Richard Staines (aka Steve Silby) at another Waterford station Suirside Radio (courtesy DX Archive).
By the mid 1980s ABC was well established as one of the leading stations in Waterford and covered the southeast on a network of transmitters on AM and FM. This recording is of the breakfast show hosted by Richard Staines (aka Steve Silby), one of the many English DJs involved in the station. The programme includes the ‘Bits and Pieces’ competition to guess clips from chart hits, the ‘Memory Module’ oldies section and a quiz featuring software transmission sounds made by an early generation of home computers. Among the many adverts is a promotion for the ABC 3rd birthday party and outside broadcast coming up the following weekend. News on the hour is read by Steve himself.
Original cassette label from Anoraks Ireland Collection.
Our tape was made from 101 FM on Wednesday 6th March 1985. Part 1 above runs from 0748-0836 and Part 2 below from 0836-0924.
Part 2 from 0836.
The recording is from the Anoraks Ireland Tapes Collection, donated to us by Paul Davidson.
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.
Stuart Clark in the ABC caravan in 1983 (courtesy DX Archive).
This is a recording of another of the founders of Waterford super-pirate ABC on the occasion of its 40th anniversary in March 2022. Stuart Clark was one of four English DJs with experience of the offshore or pirate scene who came to Ireland in early 1982 planning to set up a station somewhere in the southeast. The others were Andy Ellis, Clive Derek and Kevin Turner, who had previous local experience on Suirside Radio, and the four began testing from Tramore near Waterford City on March 1st 1982, with ABC launched two days later.
A view of the caravan and mast from 1982 (courtesy Brian Kennedy).
Part 1 of the recording above runs from 0749-0836 on 31st March 1982 and includes news ‘from Dublin’at 0800 which is in fact a recording of the 0730 RTÉ bulletin! Most pirates based their news directly on RTÉ and some occasionally rebroadcast bulletins but as the scene became more professional, ABC and other stations went on to develop respectable news services of their own. Part 2 below runs from 0849-0928 and includes Stuart himself reading the news. Both were made from 729 kHz AM in Waterford City and signal strength is fair as the receiver was at the edge of the small coverage area.
Part 2 from 0849.
After ABC, Stuart went on to work with other Irish pirates such as Hits 954 in Limerick. He has remained a close watcher of the pirate and radio scene over the years and is currently deputy editor of Hot Press magazine. Another ABC DJ, Steve Silby, shared his memories in the Radio Blaa Blaa book:
I don’t think ABC had a ‘mission’. It started on a wing and a prayer and stayed that way until the end, but behind it was a force of talented broadcasters who kept the show on the road no matter what. There were lots of technical firsts – live broadcasts from surrounding towns and one particular live broadcast direct from a roller coaster! In many ways ABC was different from most other stations in the country. It was a pirate run initially by imported radio fanatics who had deep links to UK commercial radio with stations like Radio Caroline and Laser 558 that had turned European broadcasting on its head – and all this knowledge was brought to Waterford City. Most of the time ABC sounded bloody great.
Thanks to Ian Biggar and DX Archive for the recording and to Brian Kennedy, author of Radio Blaa Blaa, for permission to use the quotation and photo.
Clive Derek outside the caravan in 1982 with Andy Ellis looking out (courtesy DX Archive).
Continuing our series marking the 40th anniversary of Waterford super-pirate ABC, this is another recording made in the first few weeks of the station in March 1982. ABC was set up by four English DJs, Clive Derek, Andy Ellis, Stuart Clark and Kevin Turner. Kevin had worked previously with Waterford pirate Suirside Radio but parted company after a few weeks. Other DJs from the Voice of Peace and Dublin pirates including Nigel Roberts and Steve Marshall joined ABC in spring and summer 1982 as the station began to expand.
In the book Radio Blaa Blaa, one of ABC’s DJs, Andy Linton, remembers the lifestyle associated with the station:
Yes, we were a commune of sorts! We had the radio station that we all broadcast from but we also rented that house in Tramore that we all ended up in. The ‘full-time’ staff of ABC lived there. The radio station paid for everything (rent, laundry, food) and gave us £15 per week, which was basically fag money (though I didn’t smoke). We didn’t even have a TV so we’d listen to the radio, have a beer and chat. One big happy family!
This recording of Clive Derek’s ‘School’s Out’ programme was made from 1515-1603 on Tuesday 30th March 1982. News is read by Kate Davis and most adverts are from Tramore, reflecting the limited coverage area. The recording was made from 101.3 FM and is courtesy of Ian Biggar and DX Archive. Thanks to Brian Kennedy for permission to use the quotation.
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.
