| . |
I think I am from the last of my generation that made crystal sets with their dad. I can still remember the magic of hearing The Beatles played on Wonderful Radio London through ex-BBC high impedance headphones. The rest of the set being just a coil wound on a toilet roll, a germanium crystal diode, a variable tuning capacitor, and a 1000pf decoupling capacitor, of course, there was the aerial, a 50ft length of wire out of the bedroom window to a tree and the earth connection to the cold water pipe. No batteries, no power….FREE radio!!!!.
Just fantastic.
1967 came and Harold Wilson closed down the offshore pirate stations. I remember being in the sixth form centre at Heath Clark Grammar School in Waddon, and seeing a girl crying at the lost of Big L. Then the talk around all the Croydon schools was about Radio Helen on 197 metres. Land based pirate radio station. I had to be a part of this.
Having played around with crystal sets, people thought I could build a transmitter. Luckily for us budding radio enthusiasts, Croydon had several radio junk shops where we could get cheap parts. Sadly, all have now gone, the largest of which was an emporium called Huggett’s, which was run by Tom Huggett and his wife. She was always amused that I kept my money in my sock because my jeans or bright red loons were so tight, I could not use my pockets.
My first attempt to build a medium wave transmitter resulted in a burnt hole in my bedroom carpet. I had copied a design of a marine transmitter but had failed to appreciate that it was designed to run off a DC supply on a boat and not the AC mains…..no thought of rectification and smoothing, result; big bang.
Before I had success with my own build, I met up with Andy Mac the technical brains behind Radio Helen.
Through contacts, girls at my school who had been on dates with boys from other schools, I eventually met up with guys from Selhurst Grammar School and the Norbury area who were involved with the Radio Helen network. By this time, the Helen network was starting to fall apart. The principle was fine, in that each station transmitted for half an hour and then pasted on to the next. The reality was that it often ended up in chaos for many reasons; technical breakdowns, one station not hearing another, etc, etc.
I teamed up with two Daves from Norbury, one of whom knew Andy well and he gave us what was the largest of the Radio Helen transmitters and we hit 197 metres as Radio Active. Andy subsequently went to study engineering at Hatfield and I believe became a television transmitter engineer. Does anybody know of his whereabouts these days? If you do, please email us.
Around 1970, I built my first transmitter which we used at times throughout the 1970s under several different names. I went to South Bank Poly and London University to study what was known then as Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Other than listening occasionally and running a couple of Rag week radio stations, Radio Elephant being one. I lost contact with the radio scene. Radio Elephant nearly got busted, I never got to thank the Radio Jackie people that saved our bacon that day in 1974. I did however visit the Radio Jackie studios in 1985 between the raids that eventually closed them down. The studios were above a car hire company in Worcester Park. I went upstairs to find many listeners giving their support to the Jackie crew who were working with a thrown together set up knowing that a second raid was imminent. They kept apologising for the poor sound quality and saying how good it had been before the raid. After a while, I left to visit the transmitter site at a house half a mile away. The situation was tense to say the least, the guys were sitting in the front room just waiting for it to happen. I asked if they had an escape plan and was told "Nope, whats' the point?". About an hour later they were raided and Radio Jackie was gone. It was good to see them return legally 17 years later or so on 107.8fm.
After the Jackie raids, I lost interest until 1999 when I think out of frustration, with Capitol or some other station I was listening to in my van. I put the radio onto scan across the am band. It was late on a Sunday night driving through West Wickham, near Bromley, when the radio stopped on 819khz and I heard the Radio Jackie theme, I could not believe it. It was a guy doing an Anorak programme on Radio Free London. I thought, RFL after all these years, there are still old dogs like me out there still doing it and it sounds great. My enthusiasm had been rekindled. Luckily I still had a lot of parts and equipment stored in the basement and so 18 months later, Enigma hit the airwaves, to controversy, on 819khz . Although RFL had unfortunately closed down 9 months before, ex-members of RFL were set to return under the new banner of Swinging Radio England, hence our move to 846khz. RFL, as I heard it around 1999, was the inspiration for starting Enigma and I have always thought it was a great shame that it closed down.
