Your Favourite Irish Pirate Stations (past or present)

[Dec Wash]

The title is self-explanatory. I will leave that with you and see how many reply.

I may or may not add my own favourites at a later date!

[Fudgebar]

Energy 106.6fm still going strong on the Web. W. A. B. C. From greencastle (past)

[pete1015]

The Red Hot Sound Of Sunshine 101 FM and Radio Nova 738am.

[radionortheast]

Energy 106 obviously, I only heard one another station from there, i’ve read about them in a book the history of irish radio, watched alot of videos of kiss 103.7, remember reading alot of the websites around back in the early 2000’s.

I do think alot of the other stations, the Kiss ones were more commercial, playing pop music of the time. They did have alot of stuff from europe on Energy lot of trance, maybe one of the things that gave it a style, remember it playing blue by efiel 65, a long time before it had come out. The only time I heard mention of it was over hearing a woman on anglogue phone, humming it down the phone, someone else talking about how they would get a fish for tea!. Vocal trance of the time, pop, some people thought was cheesy

I suppose I might of been the only one hearing Energy over here, i’ve never found anyone else, the odd dxer I don’t know, they mostly seemed to log stations didn’t come from the point of view finding something different that you like, spending all day listening glued to it trying to hear it.
It is weird now, were I live I do hear radio nad g on 94.0 weakish alot of the time, alot of the time you don’t get the clear fades on rte, suppose their often boring to listen to, often get clear fades from Energy during the day, 106.6 was clear for a long time which helped it, made it seem more of a fluke, there was always anticipation. You always hoped the reception would hold there was always something good playing on it, on the egde of your seat all the time, I was often thinking of were it was coming from. Good reception depended on high pressure stable weather, making it quite fragile, there was that connection to the atmosphere. There were times when it would build up, getting stronger, that would built the excitement level, wake up one morning it would be strong, my mum would often go in my room and say she'd heard LJ talking. Stations had a physical connection to an anlog transmitter gave stations more of an edge.

I probably do sound like a broken record always talking about it, my parents also liked the music on energy too, had a funny personality to it aswell as the music been good!, LJ would voice over all the adverts too. I’ve got all my old recordings of it, it still does get to me, some of it sounds mighty old now, only part of my life and my parents.
The last time I heard it in the lake district, it came more difficult to hear at home, my dad got me hifi tuner with narrow if's the efort gone too! remember for ages having loud white noise coming throught our car radio, then at enerdale water it just boomed in, the scenery so breath taking, sparse, only this one radio station.
i’ve got recordings from someone else, they were recording from the original vhs they do sounded dated now, vary in quailty, it was amazing in the time, the techical feat of it, never sounded distorted even when it was weak. The distance not something i’ve had, hearing something on a regular basis on fm coming 100kms, you want to hear, the distance it would travel, wish it was still going.

[pete1015]

Energy 106 obviously, I only heard one another station from there, i’ve read about them in a book the history of irish radio, watched alot of videos of kiss 103.7, remember reading alot of the websites around back in the early 2000’s.

I do think alot of the other stations, the Kiss ones were more commercial, playing pop music of the time. They did have alot of stuff from europe on Energy lot of trance, maybe one of the things that gave it a style, remember it playing blue by efiel 65, a long time before it had come out. The only time I heard mention of it was over hearing a woman on anglogue phone, humming it down the phone, someone else talking about how they would get a fish for tea!. Vocal trance of the time, pop, some people thought was cheesy

I suppose I might of been the only one hearing Energy over here, i’ve never found anyone else, the odd dxer I don’t know, they mostly seemed to log stations didn’t come from the point of view finding something different that you like, spending all day listening glued to it trying to hear it.
It is weird now, were I live I do hear radio nad g on 94.0 weakish alot of the time, alot of the time you don’t get the clear fades on rte, suppose their often boring to listen to, often get clear fades from Energy during the day, 106.6 was clear for a long time which helped it, made it seem more of a fluke, there was always anticipation. You always hoped the reception would hold there was always something good playing on it, on the egde of your seat all the time, I was often thinking of were it was coming from. Good reception depended on high pressure stable weather, making it quite fragile, there was that connection to the atmosphere. There were times when it would build up, getting stronger, that would built the excitement level, wake up one morning it would be strong, my mum would often go in my room and say she'd heard LJ talking. Stations had a physical connection to an anlog transmitter gave stations more of an edge.

