andy Ellis by the aerial at the caravan (courtesy Brian Kennedy).
One DJ, Andy McCloskey remembers:
ABC certainly had its own sound. We were playing Bryan Adams’ ‘Reckless’ album before they started pumping singles off it. We created a huge buzz. Again you were talking about the American import singles that we mail-ordered from the States (you needed an adaptor when you put the 7” single on the deck.) It was just one example of us picking singles left, right and centre before the songs actually became huge hits and got airplay from other stations. On that album we had tracks like ‘Run to You’, ‘Somebody’, ‘Summer of 69’ in constant rotation before they truly hit over here. And that album was huge, one of the biggest sellers of 1984. So it actually gave us a good bit of credibility.
Thanks to Ian Biggar and DX Archive for the recording and Brian Kennedy for permission to use quotations and photos.
One of ABC’s founders Andy Ellis in the caravan (courtesy DX Archive).
ABC is recognised as one of Ireland’s super-pirates, broadcasting from Co. Waterford from 1982 to 1988. Its humble beginnings were in a caravan beside a carpet warehouse in the coastal resort of Tramore west of Waterford City. ABC was set up by four English DJs who had been on the Voice of Peace and British pirates, Andy Ellis, Stuart Clark, Clive Derek and Kevin Turner, the latter formerly of Suirside Radio in Waterford. ABC used a jingle package from WABC in New York, with the ‘W’ cut out. It began testing on 1st March 1982 on 729 kHz (before RTÉ Radio began using that frequency in Cork) and was launched on 3rd March but the signal barely reached Waterford City where advertisers were located. However, ABC announced ‘AM’ and ‘kHz’ from the start, marking out its sound as different from other stations still referring to metres and medium wave.
Commenting on a 1982 visit to the station, DX Archive commented that ABC ‘was obviously struggling at this stage, with an English staff in a foreign land, trying to make the locals believe that this type of radio was the way to go. In fact, it was an uphill battle that ABC eventually won and as time went past, ABC was to become one of the most professional broadcasters in Ireland’.
Stuart and Andy on the first day of tests, 01.03.82 (courtesy Brian Kennedy).
There were problems with FM at the beginning but 101 MHz was added later. Adjustments to the AM rig caused it and the studio to go on fire in the summer of 1982 and it looked like ABC was finished but it returned to the air on low power and plans began to acquire a bigger transmitter. At a cost of $5,000, a considerable amount for the time, a Gates BC1G 1kW transmitter was shipped from the US and a crystal was bought for the relatively clear frequency of 1026 kHz. Andy Ellis remembers that the new coverage area was extensive across Waterford and beyond. In mid-1984, ABC was sufficiently successful to warrant a move to better premises than the caravan and it rented three floors of a building in the centre of Waterford City. The AM aerial remained in Tramore and FM masts were brought into the city.
FM was now more popular and from 1985 on, ABC extended its coverage on that band throughout the region. By 1987, ABC had moved premises again in Waterford and had a very professional set-up in terms of studio equipment and space. The station was now fully registered for VAT, paid taxes and music royalties and had a member of the NUJ working in its newsroom. The government published legislation to licence local radio at the end of the year and ABC continued to expand, adding additional AM and FM transmitters in Wexford. Andy Ellis recalls that just as it looked that the station would make a profit rather than break even, it was clear that the government meant business and that the pirates would have to close down. ABC left the air a few days before the deadline, at 3pm on 29th December 1988, with a special programme on the station’s 6-and-a-half year history and closing remarks by Andy Ellis. It applied unsuccessfully for the Co. Waterford licence, which went to former pirate WLR.
Former ABC staff were involved in smaller pirates following legalisation in 1989 including Laser 89 and ABC Power 104 and many went on to work in licensed stations in the region and beyond. Read Andy Ellis’s station history here. The first recording above was made from 1246-1310 and 1330-1350 on Monday 29th March 1982. The DJ is Andy Ellis and news is read by Kate Davis. The second recording below is from 1355-1440 on the same day.
Part 2 from 1355.
Both were made in Waterford City just a few miles from the transmitter but the signal is quite weak. Thanks to Ian Biggar for assistance with research and for the recordings. Photo credits are due to DX Archive and Brian Kennedy’s Radio Blaa Blaa group on Facebook.
