Radio Mi Amigo (those were the days)
Radio has always been a passion for hundreds of people all around the globe, but not every one is able to get involved in a station either pirate or legal.
In the early days of my interest in radio I had applied for jobs on loads of radio stations, I would do any thing from making tea to playing records. The excuse was always the same YOU NEED SOME EXPERIENCE. The problem was where from?
It was in the early 80's well 1982 in fact, I had seen an advert in a copy of Exchange and Mart for a small self build 3 watt FM transmitter costing £15. I made my order the same day and it arrived 7 days later, within 3 hours it was built and amazingly it worked first time. Now I could have my own radio station, at first it never even entered my head that what I was doing was against the law or even more important how much it was to alter my life and the way I lived. All I needed now was a station name, The history of off shore radio to me then was a little bleak I knew about radio Caroline but that was about it. Some how I had on tape a collection of jingles for a station called Radio Mi Amigo. At the time I knew nothing about this station I did not Know if it had ever existed (I know now though). So the station was to be called Radio Mi Amigo and transmitted for almost 2 months on 103 Mhz FM. At this time the out put was still a mighty 3000 mW (or 3 watts) and reception was at a radius of around 4 miles. Soon after the bug was well inside me and I needed more power, A new transmitter had to be found and it was. In the shape of a home made 15 watt job, Boy it looked rough but it worked and transmissions carried on for another 9 months still on 103 Mhz but now we were transmitting to a whole new area still from the same site but we were now heard almost 20 miles away ( we were that excited we nearly had an erection)
It was one warm dry Sunday afternoon in March the the sh*t hit the fan, the DTI had found us and to cut a long story short we were put off the air. It did put the wind up us a little but we still wanted to do radio.
After a little thought it was decided that perhaps we should leave it a little while and just keep the stickers that we had printed as a keep sake. The job now was to remember where the A4 posters were put and fetch them down.
These little hand drawn posters were dotted all around the town, A good idea we thought. People would read them and then tune in. Looking back on it perhaps it did work, But they also notified the wrong people that we were around. Perhaps not such a good idea after all. But like they say you learn by your mistakes and that is one trick we never did try again.
This is a short section of the history of WR International. for more please clickWPGC and read on.
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