I probably do sound like a broken record always talking about it, my parents also liked the music on energy too, had a funny personality to it aswell as the music been good!, LJ would voice over all the adverts too. I’ve got all my old recordings of it, it still does get to me, some of it sounds mighty old now, only part of my life and my parents.
The last time I heard it in the lake district, it came more difficult to hear at home, my dad got me hifi tuner with narrow if's the efort gone too! remember for ages having loud white noise coming throught our car radio, then at enerdale water it just boomed in, the scenery so breath taking, sparse, only this one radio station.
i’ve got recordings from someone else, they were recording from the original vhs they do sounded dated now, vary in quailty, it was amazing in the time, the techical feat of it, never sounded distorted even when it was weak. The distance not something i’ve had, hearing something on a regular basis on fm coming 100kms, you want to hear, the distance it would travel, wish it was still going.

https://www.energy106.co.uk/player/ mite be the same station, not hearing audio at the moment tho.

[pete1015]

Energy 106 obviously, I only heard one another station from there, i’ve read about them in a book the history of irish radio, watched alot of videos of kiss 103.7, remember reading alot of the websites around back in the early 2000’s.

I do think alot of the other stations, the Kiss ones were more commercial, playing pop music of the time. They did have alot of stuff from europe on Energy lot of trance, maybe one of the things that gave it a style, remember it playing blue by efiel 65, a long time before it had come out. The only time I heard mention of it was over hearing a woman on anglogue phone, humming it down the phone, someone else talking about how they would get a fish for tea!. Vocal trance of the time, pop, some people thought was cheesy

I suppose I might of been the only one hearing Energy over here, i’ve never found anyone else, the odd dxer I don’t know, they mostly seemed to log stations didn’t come from the point of view finding something different that you like, spending all day listening glued to it trying to hear it.
It is weird now, were I live I do hear radio nad g on 94.0 weakish alot of the time, alot of the time you don’t get the clear fades on rte, suppose their often boring to listen to, often get clear fades from Energy during the day, 106.6 was clear for a long time which helped it, made it seem more of a fluke, there was always anticipation. You always hoped the reception would hold there was always something good playing on it, on the egde of your seat all the time, I was often thinking of were it was coming from. Good reception depended on high pressure stable weather, making it quite fragile, there was that connection to the atmosphere. There were times when it would build up, getting stronger, that would built the excitement level, wake up one morning it would be strong, my mum would often go in my room and say she'd heard LJ talking. Stations had a physical connection to an anlog transmitter gave stations more of an edge.

I probably do sound like a broken record always talking about it, my parents also liked the music on energy too, had a funny personality to it aswell as the music been good!, LJ would voice over all the adverts too. I’ve got all my old recordings of it, it still does get to me, some of it sounds mighty old now, only part of my life and my parents.
The last time I heard it in the lake district, it came more difficult to hear at home, my dad got me hifi tuner with narrow if's the efort gone too! remember for ages having loud white noise coming throught our car radio, then at enerdale water it just boomed in, the scenery so breath taking, sparse, only this one radio station.
i’ve got recordings from someone else, they were recording from the original vhs they do sounded dated now, vary in quailty, it was amazing in the time, the techical feat of it, never sounded distorted even when it was weak. The distance not something i’ve had, hearing something on a regular basis on fm coming 100kms, you want to hear, the distance it would travel, wish it was still going.

https://www.energy106.co.uk/player/ mite be the same station, not hearing audio at the moment tho.

https://www.energy106.co.uk/news/energy ... ?preview=1

[Fudgebar]

It is of air at the moment as it won a dab+ licence. It may start test transmission in December for a full start up in January 25.hopefully they will be back online at the same time.

