RJR 98.3

[famefm]

I see don't test is off now and 98.3 has the right station back on the long standing community station from Tottenham

[teckniqs]

Yeah it went off a good month or so ago and it badly hurt their signal.
They aren't in Tottenham they are a bit further to the west.

[famefm]

I'm not sure if this station used to be revive fm and they were a break away from the old JBC with help from the original RJR?

[teckniqs]

I'm not sure, I heard they'd been running as long as since the 80's but as far as I'm aware RJR on 98.3MHz only appeared within the last 10-15 years.

[famefm]

I don't think it's the original mybe one or two djs it could be a mixture of JBC as well?

[famefm]

Apparently this incarnation of RJR is 19 years old

[teckniqs]

If that's so then what frequency was it on at the time?
Exactly 19 years ago there was a Reggae station from east London on 98.2 called GFM and if my memory serves me correctly used the same builder as RJR do today and he lived in the same local area as where they are now around that time...
So if they were on 19 years ago they were definitely not on 98.3MHz or coming from the same location as they do now because I was very familiar with what was coming out that area at that current time living only 2 miles up the road.

[famefm]

This version of RJR used to be revive fm 18 years ago before they changed to RJR and used to be on 92.2

[teckniqs]

Yes I remember 92.2 very well. It's always come out of the same area, not Tottehham.

[Effemm]

Seem to remember them on 89.8,ish, defo to the left of TKO who were on 90.6, they had a couple of splits, City Radio was formed first then WNK arrived... Fair play to these lot, carried it frwd from JBC who were early Pioneers to the SOca n Reggae scene back then.

[famefm]

I think the original 1986 RJR was on 90.0 fm?

[teckniqs]

That's going back a bit before my time, but according to this interesting list of what was on the dial in 1987 it appears you are right!
...It also lists them as 'North London' so they may well have originally came from Tottenham, but as for 92.2 and 98.3 that's north west London.

http://www.amfm.org.uk/tx/tx15/amfmlist.html

[famefm]

You are right it was only the original that was in Tottenham and the old JBC was nw 10 and towards the end of 1986 I was going to work on tko 90.6 and I went to a meeting with them but it was far to far to travel from the west and I also knew the legal WNK and had they been 24 hours they may have lasted?

[teckniqs]

I don't know how they all get away with it around there but they have for years and years! ....Some of those scaffolding towers have been up for decades, I remember going there nearly 20 years ago and it was like it and it's just the same now but some of the aerials poles seem to have quadrupled in size, lol!

[famefm]

Maybe they turn a blind eye to some of them they are very well behaved on air no bad language or with the music as well and possibly the powers that be probably realise that there's been an injustice with a lack of a proper black community station in London?

[Albert H]

No. They realised that it was a way of "keeping" the peace.

There's a (probably apocryphal) story about the DTI returning gear to RJR on the night of the Tottenham riots (when PC Blakelock was murdered) so they could go back on and hopefully quieten things down....

[famefm]

No the riots where over a year before RJR first started

[teckniqs]

I'd be quite interested to hear some old recordings of London's longest running pirate R.J.R back from 30 years ago.

[famefm]

I couldn't pick them up in those days but I do have horizon solar and tko recordings somewhere?

[Albert H]

No the riots where over a year before RJR first started

OK - whatever the predecessor to RJR was.....