The RADIO SHIP (192k) - Bringing Back Radio From The High Seas

THE RADIO SHIP Bringing back radio from the high seas. Hear the music, jingles, & original DJ's as if LIVE today. Covers 60s 70s 80s From April 19th 12-00The idea of THE RADIO SHIP came about when I felt the personal need to come up with something to celebrate the 50th anniversary of British offshore radio with t…he launch of Radio Caroline at Easter 1964, but it had to be something original. Radio Caroline has evolved into a great internet station with it's original ties, their are a few other offshore radio station recreations, I couldn't really go down that road with out the threat of standing on someone's toes, that would be very unfair, and it would really only represent one station, so what could I do. While listening to some old recordings of offshore radio I suddenly focused on the DJ's links (Speech) between the songs, their was a style, these REAL radio DJ's created a feel, they captured the moment, it had a kind of magic, a magic that can never be recreated, you had to be there out at sea, at that time, in that moment, and you could feel it again just by listening to the recordings. To just re-run old recordings is already being done, and the recordings would always be the same, same songs, same order, same pops and crackles, fades, distortions etc, because it's a recording! Then it occurred to me that if I could lift the DJ's links, edit them, digitally enhance them, and then drop them into a "LIVE" music log at random, but in there original musical, station and jingle time zones, so 60's 70's and 80's, then like a "LIVE" station it would always be unpredictable. So we had something here, now to refine it. So in the main format hour we would get segways of 60's 70's and 80's songs with generically made DJ and station jingles that match that particular decade. Once an hour their will be a FEATURE link, left much as it was originally, some will be very short, some may run for some minutes. ALL stations that ever broadcast from the high seas will be featured where material is available. Some stations will feature more then others simply because their are more recordings of some stations then others, example being Radio Caroline broadcast during all three decades we are featuring, so their is loads of Caroline material available. So what to name this station? As we are featuring all the stations we can, I thought we need a neutral name, they all broadcast from ships, or marine structures so THE RADIO SHIP seemed to say it all. I had all this worked out in my head around Easter 2013 thinking if I'm going to do this, it needs to be ready by Easter 2014 on the 50th anniversary, but what a lot of work, trawling through hundreds of hours of recordings, and working on EVERY SINGLE LINK! it might be 12 months away, but I would need all that time, was there enough material, if so I need to start work on the project ASAP. Research started, E-Mails where sent, phone calls were made, and we would need Fibre Optic broadband, which I knew was on the way, but would it be ready in time. The VOP was taking up just about all the uplink bandwidth I had, to add another station would destroy them both. Some weeks went by, I had meetings with The VOP team, engineer, website director, production people, and looked at costing's, my bank balance. This needed new computers, the new fibre optic, and day to day running costs, I will pay for the setting up and cover the first year, so a donation button will show up on the website, how much or little its gets supported will determine THE RADIO SHIP'S future. THE RADIO SHIP project was made public on July 1st 2013, the website went LIVE officially on the 7th of July, and the FaceBook page went officially LIVE on 1st February 2014. I started working fulltime on the project around mid July to edit enough DJ links for launch. The editing for launch ended 3rd of February 2014, it was now time to work on the music library. At 14-20 on Monday March 10th 2014 the very first test transmission in the form of a tone was made for The Radio Ship. It came from The VOP ship the MV Cito. Both The VOP & The Radio Ship station will operate from Cito until the new ship MV Freddie arrives in the North Sea, then both stations will transfer to Freddie, and Cito will be retired. Doug Wood THE RADIO SHIP Manager.
http://www.theradioship.net