M.V MI AMIGO: February 1961-June 1962 called MV BON JOUR Radio Nord off the Swedish coast. May 1964 on the air as Radio Atlanta 4 miles off Frinton on Sea UK. Became Radio Caroline South in July 1964. Survived as a offshore radio ship until March 19 1980 when three crew members were taken of by the lifeboat. The old Lady sank in the early hours of March 20 1980 off the Essex UK coast.
mv Bon Jour Radio Nord off the Swedish coast Febr 1961-June 1962
The controlroom onboard Bon Jour. Designed to play prerecorded programmes rather than live broadcast
Jack Kotschack onboard Bon Jour during final broadcast in the familiar studio seen on many Radio Caroline South pictures
Radio Nord was a short lived, but unique radio station, she pionered top 40 format,and introduced the first produced jingles in W Europe as early as 1961. Was the first station in W Europe to use Spotmaster cart machines to play the commercials and jingles.
Louis Chrysander, newsreader in 1961
Radio Nord and the ship M/S Bon Jour 1961-1962 in the Baltic Sea. Told by technicain Lasse Karlsson
Technical descripton of the electronic equipment and how we did it!
The first day of transmission was on the 8th of March 1961. Transmission started at 06.00 and lasted to 24.00 on the frequency 606 kc/s or 495 meter.
Transmitter site was the M/S Bon Jour ankerd at North 58 48,5’ and East 18 24,5’ in the Baltic sea, outside Stockholm in International waters.
There was later a minor change in frequency 602 kc/s to avoid disturbance from the French transmitter in Lyon France.
Aboard the ship there was only one studio and one control room, this was on the main deck of the ship. You had to get true the control room to come to the studio. And to go to the mess room you had to get out on the deck and walk to the door for the room. Outside the control room there was a staircase down to the transmitter room. Two medium wave,10 kW transmitters from "Continental Electronics USA type 316B with a combiner between them. The combiner was to combine the two transmitters to 20 kW and match them to the antenna.
Modulation always was 90 % AM
The antenna was a inverted ground plane antenna where the pole was welded to the ships deck in the bottom and feeded from the transmitter at point where we found 50 ohm. The 4 heavy stay lines functioned as active elements and was tuned with large variable vacuum condensers in the bottom end. The condensers was placed in large orange metal boxes
In the studio aboard the ship there was lots of equipment for the news men.
Two communications receivers "Hallicrafter SX-100 and one "National NC-400. The news crew had to monitor BBC and VOA and other interesting stations. Later came an old teletype machine "Creed" with a demodulator for 50 baud RTTY from the newsagency´s Reuter AFP, AP, UP, UPI, DPA, TASS and HISINHUA.
At the studios in Stockholm there was "Gates" record players and all taperecords was "Ampex".
In the beginning there was only produced tape running from the station. We had 4 pcs of tape-machines "Broadcast Electronics" with pre-recorded music with leader tape between all the tunes. One smaller tape machine was included with a tape of proms and other talk issues. This was run automatically, randomised start of 2 or 3 music tunes and one talk issue.
You could also programme some keyswitches to start the different tapemachines in a special sequence.
Every recorded record had an on-announcement of the name and artist with different announcers voices. On air it sounded like we had more than tree announcers working at the same time.
At the late summer 1961 I was employed as technician and my first job aboard was to re-install the "Gates" mixer board with two "Thoreéns" record players, One smaller "Ampex" tape recorder and two "Spotmasters".
The Spotmasters was a cartridge machine for "advertisement "commercials and proms. There was different times of tape cartridges 10 seconds up to 3 minutes. They where also self queued i.e. they always get back to the start point.
We often used those cartridges for recording new to be transmitted in the night. Often in different version so they should not sound a like.
During the autum 1961 we made more liveprogrammes from the ship and some big prerecorded programs from the studios ashore.
Lasse in the transmitterroom onboard Bon Jour
a Big thank you to Lasse Karlsson for the photos and story of Radio Nord
By May 1964 she was known as MV Mi Amigo and the short lived Radio Atlanta, in July 1964 broadcasting 4 miles off the Frinton Essex UK coast as RADIO CAROLINE SOUTH.
There she is, the Lady in 1965 as Caroline South 4 miles off Frinton
The trawler GY 1355 belongs to the Ross fishing company, called Ross...
Bryan Vaughan in studio 2 during 65 and Carolines Good Guy format. Indeed, the WMCA New York format
Graham Webb in studio 1, the former Radio Nord newsroom
Theres a good guy, young mr Blackburn
February 1966, the Mi Amigo for repair in Zaandam Holland and waiting for 50000 watts
Your dinner record spinner Dave Lee Travis in the rebuilt former studio 2, new mixer built by Dutch engineer Piet Posthumus.April 1967
July 1968, both Mi Amigo and Fredericia in Amsterdam. Silence on 259 until September 1972
June 1973, 4 miles off the coast of Skeveningen Holland. A new mast that would not last
Robin Adcroft, also known as Robin Banks or Robino Banko in studio 1 onboard the Lady. Two old Spotmaster cartmachines and one of the two Gates Studioette mixers onboard. One of the two had been rescued from the Fredericia. The Gates Studioette is an earlier version of the Gates Consolette mixer
The short lived number two mast
Two generators on the stern in July 1973, Flemish Radio Atlantis now paid the bills, Caroline only during the night, and why didn't they clean the back of the bridge
Stern view, early 1974, mast number 3
Summer of 1974, now Radio Mi Amigo paid the bills, Caroline at night, and isn't she looking good.