In August 1979 two pirate stations started broadcasting. One was the short-lived Radio Active, while the other was someone relaying tapes of London’s Radio Jackie on 227 MW. A meeting was arranged, and in staggered the radio legend that is Steve Merrick, “wanting to sound like Radio Jackie”. That was met with some amusement by…
Sunshine Radio in Ludlow dates back to the late 70s when they used to broadcast every Bank Holiday weekend on 239m (1242 kHz), and by 1981, 249m (1179 kHz). Around this time, negotiations took place with the IBA with a view to bring local radio to the area, bearing in mind at this point there…
Groove FM was the second pirate radio station to be brought on air by Scott Davis, the founder of Exile FM. From the very start Groove had many of the old Exile presenters on board, which were joined by some of the key members of Unique FM, as well as few totally new to the…
UK Radio was the West Midlands longest running pirate station, operating from 1978 to 2003. The station would probably still be going today had it not been for the sad death of the stations founder, Paul Johnson, in 2003. As well as their own 25 years on air, UK Radio were involved in, and helped,…
In the early 80s Cecil Morris was running Rising Star Records and Management from a shop at 151 Dudley Road Birmingham. He also branched out in to running a venue (The Elite) and a magazine (Rasta Mag), so it was obvious that Radio would be next. His first shows were on Sounds Alternative during 1981,…
As the jingle once said, “Every city’s got a Kiss”, and Birmingham was no exception. Kiss FM Birmingham was first heard in August of 1988 on 105.5 FM. They played dance, soul, hip hop, house, acid and rap music and even had a rock show on Friday nights! Right from the start they were a…
The first 7-day a week white pirate station in the Black Country was Power House Radio. They had been on since 7th February 1988 from Rowley Regis. At this point Craig Benson was running a car hire business that booked some advertising on PHR. It was through this connection that Craig Benson obtained his first…
Scott Davis had always been a fan of pirate radio, and in the summer of 1989 after listening to Freedom Radio decided to have a go at setting up his own station Exile FM. Scott brought his first transmitter which was just 4 watts off a small low powered local pirate station called KFM after…
Quest 100 FM was formed in early 1992 by pirate DJ’s Dave Kilner, Steve Wilson and Andy Young as a result of feeling disillusioned by the state of Midlands based pirate radio at the time (i.e too much Rave, egos and crap DJ’s). Inspired by the more dance and soul based pirates in Birmingham and…
Starlight FM were first heard in the summer of 1990. They broadcast on 101.5 FM and quickly became a big player in the Birmingham Rave scene. If anyone has any more information on this station please contact The Pirate Archive. Downloads To save any item from the list then right click and ‘Save Target As…’…