Gerard Roe Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Irish Pirate Radio Audio Archive

1st January 202118th September 2022

Pirates ring RTÉ to complain about 1984 jamming

Spring 1984 was the height of the RTÉ jamming campaign against super-pirates such as Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio in Dublin and South Coast Radio in Cork. On 26^th April 1984, Sunshine boss Robbie Dale (Robinson) attempted to ring RTÉ live on air during his mid-morning programme. RTÉ were jamming Sunshine on 531 kHz at the time from the Radio 2 site in Beaumont, claiming that they were testing on the frequency. Robbie Dale spoke to the RTÉ press office but failed to get through to Assistant Director-General Bobby Gahan.

A few days later on Dublin Community Radio, David Baker was more successful. During a special programme about the radio scene, he managed to speak to Bobby Gahan live on air and ask him about the jamming. According to Peter Mulryan’s book Radio Radio, the Minister for Communications Jim Mitchell requested RTÉ in April 1984 to stop jamming as control of the airwaves was a matter for government and not for the state broadcaster. Such was the audience for pirate radio, it appeared that the government feared the political implications if popular stations couldn’t be heard.

These recordings were broadcast by Gerard Roe on the FRC programme on Radio Annabel on 17^th June 1984. Our recording was made from 1035 kHz AM. The photo is of Bobby Gahan in 2015 when he was Lord Mayor of Stepaside in Dublin and is by the Evening Herald.

16th May 202022nd September 2022

Dublin hobby station KFM

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KFM was a part-time hobby station broadcasting from Sandyford in south Dublin in 1986. It was run by well-known anorak Gerard Roe who had previously hosted a popular Free Radio Show (FRC) on Radio Annabel and Radio Dublin Channel 2. This recording is from 13^th April 1986 from 1420-1505 and features Gerard on air. There is an advert for Anoraks UK and KFM jingles. Frequencies announced are 106 FM and there’s a reference to a test transmission on shortwave on 6240 kHz in the 48 metre band. Gerard shares his memories of KFM:

I had a studio set up in my house that I used for recording and some production – mainly for my own amusement. At one stage I connected it up to a 25 watt FM TX, just for a bit of experimentation at weekends. A friend living nearby had build an experimental shortwave transmitter and we linked to it for a few weekends (Shamrock Radio International). This was at the time when I had been off air after Radio Annabel closed and also around the time when I did a few programmes for David Baker at Kiss FM in Foley Street.

The signal from KFM was very local (just around Sandyford/Dundrum), but because of the location height, it also fell down into Bayside where Brian and Dónal Greene were probably the only other two listeners to the station [Brian is co-founder of Pirate.ie]. It didn’t last long, as even I got fed up of having a radio station in the family home. I remember one Sunday morning, after a very late Saturday night before, being woken up to be told that there was a phone call for me, from Brian and Dónal, asking if KFM was coming on air that day. I probably decided then that operating a station from the house wasn’t going to work out in the long run.

That studio was also used in 1988 to record the first programmes for test transmissions from Dublin South Community Radio. I was involved in the early days of the first management committee and I trained up some of the presenters to go on air for a short pirate run, just before the closure deadline of December 31^st. I did some early weekend mornings programmes on the station for the first very low powered live tests, from a temporary studio assembled in a courtyard off Dundrum Main Street (opposite the original Dundrum shopping center). The station eventually was licensed in 1995 as Dublin’s first community station (now known as Dublin South FM). By that time, I had started the Anorak Hour with Simon Maher at Coast FM and was back on air with an FRC format, for the first time in about 11 years (since the closure of Annabel).

That’s about all that can be said for KFM …. and a lesson learnt that there was always someone out there, tuned in with a tape recorder, back in the olden days!

This recording is from the Skywave Tapes Collection. Skywave Radio International broadcast a shortwave station in the 1980s from Baldoyle in northeast Dublin.

4th April 202018th September 2022

Gerard Roe on Radio Annabel (May/June 1984)

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This is a great recording of the popular Free Radio Campaign programme hosted by Gerard Roe on Dublin station Radio Annabel in the mid 1980s. The first part is from 20^th May 1984 and was recorded from 1035 kHz AM. It includes an interview with Kenny Everett from a BBC documentary about the offshore pirates, information about the new offshore station Laser 558, news about Radio Caroline, Gay Byrne celebrating 50 years of Radio Luxembourg and the 6th anniversary of Radio Carousel. The second part, probably from a week or two later, features Big D Radio and London pirate Thameside Radio. Audio quality is fair because the AM signal was over-modulated.

2nd January 20196th August 2021

David Baker discusses the pirate scene on Radio Annabel

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Several temporary community stations came on air in the 1980s to celebrate local festivals in Dublin. Radio Sandymount, Radio Ringsend and Radio Donnybrook were all set up by Dave Reddy and broadcast on 981, 1116 or 1134 kHz. They were all affiliated with the Community Broadcasting Co-operative.

David Baker, who worked in a variety of Dublin stations in the 1980s, was also involved with the CBC network. In this recording from June or July 1984, David chats with Gerard Roe of Radio Annabel about the Dublin radio scene in 1984. Audio quality is poor as the recording is of a weak AM signal received in north Dublin on 981 kHz but recordings of these community stations are rare.

You can hear separate recordings of Radio Annabel here. There’s an interview with Dave Reddy of Radio Sandymount here and with David Baker here.

30th December 201818th September 2022

Aircheck: Radio Annabel FRC

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Dublin station Radio Annabel featured a popular weekly Free Radio Campaign programme presented by Gerard Roe. This recording from 1985 features an interview with Chris Cary taken from Radio Nova in which he criticises the notion of community radio. It is followed by a reference to a newspaper article about one of the failed attempts to introduce legislation to regulate the radio sector during the 1980s.