Radio Mercur - Station and Ships

Station and Ships

The radio station was founded by Peer Jansen and Ib Fogh. It was called a pirate radio, because it was considered a lawless attack on the monopoly of the Danish National Broadcasting Corporation, though the authorities didn't have any weapon in the first place to stop the "radio pirates".

Radio Mercur made all of its recordings in studios in Copenhagen, Denmark and the tapes were then sailed to a transmitting vessel in international water in Øresund between Denmark and Sweden. Transmissions took place on the FM-band, first on 88,00 MHz, later on different frequencies to be able to meet complaints from the Danish authorities and also to transmit in stereo with dual transmissions on two frequencies simultaneously.

The first transmitting vessel was Cheeta Mercur. It was later accompanied by the larger Cheeta II, placed in Storebaelt between Zeeland and Fuenen in order to cover most parts of Denmark.

In September 1961 another pirate radio station began to compete under the name DCR/The Commercial Radio of Denmark (Danmarks Commercielle Radio), that was started by a group of former Mercur employees. The two stations merged in January 1962 and continued under the name Radio Mercur but with the jingle from DCR. DCR used the vessel Lucky Star for its transmissions.