Radio10Guld 675kHz and 878kHz (Radio din Guld) through 90's onwards

[FMEnjoyer]

Through the mid/late 90's and beyond I used to listen to 675kHz AM from the UK. I have very fond memories of this station Radio10Guld Sounded like Radio Din Guld in Dutch. It had the best sounding audio of any station I have heard on MW band. Nothing touched it. They played golden oldies but not as boring as UK's capital gold and much wider scope of tracks. They had their own playlist and character. They had good bass and clear audio. Seems they were on 878kHz as well for while.

I actually liked that I could not understand the DJ's so unlike UK stations you did not understand what they were yabbering on about so could switch off and listen to only the music and ads. I can remember they gave the traffic news in "Harlem" and "The Delft" it might have been Arnem, not sure.

No MW station had much highs of course but they had the best MW audio I have heard. I still miss them actually. Warm clear audio with good processing, distortion free. Here is the google search on what comes up

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... io+10+Guld

And a few videos.. I will post tracks that I knew they played and enjoyed they had a good sentimental show on a Sunday afternoon.

In fact someone already did an entire playlist of stuff they used to play, must have been a fan click and go to Youtube and
on the right is a long playlist of classic R10 typical playlist tracks.



DJ's were professional and did not sound too cheesy, maybe that is the benefit form no knowing Dutch.



This guys voice is very memorable, they used to use a bit of reverb like the pirates. It had a bit of a pirate feel.



They still exist but it is online and of course nothing like the real thing for a radio head.

https://www.radio10.nl/

Anyone else remember this European power broadcaster ? I even heard them in Scandinavia on holiday once, though they were weak.

Sad they are not on now really. Anyway just sharing a memory, interested if you remember them ? They would have been very strong all the way down the east coast of UK from Scotland to Kent, even in the day time they boomed in.

[FMEnjoyer]

They were not a pirate, but did have a strong character as a station and played pretty good music for a gold station and had a bit of a pirate
sound to them with the echo on the presenter voice, like being on a boat I guess. They also played these that I can remember:



Song about listening to MW radio at night.......Tom Robinson Atmospherics



Classic Camoflage Stan Ridgway



Funny track





99 Red Baloons

[Albert H]

That's Radio TIEN Goud (10 in Dutch).

828 kHz used to carry "Arrow Classic Rock" for a few years, then they used the 675 kHz for a while. In both instances, the mod was fabulous.

Arrow Classic Rock and Arrow Jazz are still broadcast in parts of the Netherlands on FM, and both are available as web streams.

[FMEnjoyer]

Good one Albert you kicked a few brain cells there with Arrow Classic rock I remember them. I miss those days a lot.
Life appeared a bit more care free and fun compared to today. I know it is easy to think back being younger etc.

I just liked that connected feel with europe tbh, made the world seem a bit closer with the big euro mw stations. I liked also radio sweden on 1179 and dutch intl service 1512 hilversum and the danish on 1062, i listened to a lot of mw back then, belgium down on something like 531

we were more connected back then, now it is social media look at me tripe.

sounded a lot like "ding" to me Albert

[radionortheast]

I once listened to a station think it was on that frequency too, 675, on christmas day about 10 years ago? playing hymns sounded nice, the audio quality was very good on it. Using my original sangean dt-250, later went out in the rain and bust it, its one of the ones I got to listen to my fm signal, i've had loads of pocket radios, it has the best am reception of any pocket radio, also picks up weaker fm stations or picks up the stereo sooner. I also remember years ago a station on 1440khz that had a very powerful signal

[Albert H]

1440kHz was Radio Luxembourg from the Grand Duchy. I worked there in the 70s and 80s for a while. They used gigantic curtain arrays and colossal power to try to cover the UK with a groundwave signal - they ran as much as 5 MW!

Back in the early 60s - before the offshore stations began - Radio Luxembourg was the only way to hear the pop hits of the day played by the original artists. Even so, they used to play just about a minute of some records, because there were restrictions (by the record companies) on them playing records all the way through! The record companies believed that they would lose sales if the music was made available "off air"!

