LOCKDOWN? HELL NO, WE'VE BEEN CRACKING ON!!

These are strange times indeed but we have still been taking care of business.

New Moorings

Nearly every radio ship that ever went to sea has ended up on the beach at some point. It is a worrying prospect. This year we took a deep breath and ordered some monster chain to replace that which we bought over six years ago. It took two full days and some serious tugs and marine equipment to remove the old items and lay new moorings but we are now confident that Ross Revenge is securely tethered to the riverbed on the River Blackwater, near Bradwell, Essex.

New supply Boat Ronan O'Rahilly

The generosity of helper Roland Beaney funded the purchase of an enclosed oil rig lifeboat, that was brought by road from Aberdeen to Essex and taken to a work shed. Various helpers stripped out the boat and Steve Anthony and Peter Moore removed the top. Assisted in the later stages by Pete Crisp and Howard Beer, and rewired by George Johnson and David Noakes. Peter then rebuilt the boat as shown here. In view of the sad passing this year of our founder and figurehead Ronan, we thought it appropriate to name the craft Ronan O'Rahilly. She may have been launched by the time you read this.

Our new supply tender the Ronan O'Rahilly

Caroline Community Radio 94.7 FM

The area around the Ross Revenge was served by community station Saint FM. The operators gave it their best shot for many years and gained a licence to broadcast to Maldon as well as their original area of Burnham and closed down to reorganise. They then concluded that they did not have the ability to start transmissions again without support and sought the help of Radio Caroline who have assisted the project.

Caroline Community Radio will have a power of 200W, unlike the 25W used before, and the voices you may hear will be Ray Clark, Peter Phillips, Johnny Lewis and Graham Bannerman among others. Radio Caroline owns all the broadcast and other equipment previously owned by Saint. This was such an extensive inventory that Pete Crisp and Peter Moore were able to build the studio seen here, with plenty of items left over. Since this is not a 100% Caroline project it seemed unreasonable that Radio Caroline should fund all costs. The start-up costs have been covered personally by Ray Clark, Peter Phillips, Peter Moore and a range of local firms and individuals. Surplus equipment will be used on the Ross and elsewhere or sold to recoup Caroline's expenditure.

Thereafter this station will be expected to self fund from grants and commercial advertising. Radio Caroline's advertisers will be carried at no charge on 94.7.

648 AM

Staff were sent recently to Orfordness to connect the 648 transmitter to one of the 350ft main aerial masts instead of the 160ft standby tower. This has now been done and Alan Beech has applied to Ofcom for an increase in power over the present 1KW. Further work may be needed to make the other full height masts compliment the signal and not absorb or deflect it. The masts required inspection, for which we paid Maxxwave, who did the climbing. This cost was kindly sponsored by Leonard Weldon of Manchester.

Flashback Programmes and DAB

Lawrie Hallet, operator of our Norwich DAB service, has a soft spot for Flashback and shortly Flashback will appear alongside our main channel on DAB around Norwich. Also, and as a spin-off from the community project, we hope to have presented programmes on Flashback during the day on weekdays. Dave Foster and Rob Ashard have completed a dedicated Flashback studio at our main studio in Kent.

Dave Foster test drives the new Flashback studio

ROSS REVENGE Home of Radio Caroline

This is the name of a registered charity that has been under preparation from some time. Previously the ship could not seek charitable status as it had no owner, but that difficulty has been overcome. Recently Paula Shaw and George Johnson applied successfully for a grant from National Historic Ships UK to restore the crew washroom but this of course is a tiny part of the attention the ship needs. It is hoped that charitable status will enable us to secure major funding for dry docking, repair and improvement. We will expand on this in due course.

Schematic showing the new washroom area

Awareness

In spite of the publicity that we always seek, the attention span of the public is fleeting and many still believe that Caroline closed down long ago. If you run a business that mails out goods or paperwork, you might consider including our new A5 flyer with any items you post. The leaflet explains how to listen to Caroline and how to visit the Ross. We will send batches of leaflets direct to suitable applicants. Email sales@radiocaroline.co.uk for info. We hope it will gradually and continually spread awareness that Caroline 'is' rather than 'was'.

The new A5 publicity flier (front and back)