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It was a dream of most "Free Radio" fans, The thought of one day standing on the deck of the good ship "Ross Revenge".
Well I can tell you that many have done that very same thing including myself and other members of the WR International team.
The famous ship that was home to the mother of off shore radio was moored up in London's Dock lands close to Canary Wharf. It was during one of carolines RSL (restricted service licence) broadcasts.
OK so she may not have been in the middle of the English Channel but it WAS Caroline and she was on the air. I remember it well it was a nice warm Sunday, This photo was taken at around 12:30 in the afternoon. The first thing we had to do was sit on those seats and pause for a photo. In the back row you can see my self (Dave Jones), Paul Kay and in the front Dave England (no longer a presenter on WRI). But still he does have an active interest in the station although it is now behind the scenes, Dave England was the original Founder of WR International way back in the early 1980's. In those days the station was on air once every two weeks and only on FM, with the call sign " WCR".
As you can see by this photo Radio Caroline was transmitting on 87.7 Mhz FM/VHF. I remember the signal on the out skirts of London was great we were able to here Caroline with good reception as we travelled down the motor way and into London. The dock lands were not hard to find they were sign posted really well, But as you got nearer and nearer the presence of some thing unusual was obvious. The whole area was filled with parked cars and "Anoraks" walking around with radios (all recording) and cameras of all sorts.
The audio quality from the FM transmission was so good it was unreal, the sound was rich and clear. The bass sounded great even from the cheapest radio set. I had never in my life heard an FM station sound so punchy and alive, The sound just punched you in the face. This was obviously due to the way the processor was set up in the audio racks (pictured). As you can see in the photo the Optimod AM processor is sitting on the top, under that is the Optimod FM and underneath that the silver box with the VU meters is the processor used for the short wave. This unit was situated next to the remains of the Ampliphase AM/MW transmitter last used on 558 Khz. We were able to look into this now almost empty cabinet and look at the mess the officials left it in after the act of piracy out at sea.
Whilst having the grand tour of the ship we were taken into the Generator room to look at the massive 3 phase diesel generator that ran the transmitters and some of the ships power including the studios. Walking around the ship we were able to see the crews cabins (not a nice site) the kitchen facilities, the laundry rooms, the record library and the studios.
Shown here in this picture is the Production studio, used for recording programs, Trailers and the odd commercial.
This is a picture of Studio 1 on the Ross Revenge, In view is the well know Gates mixer board with those rotary faders, and the blue turn tables with modern tone arms and cartridges.
Next to Studio 1 was Studio 2. We were told that Studio 2 was the better studio and as the Dutch were paying for the use of a studio then they had number 2. This was the Radio monique Studio fitted out with a nice mixing panel (slide faders), a cart machine 3 units high and two Technics SL 1200 record decks, at the time of this photo being taken the studio was being used to record a program to go out on air later in the evening.
I hope these photos have been of some sort of interest to you, I must tell you that our day on board the Ross Revenge was very enjoyable and the members of the crew on the ship were very pleasant and extremely friendly, Nothing seemed to be too much trouble for them. It was a great day and I would like to thank the guys for entertaining us on the day.

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