When the offshore pirates began, there were no restrictions on the material played, and record companies realised that they were wrong - radio could actually drive sales! Luxembourg continued, but played complete records! They only broadcast in the evenings in English, because the transmitter was used for a German daytime service (using a different aerial).

RTL also broadcast on other frequencies - the main Luxembourg service appeared on 49m shortwave for some years, and they also ran a couple of Longwave German and French stations. They were also a major shareholder in the Astra satellite project, and were responsible for leasing out the satellite transponders to broadcasters (like Sky TV). Technically, Luxembourg was a pirate, because they never signed up to the EBU, and decided their frequencies for themselves! The Astra satellites were never licenced either - so it could be argued that they're pirates too!

[radionortheast]

I read on wiki they tried to put a reflector behide it (like when beyonce put a ring on it maybe not) but they had to go back to using an older antenna system, it has all since come down. It was so long ago I don’t remember much that went out on rtl, strange that it was aimed else were, wonder if it had any listeners here?, hopefully it wasn’t political, thats something I find creepy about shortwave stations, playing music is fine.
That dose sound like a really old copy protection system playing 1 minute of a song, i’ve heard about when people used to record music and things using microphones think onto tape, it would record all the noise in the backround too amusing, I suppose the quailty durration is not so important when you like something.

[Albert H]

It was dreadful! When the offshore stations broadcasting to the UK started in 1964, it was the first time that real "pop" could be heard any time, without owning the records yourself!

Unfortunately, the economics of operating offshore stations meant that they never really made much money: The only financially successful stations were Radio London, Radio Veronica (Netherlands) and Radio Hauraki (New Zealand). Every other station lost money (or, in some cases, just about broke even).

The 60s pop pirates showed that there was a gigantic audience for that kind of programming - at its peak, Caroline (North and South taken together) had as many as 17m listeners, but this was beaten by Radio London with around 18.5m listeners at its peak. All the others - City, 390, Scotland, and so on lost substantial amounts of money.

There have been other stations from ships (and other offshore structures) over the years - the Voice of Peace in the Eastern Mediterranean, Radio Mercur broadcasting to Scandinavia, REM from an artificial "REM Island" off the coast of the Netherlands, Radio New Yawk International broadcasting (for a short time) from a ship off the East Coast of the USA, and several semi-official political propaganda stations - mostly of American origin - broadcasting variously to Vietnam and Laos, Puerto Rica, Cuba and so on, and usually sponsored by the CIA!

[FMEnjoyer]

R10 Guld might have played this but I am not sure. It had that melancholic "We are all going to die in a nuclear war soon" soon feeling. Which oddly enough has resurfaced the last few years:

[Persona Non Grata]

Back in the early 60s - before the offshore stations began - Radio Luxembourg was the only way to hear the pop hits of the day played by the original artists.

There was also AFN (American Forces Network) from Germany and before the UK got its own offshore stations there was Radio Veronica (Netherlands) and Radio Nord (Sweden). There was the very odd token pop music show on the BBC Light programme the odd sponsored show on Irish radio and (if one didn't mind non-English speaking presenters) similar on various random continental stations (some countries were even more restrictive about playing such music than Auntie Beeb though).

The well worn "Nothing to listen before Caroline" narrative while largely true cant have been 100% so as otherwise nobody would have bothered owning a radio before 1964 (Fun fact: In its first few weeks on air they didn't even play much pop music)

[Albert H]

As I'm a very old fart, I can assure you that the pop content of broadcasting throughout Europe was pretty minimal before 1964. Veronica was a poor signal in much of the UK (except East Anglia), Luxembourg did limited hours (and limited needle-time!) and had an abysmal signal until they re-engineered both the aerials and introduced their new, bigger transmitters. Radio Nord could only be heard (just) in the northern parts of Scotland, and AFN was more interested in Baseball commentaries than music programming! AFN ("Broadcasting to the tri-city area of Frankfurt, Mannheim and Weisbaden") was sometimes audible in the southern Netherlands in the daytime!

The most irritating part of the BBC "Light" programme content was the dreadful cover versions of pop songs of the day by the various BBC regional orchestras. They were truly appalling!

In 1963, I went to the 'States, and heard commercial pop radio for the first time. I was just a kid at the time, but it really made an impression on me. It was slick, brash, loud and really entertaining!