[Dec Wash]

My all time favourite Irish pirate without a shadow of a doubt was Dublin pirate Capitol Radio/Niteshy Radio which ran from 1983-1988. It started as an album-oriented station and evolved over time into an alternative rock-oriented station. Nitesky Radio was its more alternative-leaning nightime alter ego that was launched during 1986. This also distinguishes it from other pirates before it that also used the name Capitol Radio. During the day, they still stuck in a bit of AOR mainstream rock in the midst of the likes of New Order, The Smiths and The Cure! It was a great station for promoting new Irish bands as well.

My favourite pirate of the 1990s was south Dublin's Coast FM - 1991-1996. To some extent, its musical style was modelled on the aforementioned Capitol Radio. Its owner/operator was Simon Maher, aka Pete Reid. Coast FM had two main categories of presenters: those interested in the rock scene, and those who moved around between various stations to build up their radio experience. Aidan Lynch, aka Paul Clarke, left Coast to form a purer alternative rock station called Alcatraz from north Dublin. There was quite a bit of movement of presenters between the two stations. When Simon followed up with Spectrum FM, which was more alternative-leaning than Coast had been, many of the presenters came from Coast and/or Alcatraz. Spectrum led directly on to alternative-oriented Phantom (1997-2003), which was my favourite pirate of the late 1990s and the early 00s.

[radionortheast]

https://www.energy106.co.uk/player/ mite be the same station, not hearing audio at the moment tho.

I think it was set up fans, dosen’t seem to be there at the moment, I did listen afew years ago it did sound good, making an efort to find new remixes, unforuately I don’t think Lawrence has anything to do with it. Both his own channel and energy 106 tv have not been updated in years, he closed jump radio was his new station.

It is of air at the moment as it won a dab+ licence. It may start test transmission in December for a full start up in January 25.hopefully they will be back online at the same time.

I did think about posting about it, heard about it, it doesn't bring it back, I want Energy back on 106.6

[Dec Wash]

Other pirates worth a mention - all from Dublin.

Late 1970s - early 1980s:
Capitol Radio (from the city centre - not to be confused with the one I mentioned for 1983 on) - It had some interesting evening programming.

ARD/Radio 257 - personality driven

Big D - personality driven


1980s:
*Sunshine Radio - first of the superpirates - initially on medium wave.

*Radio Nova - another game changer among the superpirates - the first big name pirate to emphasise its FM frequencies. This led to many other pirates, including Sunshine Radio, to move to or bolster their FM transmissions. Their "clutter free" music policy and their seemingly professional news service were also pretty unique at the time.

*These particular superpirates had a strong presence of former offshore pirate deejays, including the owner/operators. These were very influential in the development of subsequent pirates (Q102 for example - an Irish owned superpirate, as well as other pirates),and the new licenced stations subsequently.

Kiss FM - sister station of Radio Nova (not to be confused with other Kiss FMs)

Energy 103 - another superpirate that came out of the stable of Chris Cary, the owner/operator of Radio Nova, after Nova had closed for good.

Southside FM - from Dun Laoghaire - loved the variety of programming. '90s pirate DLR reminded me of Southside FM somewhat.

Heartbeat FM - the "love station" - it provided a unique offering

Treble TR - this was the main station in Dublin for country and western music. Not one of my favourites, but it certainly was noteworthy and it was yet another unique station.

[Albert H]

My favourite (way back in the 80s) was Nova. Chris Cary had got me a lot of work (both presentation and engineering) over the years.

One of my best memories was a pretty wild night at Johnny Fox's Pub on the day that Ian H and I had fired up the 88 MHz rig. We'd had no end of problems, and - worse yet - we'd had to go to the 828 kHz site a couple of times because of that rig tripping.....

