Radio anoraks are so easily led and have been fodder across the years for some pretty outrageous ripping off and false beliefs. To this day, a whole batch of them will still talk about “L.A.” (“Loving Awareness“) as if it is some kind of real philosophy or unique religious or spiritual experience that only the few hundred listeners to 1970s Radio Caroline were suddenly blessed with.
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| The ‘Mebo II’, broadcasting RNI’s subversive signals across Europe |
Earlier than the false belief in “Loving Awareness” were the lies and deceit that surrounded an early 1970s pirate station broadcasting as Radio North Sea International (RNI).
There are things about RNI that it’s only just become safe to talk about with the exiting from power of Gaddafi in Libya. Indeed, even the relevant paperwork has started to be found and come to light.
It is well-known that Gaddafi was funding and supplying bombs and arms to the IRA who were very active in the 1970s throughout Britain, setting bombs and killing innocent people.
RNI was set-up by the same organisation that supplied parts to Libya for the bomb that blew-up the airliner over Lockerbie in 1988. The ships used for RNI (the “Mebo” and “Mebo II”) were purchased with large sums of money that was suddenly available to the owners a few months after the coup when Gaddafi seized power and control over Libya and the unlimited wealth this gave him access to.
Then, at the end of the ships useful lives as part of European offshore radio, they were delivered to Libya. After a while of mucking around with them as radioships, they were eventually blown-up as part of the Libyan navy target practice.
The true purpose of the establishment of Radio North Sea International has often been hinted at, but never confirmed. There are numerous rumours about how it was sending out coded messages to foreign agents via its transmitters using short-wave, or that at times the content of the output was designed to carry subliminal messages and information.
This has often been denied by those who were employed as DJs at the time, but then these were, of course, young naive English ego-trippers who wanted to be radio stars and it’s very unlikely that they had any idea of what was really going on and what they were actually part of.
A similar copy-cat subliminal messaging radioship project was also established a few years after the first appearance of RNI, but this time off the coast of Israel and called ‘The Voice of Peace‘. The ‘Voice of Peace’ was actually ironically anything but, and was used for similar purposes. This also employed young naive English ego-trippers who had no idea what they were part of.
The British and neighbouring countries authorities were quick to realise what RNI was really up to.
Initially, RNI transmitters were deliberately set to interfere with ship to shore frequencies just under the usual ‘Medium Waveband’ used by normal music broadcasters. RNI blatantly blotted out communications between coastguards and lightships. Oddly chosen short-wave frequencies also caused interference.
The British authorities jammed the broadcasts in order to try to stop the messages being heard by the agents they were intended to reach. Other countries jammed the short-wave transmissions. RNI had to be interrupted from its main purpose of co-ordinating the work of subversives and the agents of other countries trying to destabilise parts of Europe.
The jamming was very effective, with virtually nobody able to hear RNI’s output apart from the few thousand dedicated ‘anorak’ listeners who were happy to listen to the jamming signals in order to try to work out what RNI was doing, playing or saying in the background.
To retaliate against this, RNI changed its name to Radio Caroline for a week, and broadcast anti-Labour Government propaganda at the time of a General Election. Regardless of what radio anoraks like to believe, this had little to no bearing on the outcome of the election, since the ordinary (non-radio anorak) man couldn’t actually hear it!
Despite the Conservative party gaining control of the country, the jamming continued in order to stop the subversive messages getting through to the agents of the other powers who were working against Western Europe.
As more confirmation of the truth behind RNI comes out, it is starting to shock the radio anoraks who had been blissfully unaware of what they were really listening to and how much they had been conned. Heck, some of them even attended protest rallies about the jamming!
One can only wonder if they would have taken part had they known the truth, and how stupid they must feel today.
England's England 
Wow….. and this guy talks about DJ's having a big ego. Don't believe anything anybody tells you about “papers coming to light” unless they can provide copy's of them!. First off it was common knowledge in the day that the government was falsifying papers/rumors stating all pirate radio was involved in some kind of funding of an enemy, Caroline being at the top of the list. The BBC were loosing listeners at an alarming rate due to the pirates, they were “stuck up” and would not play “anything good” like rock and roll. As playing rock was not an option for the “Beeb” or B.loody B.astard C.ommunist's as they were now commonly known as, there only option was to eliminate the competition. As an electronics engineer with in depth knowledge of audio and radio equipment I know as a mater of fact it is impossible to encode information into a transmission without the engineers being aware of it, or being audible as some strange series of tones/bleeps by anyone that's tuned in. It would be much easier, safer and a lot cheaper to transmit encoded messages at set times on 30mhz than to setup a commercial radio station not to mention a little more discrete!. RNI was bombed buy frogmen in a “commando stile raid” stated the Daily Mirror newspaper, it was claimed a competitor Radio Veronica was to blame. The Conservative government said they would shut down the pirate's but the Labor party said they would allow them to stay. After the election the Labor party went back on it's word and supported the shutdown and signing of the so called “Marine Offenses Act”. The owners of these stations even if corrupt it's irrelevant to the fact that the greatest radio content and the finest DJs in history were bench-marked against Radio Northsea! Caroline and the only legal rock station at the time Radio Luxembourg. I also wanted to work for RNI but being so young it was hard to get the OK from my parents and after the bombing I was told “forget it”. This chap clearly has a large unfilled ego, he's jealous of those of us that have an occupation that allows one's ego to be filled to the brim!. Working in a positive atmosphere playing great music, drink flowing, awesome lighting, girls throwing themselves at you, it's much more fun than writing political crap that displays ignorance and lack of self satisfaction. Retired Professional DJ, Electronics Engineer,
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Aha. You have lost the argument the moment you attack the messenger rather than the facts.
You seem to be saying you were too young to go to RNI in the 1970s and yet now you are too old to be on the radio in the 2010s.
Having said that, since the 1980s real radio hasn't been how your rose tinted glasses imagine it, I'm afraid.
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Christopher England have you been watching Patrick McGooghan in Danger Man in particular the episode entitled Not So Jolly Roger. The plot ties in with your theories pretty well 😉
Martin Davies, Welshpool
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I am a little surprise by the comment “The Conservative government said they would shut down the pirate's but the Labor (sic) party said they would allow them to stay.” When was this exactly – surely not the 1960s, you must mean the 1970 election? There was only the one pirate then – RNI. I think you mean the Tories committed to commercial radio – and labour signed off the marine offences act in 1967.
It could just be the jamming was someone's idea to nip a resurgence of naughty stuff in the bud. And were they ever interfering with stuff, given their 10 transmitters? that always upsets people.
Unfortunately I never knew of RNI as a child – I was into the Archers. I wonder how popular and good it was (once you could hear it), given the completion was only Luxy and Radio 1 for most of its time. I heard an older college friend rave about it – but he was a radio type so I was a bit suspicious.
Has anyone seriously researched what records released under the 30 year rule say about it ?
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PS I wanted for a long time to work for Caroline as a youngster. Likewise my parents were anti. luckily they were on hols when I signed up. And I was 24. Rest assured the girls throwing themselves at you went out in 1967. We just had hooray Henrys (a very old term I know) in sail boats and strange other characters in wind proof clothing.
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I heard these attacks on RNI in the 1970s. Those of is in the free radio world at the time dismissed them as the ravings of an embittered man whose attempt to set up a rival station was a sad series of disasters that eventually caused a crew member to lose a leg due to the moronic design of the stupid hoop aerial that certainly had no place on a ship at sea.
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