Radio Rag from the Carmen
Taken together, the history of offshore radio amounts to well over one hundred failed projects. On this occasion I would like to mention a few that were written about during the 1960s. One of these projects was said to involve “Leeds University”, although the name “Radio Rag” was also used. The initiators planned to broadcast programmes for several days — between 21 and 24 June 1964 — from the yacht Carmen in international waters off Harwich.
A local newspaper further reported that three members of the crew had gone ashore again due to seasickness and that nothing had been received on land by anyone. It was not until 1988 that I myself came across a number of reports relating to this project in a newspaper archive in England. These showed that it was a project which bore all the hallmarks of the 1960s and the movement of critical students.
One newspaper reported that the students intended to provide anti-apartheid programmes alongside music. Their vessel was a 26-foot dinghy which was to be towed out beyond Harwich. Three men went to sea with a small transmitter on board but were forced to retreat back into harbour after an attack of seasickness. They intended to use the 197-metre medium-wave band for their programmes. The following day the three, all aged 19, decided to venture offshore once again. The report also stated that the students of the University of Leeds had been unable to receive their own broadcasts, although a radio amateur had heard something.
The plan was to anchor the dinghy in the vicinity of the ships of Radio Atlanta and Radio Caroline. That same day, a Saturday afternoon, they returned to Harwich because conditions aboard their red “yacht” had become unbearable. Another newspaper reported that on the Sunday a replacement crew had signed on, making it possible after all to broadcast the programmes. They too ran into difficulties when the anchor was lost. By securing the ship, the Carmen, to a buoy, they claimed to have broadcast programmes for five hours on 197 metres. If they did indeed broadcast, it must have been at very low power, as no one — apart from the previously mentioned radio amateur — heard the programmes.
Rhodesia
On 19 April 1966 the first reports appeared concerning a plan by the British government in which it considered launching a major propaganda offensive against the Rhodesian government of Ian Smith, as diplomatic measures against Smith’s apartheid policies had had no effect. The use of radio ships was contemplated because the British radio station in Bechuanaland was not functioning satisfactorily. Prime Minister Wilson was said to have arrived at these plans after a meeting with his full Cabinet, reinforced by the British ambassador to South Africa, Sir Hugh Stephenson, and Wilson’s special adviser on African affairs, Malcolm MacDonald.
At the meeting it was decided once again to appeal to the then South African Prime Minister, Verwoerd, to cease supporting oil shipments from South Africa to Rhodesia. The radio station in Bechuanaland had been established several months earlier to relay BBC World Service broadcasts. However, the effectiveness of these transmissions had been greatly reduced by Rhodesian jamming operations. Some months earlier, Wilson had already stated that he was considering an offshore station off the coast of Mozambique, along the lines of Radio Caroline.
It must be assumed that these plans were not taken very seriously. The government of Ian Smith did, however, react seriously and stated that if an offshore station were to appear, he himself would deploy a ship in the Indian Ocean to act as a jammer. He went a step further by approaching Ronan O’Rahilly, the director of the Caroline organisation, to advise him to equip a broadcasting ship, in return for which Caroline would receive major advertising contracts from Rhodesia. Ronan refused to engage with these proposals. A similar request was then made to the organisation of Radio London, to which director Birch and his colleagues did not even respond. ZAPU, the Rhodesian African nationalist party, also declared that it wished to deploy a broadcasting ship in the Indian Ocean to transmit anti-government programmes.
Smith’s idea involved a station that would broadcast beat music interspersed with news bulletins and propaganda programmes. He stated that a civil servant had been sent to Europe to negotiate the purchase of a ship and that the transmitter would be so powerful that the whole of England could be reached. The ship would sail under the flag of a nation friendly to Rhodesia, as the British Navy would otherwise immediately board and seize a Rhodesian vessel.
At the time, the British government stated that it was very concerned about Smith’s plans, and a spokesman declared that it did not know how broadcasts from such a station could be prevented. None of the projects mentioned ever came to fruition.
Russia and China
With the Voice of the People’s Liberation Army, we gradually enter the 1970s. In 1970, the previously described VOA projects, in which propaganda was mainly broadcast via radio ships, were taken over by the Soviet Union in its struggle against the Chinese government. In that year, various newspapers reported on the equipping of no fewer than four ships for this purpose, which was said to be taking place in the port of Gdańsk in Poland.
At that time the port of Gdańsk was off-limits to Western journalists, and the truth could not be established by any means. Reports did state, however, that the ships were to be equipped with very powerful short-wave transmitters. In 1971, various DX programmes and DX magazines once again reported on the broadcasting ships, which were said to serve as the basis for propaganda stations operating under the name “The Voice of the People’s Liberation Army”. Reception reports were logged on 15,050 kHz, with the Chinese being “instructed” in the English language by Soviet authorities.
Much later, in 1979 and 1980, another anti-Chinese station, “October Storm”, was said to have broadcast from the China Sea.
Radio Flash, named after a Chinese newspaper for intellectuals, was the station of Radiodiffusion Central and Popular of Peking. During 1983 this station was active daily for several months at various times on 7,225 kHz. It is suspected that, from the same ship, broadcasts were also made under other names and on other frequencies with anti-Chinese propaganda, in order to suggest that yet another new station had appeared.
In addition to propaganda purposes, broadcasting ships were also used to convey religious messages. For example, in 1970 the Reverend Gerard Toornvliet allowed his — pre-recorded — voice to be heard via the station Capital Radio from the MV King David. This lasted only a short time, as the ship ran aground near Noordwijk in the autumn of 1970. For Steph Willemsen, this did not mark the end of producing idealistic programmes. In 1972, he purchased the MV Zeeland for fl. 30,000, with the intention of using the ship for a similar idealistic station, Radio Condor.