Radio London, also known as Big L and Wonderful Radio London, was a top 40 (in London's case, the "Fab 40") offshore commercial station that operated from 16 December 1964 to 14 August 1967, from a ship anchored in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England. The station, like the other offshore radio operators at the time, was dubbed a pirate radio station and its offices were located in the West End of London at 17 Curzon Street just off Park Lane.
The station broadcast from the MV Galaxy, a former Second World War United States Navy minesweeper originally named USS Density. The majority of programmes were presented live from a studio in the hold. The ship's metal bulkheads presented problems with acoustics and soundproofing that were originally solved by lining the walls with mattresses from the crew's bunk beds, which meant none of them could sleep during the day.
Read more about Wonderful Radio London: Origin of The Station, Broadcasting Staff, Advertising Sales, Station Name, Transmitter Power, Station Close-down, Further History, Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio, In Pop Culture
Famous quotes containing the words wonderful, radio and/or london:
“You listen to artists fighting with each other, competing to the death like gladiators, in order to see who is going to get into a show, who is going to make it, who isn’t: who is going to get a full-page ad and who is going to get a half-page. Then I think, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go off somewhere and just do your work?””
—Howardena Pindell (b. 1943)
“There was a girl who was running the traffic desk, and there was a woman who was on the overnight for radio as a producer, and my desk assistant was a woman. So when the world came to an end, we took over.”
—Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)
“One of the many to whom, from straightened circumstances, a consequent inability to form the associations they would wish, and a disinclination to mix with the society they could obtain, London is as complete a solitude as the plains of Syria.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)