Ronan was driven by ' why not '
Ronan was quoting Bobby Kennedy (who was quoting George Bernard Shaw)
Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.
Ronan wanted 558Khz from the outset. So many times he told me ' Hey, baby, 50K on 558
He was badgering Chicago for this in '79 prior to Caroline returning after nearly sinking the previous winter. He was possibly influenced by it being a good frequency as used by Veronica from 72 -74. Laser proved this to be a great frequency, but then they had the antenna for it. I could hear Laser on the underpass by Capital Radio. Caroline on 963 faded badly coming off the Westway.
Apparently Ronan was told by some witches that the fibreglass antenna would solve his antenna problems. Unfortunately witches have a habit of misleading people, think Macbeth.
So it came down to the Aussie who liked to be called Mick Dundee to find secondhand towers in a metal scrap yard
As outlined in your excellent read Butterfly on a wheel.The later masts that worked really well on 558 in the final days came from the Bollands and transported to the ship by The Fish. The signal in 1990 despite what people now say was really quite usuable until Spectrum rained on your parade and the fuel dried up.
Previous Message
I agree,
And from what I was lead to believe a structural team was supposed to have gone out, however through lack of communication which is understandable considering the circumstances, no one was sure it got the maintenance it required after the hurricane, that was not a hurricane.
Plus the size of the mast certainly got it noticed and the publicity it received needs to be weighed up.
Although I take Peter's point, maybe a different structure could have been better and easily maintained. And ultimately the mast collapse was a major blow to Caroline's financial muscle which contributed towards the decline of the offshore operation.
However Caroline's future was never going to be offshore forever. No one had an end game plan to continuation operations into the future.
But I loved offshore radio, it was fun while it lasted and very adventurous for those involved in its survival and I'm glad I was on the planet when it made a difference and although not old enough to remember the original 60's pirates, it gave me an interest in a subject that has lasted all my life. Previous Message
To be fair the big mast was up for 4 years, which is longer than the 60s pirates lasted.The gale was extreme and did a lot of damage to other broadcast antennas, it survived but wasn't given the repairs it needed to survive another 4 years.Because of its size it was capable of putting out the biggest signal of any offshore station.Many smaller masts didn't even last that long on ships, so size is no indication of sturdiness.
Message Thread | This response ↓ 
Aug 19th 1989 - Freddie Archer 19/8/2023, 16:36:33
« Back to index
on 21/8/2023, 20:06:06, in reply to "