Gold AM and Referendum Radio
In the late 1980s and again in the 1990s, the ship Kowloon, previously known as Shanghai Moon, was at the centre of two offshore broadcasting projects that ultimately never reached the airwaves. The vessel was first prepared for the commercial station Gold AM and later considered for a political broadcaster known as Referendum Radio. Both projects involved installing powerful medium-wave transmission equipment on board and positioning the ship off the British coast.
The Gold AM Project
The Gold AM project—also known as Project Moon or the Bacardi Project—began in 1987. A company called Worldwide Broadcast Consultants, which included Paul Rusling, was contracted to install a complete AM radio station on a ship owned by a US-born resident of the Bahamas.
Worldwide Broadcast Consultants advised on sourcing a suitable vessel and on the selection of the associated radio equipment. The ship chosen for the project was the Kowloon, formerly Shanghai Moon.
The installation included:
a 100,000-watt medium-wave transmitter manufactured by Nautel
two Caterpillar generators, each rated at 400,000 watts
A licence for the station was issued by the Liberian Consul.
Work on installing the transmitter and generators took place in Port Everglades, Florida, located between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. After the initial technical work was completed, the ship moved to Freeport Harbour on Grand Bahama, where additional fitting-out was carried out.
During this stage the ship was equipped with:
two full broadcast studios
a newsroom
a state-of-the-art automation system manufactured by Radio Computing Services (RCS)
The automation system was installed by Rusling. At that time his family moved to Grand Bahama Island, where they lived for almost a year while the work was carried out.
The operating team for the station consisted of:
a ship’s crew of seven, and
eight disc jockeys and engineers
These personnel were retained on full pay for more than six months while preparations for the station continued. They were accommodated at the Xanadu Beach Resort & Marina, a five-star hotel.
During this period several prominent figures from the music business visited the project. Among them were a number of pop-industry executives and a former member of the The Beatles who was known to be interested in radio.
Despite the extensive preparations, the station never began broadcasting. The wealthy owner received legal advice from lawyers in London advising him not to advertise his drinks products through an offshore radio station. As a result, the project was abandoned.
The ship and its equipment were mothballed. The crew and DJs received substantial pay-offs and were promised further work if they agreed not to discuss the station.
Rusling later used the profits from the project to establish the Haltemprice Herald, one of the first full-colour newspapers in England, and to expand his business activities into Germany and the Netherlands.
The station Gold AM had been planned to broadcast on 711 kHz, from a location 22 miles north-east of North Foreland.
The Referendum Radio Plan
In May 1996, Worldwide Broadcast Consultants learned that the ship and its equipment had been sold to British multi-millionaire James Goldsmith.
Goldsmith intended to use the vessel to launch Referendum Radio, a station designed to broadcast political messages to Britain. The purpose of the broadcasts was to support the campaign of the Referendum Party, which was calling for a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should join the European Monetary Union.
The Kowloon was moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where additional technical work was carried out to update the radio facilities. Former employees of Nautel worked on the transmitters.
A sophisticated communications system was also installed. This system would have allowed live programme contributions from Goldsmith in the United Kingdom using the digital GSM cellular network, with the audio transmitted to the ship via a satellite link.
The British Department of Trade and Industry began investigating reports that the vessel might sail for the North Sea to begin broadcasting to the United Kingdom. Officials from the British Embassy monitored the ship while it was in harbour being repainted.
However, the ship was prevented from sailing to Britain in time for the 1996 General Election, and the plans for Referendum Radio were abandoned.
Later Developments
In 1998, the transmitters were removed from the ship. Part of the equipment was later used at a radio station in Buenos Aires.
Although both Gold AM and Referendum Radio were extensively prepared, neither station ever came on the air. The ship Kowloon, once fitted with powerful broadcasting equipment, therefore remained part of two ambitious offshore radio projects that ultimately never materialised.