The second phase of Radio Veronica, following
Veronica 96.3 would be known as Veronica Super Gold, and started in the June of 1988. This
phase of my Land Based Broadcasting was about to get well noticed by both the Radio
Authorities, and also by the then many ILR stations.
The story begins shortly after the closure of Hits FM which had closed down just some few
months earlier. When a small team consisting of Steve Roberts, Brian Smith, and myself
took a 50w transmitter that I had built especially on 102 Mhz for this use, up to Pole
Hill in Chingford, Essex. We installed the transmitter and aerial at a point which over
looked most of London. At 1pm on this particular Sunday after noon Veronica Super gold
made its first test transmission. On hearing Radio Veronica testing, Mike Andrews, Tony
James, Stewart Ross, Mike St John, Nigel James, Rusky, and the rest of the team that had
helped run Hits FM all wanted back onboard so the station was born, just the way Steve
Roberts, Brian Smith and myself had predicted.
Transmissions from Pole Hill continued for some 6 weeks or so. At this point we decided to
move to a tower block in Walthamstow, East London known as White Beam Tower. The
Transmitter power was then increased to 100w and fed into a
J type aerial with a 3db gain, hence an ERP power of 200w. From this location we were able
to put a strong blanket coverage signal in stereo over the whole of London, and well
beyond. The programmes were linked to this site on band 3 from Brian Smiths then home in
Silver Street Edmonton, an address that would become well known to the DTI! Ironically
though never to be raided by them. Thanks to their recognition that we were truly just
Anoraks, running a none profit making station that they themselves admitted to listening
to, all of this was to be later confirmed to us in a phone call to DTI re. the situation
below.
Veronica Super Gold was however about to receive a series of main transmitter site raids,
owing to the fact that the then Chiltern Radio was about to adopt the idea of its medium
wave outlet becoming an oldies station and ironically choosing the slogan Super Gold.
Clearly having heard us and wanting to adopt the name realizing that as a pirate we had
not registered the name, and hence chose to adopt it, and then afterwards having the
audacity to complain to the DTI that we had to be removed because we were getting them bad
PR. All of this was confirmed to us by parties who for there benefit even at this stage in
time will remain unnamed, as is only fair to them! Veronica was on air by now on a regular
basis for a few months until around November '98. After receiving half a dozen or so raids
in as many weeks, and losing just as many transmitters, we decided to suspend
transmissions for a few weeks until we could change the situation slightly. A move to a
different location was one of the changes, the chosen site was to be the Chingford Hall
Estate in East London. Another change was to drop the name Super Gold and to change the
name to Veronica 102 because our investigations had by now told us of the Chiltern Radio
involvement in our being taken off air so regularly. Even although the name Super Gold had
been originally thought of by our own Steve Roberts and used by us firstly at a time when
Capital Gold had just taken to the air well before Chiltern had even split its MW and FM
transmissions!
During the few weeks that we had been off air another pirate radio station, known as Q102
had appeared on our frequency of 102 Mhz, to which we were not best pleased as we were
about to re-start transmissions of Veronica. So we set out to trace the UHF link that Q102
were using to link there programmes to there main transmission site, a tower block in
Leytonstone, East London. Armed with a UHF link transmitter of our own we accessed there
main transmitter and invited them to come and discuss the situation over the frequency
with us, to which they agreed to do so and accordingly after some time ended up in a very
satisfactory situation, where by it was agreed that both Q102, and Veronica would share
the channel in order to between us occupy it for much longer periods of time, so therefore
jointly keep the channel free of the less desired so called pirates. Q102 and Veronica
became a good allies and helped each other when and where ever possible from that point
on.
To sum up Radio Veronica it has to be said that not only was it great fun to run but it
proved to be more than just the average land based pirate station during its time on air.
Ironically the name Super Gold is now used as a national radio name. It's good to know
that such large setups should look to us then land based pirates for there much needed
inspiration. In a way I guess a small tribute of our achievements.
Another irony during our time as Veronica, was that because we largely played oldies form
the 50s through to the then current hits, a well known Capital Gold DJ from a better time,
often made reference to Capital Gold being the men with the music, not the Boys with there
toys!
During my time with the Offshore Radio project some of the back room staff from Capital
Gold came out to visit us and when I was introduced to them as presenter Garry Stevens,
they then asked was I the same one from Veronica 102 and accordingly went on to tell me
how they in the past would hear certain presentation staff at Capital Gold listing to
Veronica and indeed getting ideas from us! At this point they went on to confirm the very
"The boys with there toys" story. Also that they new of the problems we had re
the Chiltern Radio irony. So once again I guess it can be said that Veronica Super Gold /
102 has indeed to this very day left its mark on British Broadcasting.
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