Enigma, as the name implies, is a puzzle of a radio station, no set programme format. Expect to hear anything from the last 50 years. Enigma was born out of my frustration with bland computer generated Gold stations. If you want to hear the House of the Rising Sun for the nth time, Enigma is not for you. In the 1970s, we would be fighting for free radio, now I see Enigma fighting for not only free radio, but also for real radio. That means records, CDs and a presenter who can plan and have total control of his programme. Unlike many radio stations nowadays where the presenter is compelled to play tunes from a playlist on a computer. Enigma is also free from adverts, the cost of the station is financed by its operators. During the week, I often listen to the excellent LBC 97.3fm, however, I am often chased away by the over compressed and therefore annoyingly loud repetitive adverts that invade the programs. I escape to BBC Radio Two and the likes of Jeremy Vine.
When Enigma first started, Dave Wareham, a friend from the 197 metre days was my main man. I am sure if it were not for the fact he lives in the West Country, he would still be involved. Because of this, he never heard his programme on the air.
Chris Day is now the main contributor, he is a real off shore radio anorak.
The ultimate radio presenter in my opinion would have the communication skills of Johnnie Walker, be as diligent and caring about music as John Peel and have the inventive genius of Kenny Everett. As for me, Badger, I do not see myself as a DJ, I am just an engineer with a large and quite strange record collection, which is ever increasing. Doing it the hard way with records and CDs, means that my programmes are not without mistakes. To err is human and I feel it adds to the charm and feel of the station. So if you are not a automaton and are bored with the sterile automated radio offered by many of the large broadcasters these days, keep a ear on 846am on Sundays, you may get to hear us.
Badger
Chris Day
I’ll start in the sixties. I was spoilt as a child, having chemistry sets, Mecano by the truckload, dinky toys and anything else I wanted, that being my crystal radio to listen to Luxemburg and AFN.
Being a gadget boy, I rigged up a sound system (I should say bodged!) using two odd Garrard decks wired together through one amp; ex-army
speakers wired together with sound coming through nil ohms and 5 watts…Great!!
Did you ever have a system like it? All this took place in my cosy chalet at the bottom of the garden (we had a guest house and there was never a spare room for me!) It also entailed having 30ft of wire along the fence for an aerial. Then I hit the
Big Time when my Dad bought me a radio with a camera built in. I’ve never seen one since. It could pick up anything – Radio England, Caroline, London – you name it, I heard it.
So with my love of music and a deep desire to be a disc jockey firmly embedded, I began entertaining the school on rainy lunch breaks, playing pop music and snippets of reel to reel recordings from Caroline and London (jingles). This was all done on two black box record players!!
It was an all boys school, so we smuggled the girls in from the school opposite – and got caught every time!!!
I progressed to playing at my local youth club three times a week. I thought I was so smooth turning up in my rusty Zephyr 4 with my records and double-deck system which had no start button and only rotary controls…Wow!! I didn’t ‘t utter a word on the mike for eighteen months until one evening we had visitors from another club – even then all I could mutter was “here’s a record” and “that was a record”!!!
My life changed when I saw a DJ from Radio Caroline south ship in action. I was in awe and something inside me clicked and I knew this was going to be my vocation.
I bought my first proper decks (F.A.L. 100s and lights) and thought I was the dog’s bollocks! I got more and more cocky (as you do when you’re a Superstar!!) and bought numerous lights and Citronic decks. Needless to say the Zephyr had to be replaced by a van (ex GPO van in yellow!) I got some very interesting gigs apart from weddings and parties.
One in particular was as warm up for The Troggs at Clacton Town Hall. It was a good night and a laugh interviewing them. I do believe that’s where I go my first whiff of a spliff!!
I took over at Butlins from Larry Marshall who left quite suddenly and felt as though I have been pushed to stardom!!
I have met many famous DJs including Robbie Vincent (I played at his 40th), Dave Lee Travis (whom I had to ask to remove his cigar from my deck!), Pat Sharp (did an opening night with him) plus many others from The Pirates.
Nowadays I’ve gone from ‘Big Chris Superstar DJ’ to ‘Big Chris pipe and slippers’!!