Both the AM and the FM were pretty huge signals, and both went much further than we expected. A few days after we'd sorted out the AM, I was driving down through France, and could hear the AM well - all the way down to near Marseilles - on the car radio! Unfortunately, 828 kHz couldn't really be heard in southern England, because of the ILR effort on that frequency for Beds, Bucks and Herts (3 Counties?). The MW was also great in northern England, though - Lancashire, up to the Lake District and well into Scotland had good coverage. The 828 kHz was flattened at night overseas by several European stations, but was fine in its target area.

The programming on that ststaion was exceptionally good - Chris only hired experienced presenters. It was probably the most "listenable" of that era.

[Persona Non Grata]

Your Favourite Irish Pirate Stations (past or present)

My own

My favourite pirate of the 1990s was south Dublin's Coast FM - 1991-1996. To some extent, its musical style was modelled on the aforementioned Capitol Radio. Its owner/operator was Simon Maher, aka Pete Reid. Coast FM had two main categories of presenters: those interested in the rock scene, and those who moved around between various stations to build up their radio experience.

Mixed in with the Alternative/rock stuff was a lot of lesser remembered stuff of the 1980's which I used to enjoy. Another good station for the latter kind of music was Magic 105 which broadcast alongside Energy 106 from Monaghan. The music was excellent but unfortunately the signal/reception where I lived at the time was absolutely woeful. It did brighten a lot of long boring drives through mid-Ulster though.

I still tune into Coast FM's successor (8 radio) now and again.

[Dec Wash]

Your Favourite Irish Pirate Stations (past or present)

My own

My favourite pirate of the 1990s was south Dublin's Coast FM - 1991-1996. To some extent, its musical style was modelled on the aforementioned Capitol Radio. Its owner/operator was Simon Maher, aka Pete Reid. Coast FM had two main categories of presenters: those interested in the rock scene, and those who moved around between various stations to build up their radio experience.

Mixed in with the Alternative/rock stuff was a lot of lesser remembered stuff of the 1980's which I used to enjoy. Another good station for the latter kind of music was Magic 105 which broadcast alongside Energy 106 from Monaghan. The music was excellent but unfortunately the signal/reception where I lived at the time was absolutely woeful. It did brighten a lot of long boring drives through mid-Ulster though.

I still tune into Coast FM's successor (8 radio) now and again.

The journey from Coast FM to the current online station 8Radio.com is somewhat more indirect, so not quite its successor as the following will clarify.....

Coast FM, as was mentioned, did have some other non-alternative music too, albeit 1990s rather than 1980s. Aidan Lynch set up an offshoot pure alternative rock pirate in 1994 called Alcatraz from Glasnevin, which I tuned into when I could pick it up and had time. Alcatraz closed first and then Coast FM closed in February 1996.

In July 1996, Simon started up a new pirate called Spectrum FM, a somewhat more alternative-oriented pirate than Coast. The initial line up of deejays were a mixture of the alternative-oriented deejays from Coast FM (most of the others went on to other pirates) and former Alcatraz deejays. Spectrum closed a year or so later, to be followed in late 1997 with Phantom which was more alternative like Alcatraz.

The initial line up of Phantom was mainly deejays who were with Spectrum by the end of its run, including of course many that went back to Coast FM. This became the go to station for alternative rock. A number of new people joined Phantom as time went on - some with no previous pirate experience, but all having that passion for the music they were playing.

Eventually, after various applications for licenses, Phantom succeeded first in getting two temporary 30-day licences in 2003 and 2004, and then the big prize - a permanent license for alternative rock in 2006. Many of the deejays from the pirate days of Phantom (including Simon himself of course!) made it to the legal version, including some others besides Simon who went back to Coast FM. It struggled financially and, after a few years, Communicorp got involved. One of the things they did in February 2011 was to get rid of Simon Maher - the man who started it all! Meanwhile, Phantom struggled on without Simon and eventually in 2014 was rebranded as TXFM before coming to a halt for good in October 2016 - when its l0-year license was due for renewal.

