The Pirate Archive - Birmingham Free Radio Network

Following the boom of the 1960s offshore pirate stations, many people began to start stations on land. One of the first in the West Midlands was Radio Jolly Roger. They first hit the airwaves from a flat located at Vernon Road in Edgbaston in 1971. The station transmitted on frequencies from 1357 kHz to 1363 kHz, announced as 222 metres to exploit the slogan, "music for you on 222".

Radio Jolly Roger, or RJR, initially transmitted all day Saturday and sometimes on Sunday with its theme tunes, "Exodus" and "Rinkydink" (a 45 rpm record played at 78 rpm). The sole disk jockey was Jacko Diamond - "your man Jacko" - with a staunch Birmingham accent. Jacko had obtained a little experience from Eddystone Radio where he had learned some radio constructional skills. The RJR transmitter was based upon an 807 value and a Linear Concorde Modulator with 2EL34's.

Often, after RJR's transmissions had closed on Saturday evening, a Radio Jolly Roger South would come on the air, and RJR (North) would converse with RJR South on medium wave. RJR South, from Northfield, aired a number of programmes in its own right.

During 1972, after many weeks of transmitting, Radio Jolly Roger was raided by the GPO and "our man Jacko" was fined £75. The transmitter was confiscated, but this setback did not keep Jacko off the air for long. RJR was soon back on the air from Vernon Road and they teamed up with a number of other operators to form the Birmingham Free Radio Network. Radio Dolphin from Halesowen with Chris Stevens, Radio Albatross (Northfield) and Radio Midlands Mobile (Smethwick) each transmitted a 30 minute slot from a different location on Sunday afternoons; this way the GPO had insufficient time to trace the signals. Other stations came and went from the network including Radio Javelin (Rubery), Radio Pegasus (Warley) and Radio Signal North (Northfield). Other stations from around this time included a Radio Venus North on 194 metres medium wave from Shropshire, SRBC from Banbury on VHF and Radio Britannia from Nuneaton.

Soon the GPO, known as the Gippo, increased its activity and the stations had to move from location to location to maintain hourly weekly broadcasts. Sometimes, RJR would only manage 45 minutes before the Gippo turned up! It was learned many years later that the Gippo were thrilled by the Sunday broadcast because the activity lined their pocket with Sunday overtime payments. Walter Frank Preston headed up the GPO team, and records were often played for Frank Preston - "this one's for you Frank".

A number of court cases were heard following raids, and fines started to mount. During one court case, eggs were fed into the diesel tank of a GPO Land Rover, and someone's mum, a parking warden, issued the GPO with a parking ticket when the Land Rover subsequently broke down on a double yellow line.

Some years prior to the outbreak of illegal CB in the UK, a number of individuals took to 27 MHz. Unfortunately, the third harmonic caused interference at a government radio station at Romsley, and again there were court cases.

The Birmingham Free Radio Network faded out around about 1973 and the stations were not heard again. The final act of the Birmingham Free Radio Network was to jam the local commercial station, BRMB, for a whole afternoon because it was believed that a transmitter from the BRMB transmitter site was being used to jam Radio Jolly Roger broadcasts - this was unproven but a directional finding expedition was deemed to demonstrate that this was the case.

Many people who helped out these early stations later went on to run their own stations, with Jacko Diamond even appearing on one of them. He presented regular reggae shows, together with Music Master, during 1981 on Sounds Alternative. The two of them then formed Radio Star, which eventually became PCRL.

Radio Dolphin - Chris Stevens	11 min
Radio Jolly Roger - Jacko Diamond	1 min