18. PIONEER STATIONS MERGE

When Radio Atlanta took to the airwaves in the second week of May 1964, Caroline, the first of Britain’s pop privateers, was already claiming seven million listeners. Anchored just fourteen miles from each other, both stations were aiming at the same audience. Talks ensued between Project Atlanta and Ronan’s Planet Productions and on July 2nd the merger between the two stations was announced. At 8 pm on the same day Radio Atlanta closed down for the very last time. In their joint statement Ronan O’Rahilly and Alan Crawford said: "The decision to merge was taken due to the enormous interest from the public and advertisers in parts of England outside our original transmission area. The merger means that we will now cover the most populated areas of Great-Britain and will meet the demands of advertisers in the Midlands & North and from existing advertisers who are already taking time on the two stations”.

The next day the original Caroline ship set sail westward towards The Channel, hugging the coast and broadcasting as she went. On board the dj’s tried to predict at what time the ship would be passing important coastal towns. I remember Tom Lodge announcing “This is Radio Caroline steaming West along the South coast”. I managed to pick up the transmission until the ship passed Penzance, just before Land’s End. It took some four days for Caroline to reach her new anchorage off the Isle of Man in Ramsey Bay. Radio Caroline North continued broadcasting on 197m and Radio Caroline South on 201m, both advertising their spot on the dial as ‘one nine nine’, because it rhymed so well with Caroline. With digital frequency read-outs still far in the future hardly anyone noticed -or cared about- this white lie for euphony’s sake. In Zeebrugge, where I lived, I could receive both Carolines. Caroline South obviously offering by far the strongest signal on the Belgian coast. 

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15. MID-ATLANTIC

A month and a half later, immediately after Caroline signed off at 6 p.m., I heard Radio Atlanta go on the air from the Mi Amigo. She too had been equip­ped at Greenore. The vessel had anchored off Frinton-on-Sea and used the same frequency as Caroline, introducing herself as the “ship that rocks the ocean”. To me it felt as if my Christmases had all come at once. For the first time in my life there was an abundance of pop music available at the flick of a switch; sheer luxury. No wonder that whenever the sun was out beach-goers had their transistors blaring up and down the East-Anglian coast. On the Belgian beaches it was no different.

I remember Bob Scott, one of the initial dj’s on the Mi Amigo, announcing between records ‘You are tuned to Radio Atlan(t)a. This is a test format’. The station’s name was often pronoun­ced without the second ‘t’ by some of the Americans on board. Testing on Caroline’s wavelength after it had gone off the air in the early evening, meant that the newcomer could advertise its presence to a ready-made audience. Regular programmes began on May 12th 1964 using 1493 kHz, 201m, the old Uilenspiegel haunt. In the early days transmissions were between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., but were soon extended to 8 p.m. 

The programmes sounded very mid-Atlantic and a number of maritime-related slogans were used. The dj’s referred to the station as ‘the most on the coast’ and a rather corny sounding ‘the music queen of the seven seas’. The music on Radio Atlanta was distinctly different. Probably because the station's boss, Alan Crawford, gave ample air-time to many cover versions by little-known artists on his Cannon and Sabre labels. Indeed he was no stranger to recreating the hits. Crawford even produced a cover of the famous Fortunes hit ‘Caroline’.

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