After licking his wounds, Simon set up online station 8Radio.com in 2013. It has also run on temporary licenses most years. While i8Radio.com is largely alternative-oriented, it does give room for individual presenters to put in their own slants on music. Simon is the only constant former Coast FM person (he used to call himself Pete Reid!) . Until recently he was the only one until John Walshe, aka John Deal, turned up as a presenter. Some of the past and presenter presenters (including John) were associated with Phantom when Simon was there. Like Phantom when it was a pirate, plenty of presenters with little experience (maybe some student and/or community radio experience) have been given their chance to shine on 8Radiocom.

You might say that spiritually 8Radio.com is the successor to Phantom in its pirate days (and I suppose its temporary license era!).

[Persona Non Grata]

Another fondly remembered station from my time in Dublin was ABC radio. Again it was one of those stations with poor signal/coverage (only really listenable around the North Inner City) but excellent music. I believe they're still around online and occasionally on FM. They did attempt an LGBT themed second service at one point but it was an idea which was kinda before its time and proved fairly short lived.

Another station I enjoyed more for it's friendly laid back presentation style than the actual music was Freedom 92.

[Dec Wash]

Another fondly remembered station from my time in Dublin was ABC radio. Again it was one of those stations with poor signal/coverage (only really listenable around the North Inner City) but excellent music. I believe they're still around online and occasionally on FM. They did attempt an LGBT themed second service at one point but it was an idea which was kinda before its time and proved fairly short lived.

Another station I enjoyed more for it's friendly laid back presentation style than the actual music was Freedom 92.

ABC Dublin ran as a pirate from about the mid 1990s to the mid '00s. It then went online along with various different offshoots. Over the last few years, ABC's owner has experimented with different offshoots of ABC, including Inner City Country and ABC 80s, on FM as pirates. More recently ABC Dublin itself was put back on FM again on weekends.

Freedom FM ran as a pirate from 1995 to 2003. In 2020, out of the blue, Freedom came back as an online only station. Since 2021, it has run each year on 30-day temporary FM licenses, while being online all year round.

[Persona Non Grata]

Heartbeat FM - the "love station" - it provided a unique offering

I remember an attempted relaunch in the mid-late 1990's which proved short lived. For some reason the audio quality was absolutely woeful (sounded like they were using a scanner instead of a proper link receiver) ?

[Dec Wash]

Heartbeat FM - the "love station" - it provided a unique offering

I remember an attempted relaunch in the mid-late 1990's which proved short lived. For some reason the audio quality was absolutely woeful (sounded like they were using a scanner instead of a proper link receiver) ?

Heartbeat FM eventually managed to secure a 30 day temporary license on FM in 2010. It continues to this day online.

[dancemusicdj]

ABC Dublin ran as a pirate from about the mid 1990s to the mid '00s. It then went online along with various different offshoots. Over the last few years, ABC's owner has experimented with different offshoots of ABC, including Inner City Country and ABC 80s, on FM as pirates. More recently ABC Dublin itself was put back on FM again on weekends.

Freedom FM ran as a pirate from 1995 to 2003. In 2020, out of the blue, Freedom came back as an online only station. Since 2021, it has run each year on 30-day temporary FM licenses, while being online all year round.

Freedom also did a stint as an online station from around 2011 to about 2013/14 as freedom92fmonline. It was automated with voice tracks and used the last jingle package they had as an fm pirate. Played a mix of 90s 2000s and current hits.
The ABC people had a few different offshoots, gold fm and beat fm which i think shared 87.6? Gold was on weekends possibly as i only remember beat fm. Kiss fm 93.8 and the LGBT station might have time shared also but they were a bit before my time.

[pete1015]

i never heard many Irish stations apart from sunshine 101 and super Q102, but i once heard radio west on 100 FM wiping out Q102's 100 FM transmitter here in walkden in 1988, i told my cousin who lives in Dublin about it but he didn't know what i was talking about..lol

[pete1015]

i never heard many Irish stations apart from sunshine 101 and super Q102, but i once heard radio west on 100 FM wiping out Q102's 100 FM transmitter here in walkden in 1988, i told my cousin who lives in Dublin about it but he didn't know what i was talking about..lol

i did hear club FM on 106.4 from Dublin in the 90s tho.