My first fascination with radio was at about the age of 5(in 1977). I remember the old "Marconi" style radio we had in the corner of the kitchen. It took about 4 seconds to "warm up" before you'd hear the sound level slowly rise. Me being a very curious person would ask "how does the man get into the radio Mom?" You see I used to think there was a man in there because there was a circular shape behind the fabric which I thought was somebody's head. With time (I was fooled for a year or so) I learned there was no person inside. Thanks for telling me Mom. Mom was my engineering resource as a youngster. I used to plague her with question after question. In 1980 we got the World Book encyclopedia. This answered many of my technical questions for years after. But getting back to radio I remember seeing all the foreign city names on the "Marconi" - Luxumbourg, Moscow, the BBCs, Paris and many others. At the same time in the sitting room we had the "hi-fi" brought home from Chicago. A Stradivario record player, 8 track Cartridge player and yes an AM/FM stereo tuner. But the sitting room was usually only used for special occasions. By the way at this time (1980) I was not actually too fascinated with listening to radio. I remember occasionally listening during the Festival of Kerry to Mike Donovan on Kerry Local Radio (FM). On Radio One which was nearly always on in the kitchen I remember listening to songs like "Lanigan's Ball" and "Super Trooper" by Abba blaring out of the old speaker and ads such as "National Aluminium" or "Brennan's Bread". I always remember when my aunts would ask if I listened to Radio 2. I did sometimes but the parents would usually want to turn back to "One".

I got a tape recorder for Christmas and I remember getting such a kick when I "cursed" into the microphone and heard myself played back. I remember hating the way I sounded when the tape was played back. Anyway skipping on three years (1983) we got a Sanyo AM/FM stereo cassette recorder for the kitchen. I remember being so anxious to switch it on and to be able to tape from the radio songs I liked. By this time there were 3 FM pirates receivable in the Tralee area. Phoenix Radio 99FM? of Rock St., KLR 103FM? of Ashe St and WRKY (Rocky 103) of Woodlawn, Killarney (reminants of 'Big L' in Limerick). The latter came in hissy (it was the only stereo pirate at the time) but I remember Rocky 103 jingles were so good at the time that some Sundays I'd listen for hours to hear a new jingle being played. I will have these jingles from my old cassettes put on my Coast 103 site soon in Real Audio stereo. I have a software program that eliminates the hiss whilst maintaining the originnal frequency response. For some reason soon after that I started to tape ads, jingles and songs from radio stations. Coming up to about 1986 which was the real turning point in my love affair with radio I got the opportunity to go to America for 6 weeks to visit Dad and cousins who worked in Chicago for the summer of 1986. By now I was 14 and I remember it was the best holiday of my life. I remember tuning into all the radio stations in Chicago (was this a treat!) I did so much that summer. When I returned to Kerry thing seemed quiet in comparison but I remember just coming up to the Festival of Kerry I remember tuning in to this weak signal FM station. Their telephone number began as (066) 6---- I forget the rest. I found out this was the Killorglin area as numbers in Tralee were (066) 2----. The station was called Horizon Radio which I found out later was the rebirth of Rocky 103. It had jingles too with a good professional sound to it. I remember calling them up one night asking when their signal would be heard in Tralee. The DJ (Francis Jones I believe) said probably some time in the new year. I could only wait. They did eventually set up a "Tralee" transmitter 99FM in addition to their 103FM and big 104FM transmitters. They subsequently moved to Banna Beach 7 miles NW of Tralee getting bigger all the time. They claimed they were broadcasting to Munster. When I went to the University of Limerick some Limerick people said they received Horizon radio up there. As 1987 approached more pirates came on the air namely South West Radio (five transmitters 97, 99.9, 103.3, 104, 105 FM in stereo) in Killarney over 4 counties, Kingdom 102FM (also Killarney had a huge transmitter probably 3000 watts (stereo light lit up on radio but never quite in stereo)) They even had listeners as far away as Midleton, Co. Cork). WCR of the Westering Inn, Fealesbridge, Abbeyfeale, Co. Limerick was never that clear in Tralee. They broadcast on 96FM Mallow?, 98FM (somewhere else) and 102FM (actually 101.3 FM this was there workhorse transmitter, they would actually have interfered with Kingdom 102 otherwise). Most of the stations had their share of English DJs. I never really got into the AM stations but remember hearing South Coast Radio, ERI (both Cork) and Galtee Regional Radio (Limerick) occasionally.

Listen to 10 minute of pirate radio in Kerry in 1987/88 in stereo (no longer available, was at http://www.rice.iit.edu/~kirbbri/pirates.ram) in Real Audio

(To be continued)

N.B. This page WAS available at:
http://www.rice.iit.edu/~kirbbri/csthistory.html
http://www.rice.iit.edu/~kirbbri/coast103fm.html