The Gary Stevens appreciation thread

[duncanorak]

Its a representation of what a Veronica rig looked like, with a 2n6080 PA driving a 2n6081 PA, unfortunately Gary didn't have one to photograph, he only had a single 2n6080 PA. There then was another PA box with a 2n6084 in https://80.229.172.103/Garry/Veronica963/ver1.jpg

[FMEnjoyer]

That's fair Duncan, I know GS was handy with a soldering iron and getting a quality stereo station on in reality Look forwards to
a Veronica summer Would be nice to re-live old times a bit. I vaguely recall GS was on Sunday eves, and Brian Schmidt signed off usually. I almost certainly listened to you at some stage. Big L on FM might have been just before my time, along with the first Veronica on 96.3 ineteresting Claybury was mentioned I know that little patch of land used to get walked there as a kid with grandparents.

You never know maybe you and GS were climbing a tree with an end fed or 1/4 wave.

[duncanorak]

I was just a listener back then, though I did run my own station, that no one has ever heard, of in 1981 (Radio Free Enfield) with a rig that my friend bought form Gary. I did regular shows on The Music Machine in the mid 90s.

[FMEnjoyer]

I and a few friends made it as an entry the London Pirate Pioneers book, which I am astonished of, this I why I know the guy who wrote it must have been Anorak No. 1 What we did at the time did about 20 miles in best directions 7 - 10miles in the most built up at a guess, 15W with a 2.5:1 no balun dipole 20 storeys. Got took of by DTI just the once, at least we think it was DTI during show TX. We did not have the funds to keep anything on sadly. Just anoraks with spare change, they still raided us, we were not there of course, after 6 weeks of shows.

Northwards reception gets a bit of a boost towards the north into home counties because of the Lea Valley which is a nice flat cut through London north side, that is what I thought anyway.

[duncanorak]

what station was that?

[duncanorak]

here is the man that wrote that book, were you there on Saturday?

[FMEnjoyer]

Very unimportant what the station was, it lasted 5mins relatively speaking. Drop me a PM if you really wish to know.

[Frequent Lee]

The bottom rig looks like an early Dave Bowman 100W unit.

[FMEnjoyer]

The bottom rig looks like an early Dave Bowman 100W unit.

Good info I don't know any London builders really. Got this going round my brain now, good pop song that a bit like pet shop boys sound at start

[FMEnjoyer]

"Armed with a UHF link transmitter of our own we accessed there main transmitter and invited them to come and discuss the situation over the frequency with us, to which they agreed to do so and accordingly after some time ended up in a very satisfactory situation, where by it was agreed that both Q102, and Veronica would share the channel in order to between us occupy it for much longer periods of time, so therefore jointly keep the channel free of the less desired so called pirates. Q102 and Veronica became a good allies and helped each other when and where ever possible from that point on."

I can recall listening to that conversation live over the Q102 link as I thought it odd that a new station had appeared on 102Mhz, you never knew what you were going to hear.

This got played a few times, fitting into the station name theme

[FMEnjoyer]

It seems Veronica is on here now streaming...

https://102.vze.com/

Although when I listened it did not sound like GS and the other presenters are on there unless it is a matter of waiting for a very long
loop of server audio ? It had some American 'comedy' sketch on it at one point. None of the late 80's 90's Jingles either.

I will keep listening and see if anything sound more familiar. Maybe it is much older Veronica transmissions from early 80s? Maybe Duncanorak knows more about the audio stream origins ? I thought it might have been recordings or original tapes of the FM ..........sailing on 102....... transmissions. I don;t know much about the very early Veronica Supergold. Mainly knew the Pole hill late 80s/90s Sundays from midday 102MHZ.

[Albert H]

here is the man that wrote that book,

A complete wannabe. He used to turn up at some events, and make a nuisance of himself, claiming to be a "Journalist".

Reading through his book, we found a couple of dozen errors in jst the first two chapters, and gave up shortly after that. Most of what he wrote bears a bit of a relationship to what actually happened, but most of it is speculative nonsense - probably made up because nobody wanted to talk to him! A couple of close friends of mine were there, and yet again, he made a nuisance of himself, trying to get information that nobody wanted to give. He's a menace.

[FMEnjoyer]

I don't know the guy other than through his book, which I enjoyed. Not many others about covering a wide range of station info.
You come across as a bit grumpy Albert despite your seeming deep involvement in all areas of radio beyond anyone else's experience.

What other books are there covering the London pirate scene ? Interested in your recommendations.

I think anyone reading would have the brain to understand that it is not an area where solid information from all involved parties would
be 100pct freely available.

[Albert H]

I'm not too grumpy, but some people annoy me.

As to my experience: I started my professional life at a Big Broadcasting Concern, after some of their excellent training courses at their training facility in the west country. I worked there for a few years whilst operating various "alternative" broadcasting set-ups in my spare time!

I then went freelance, set up an electronics design consulting company, and developed lots of products for all sorts of manufacturers. We designed some of the early domestic satellite TV receivers, telecommunications equipment, and broadcast gear (both licit and illicit). I moved back to mainland Europe in the early 90s, and took the larger part of the business with me. We still muddle along, designing stuff for lots of companies all over the planet, and we have a broadcast engineering subsidiary that provides sound broadcasting solutions all over the planet, with a team of roving enginners.

I retired (officially) about 12 years ago, but still lend a hand when necessary, or when it's a project I'm especially interested in.

I have homes in eastern England, in a couple of places in Europe, and a little place (usually inhabited by my brother) in California. I spend about 60% of my time in the UK nowadays because I have other family members to look after.

As to your other question - there aren't any really credible books about the UK land-based pirate scene. The few people I can think of who would be able to write a good book aren't interested in doing it. There are plenty of books about the offshore days, but the land-based stuff was (necessarily) much more secretive!