Pulse FM used to broadcast mainly at the weekends to the Portsmouth and Southsea areas from the late summer of 1993 until autumn of 1995 on 107.4 FM. It was founded and run by two people, The Radioman & Mars. The station used various tower blocks and high locations in the area to broadcast from. One of the favourite locations for their broadcasts was Somers Town in Portsmouth, which has several large tower blocks, ideal for putting out a good signal across the whole area. On a good day the signal could be picked up as far as Bognor Regis to the east and Southampton to the west.
The Radioman & Mars, both used to work in the club scene installing lighting etc to various venues across the area, including Geushky, Adult Action, Regal Palace and Route 66 all in Portsmouth, Sterns in Worthing, The Manor in Bournemouth and SW1 in London to name a few. Radioman also formed Planet Mars Promotions, Major Toms DJ Agency & Nomad Coaches.
Working within the club scene, they were both fully aware of the Rave culture of the time and how it was exploding. They acquired their first transmitter from someone they knew called Wiggy who used to be a club promoter for the M25 Orbital Raves and was already involved with a station in London at the time.
The musical output of Pulse in 1993 was mainly Trance based, but the whole output of the station at the time lacked structure, which is quite common for a new station just starting out. In 1994 however that was all to change and the profile of the station was also to be raised considerably within the Portsmouth area too.
In 1994, Pulse FM supported the third annual ‘Smokey Bears Picnic – Legalise Cannabis Campaign’ which was held on Southsea common, where they did a live broadcast for the event. The event itself was not only promoted on air but also by lots of flyers and posters put up around Portsmouth with Pulse FM being advertised on them. The station told people to take their radios along to the event and listen to them while there, the response was quite overwhelming to Radioman & Mars, who turned up to find all that they could hear was the sounds of their broadcast being played by lots of people listening to the station.
After the event, the station started to receive a lot more calls for shout-outs every night. As with all stations, when their profile is raised, the DTI also start to take a much greater interest in them too, this was no different for Pulse. They had to start moving studios to try and avoid being caught, and also employed the use of link transmitters rather than broadcasting direct from the studio, this meant that the main FM transmitter could be located on the roof of a tower block, but the studio in a much lower and different location, something done by most stations of the time.
In this year the station also started to sell on-air advertising to local record and other associated shops. It was at this point the station started to add a greater structure to their output.
Thursdays – Avalon sponsor night with Avalon supplying all the tunes – Goa Trance etc.
Fridays – Our night where the DJ played their favourite tunes and preferred DJ line up, local upcoming talent from Radioman’s DJ agency. DJ Void was a regular.
Saturdays – House night with another regular DJ Mike Knight (who seemed to be loved by the girls!)
Sundays – Old Skool with a trip back to the classic underground tunes, that got us all into it in the first place.
Pulse FM finally closed down in the autumn of 1995, mainly due to lack of time for Radioman. At that time he was very busy with his day to day job of installing lighting into venues etc, running his DJ agency, organising coach trips to London and was running the station too, all of which started to take its toll. He was getting no free time and after a while started to become very tired and knew that it was time to call it a day with Pulse FM.
To finish off, a few words from Radioman himself.
I miss the radio days so much.
I never got to thank my listeners for all their support, so I’d like to do that now. Thank you to all the lovely Pompey people.
Special thanks to the friends that allowed us to broadcast from their homes. Extra special thanks to Wiggy and Mars for all the fun times they gave me.
Long live Pirate Radio.
I used to open every broadcast with the following little speech;
“Evening girls and boys, boys and girls.
This is the Radioman and you’re tuned to the sounds of Pulse ten-seven-point-four fm.
We’re loud! We’re proud! Strong and all night long.
More bass in your neighbours face!
Tune it in and rip the knob off!”
Downloads
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Artwork
Smokey Bears Picnic Flyer 1 – Front – 1994
Smokey Bears Picnic Flyer 1 – Back – 1994
Smokey Bears Picnic Flyer 2 – 1994
Smokey Bears Picnic Flyer 3
Smokey Bears Picnic Stickers
