Radio Monique History 4

Radio Monique - History (4)

1987

A new schedule from Radio Monique was introduced on 1st April 1987 when it was announced that MMI would take over almost total responsibility for programming the station. But, during the summer of 1987 there were increasingly frequent on-air complaints from some DJs about MMI's running of Radio Monique programmes and advertising and in late August it was announced that, with effect from 5th October, Radio Monique would have new owners, but the station would remain on the Ross Revenge.

The MMI programme supply difficulties continued in the period after this announcement and early in September 1987 there were no deliveries of new tapes. Those on board the Ross Revenge were forced to repeat many old programmes just to fill the station's airtime throughout the month. Programmes were still being recorded in the Hilversum studios, but because of tendering difficulties they were not reaching the ship for transmission. By early October 1987 all Radio Monique programming was either live or consisted of non-stop music without any presentation by DJs, with commercials and jingles being inserted between records. The situation was relieved somewhat by mid October 1987 after a tender managed to arrive at the Ross Revenge, delivering new taped programmes and replacement DJs.

During the night of 15/16th October 1987 a hurricane swept across south east England, causing major destruction and loss of power supplies throughout a huge area. The Ross Revenge had, amazingly, been relatively unaffected by the mid-October hurricane and both Radio Caroline and Radio Monique continued broadcasting virtually as normal, with some minor breaks in transmission, until the end of November 1987.

In mid-November 1987 there was a change in frequency for Radio Monique which had been brought about following the increase in power during September of the Finnish station, Radio Yleis, also using 963kHz. Reception of Radio Monique during the hours of darkness had become significantly affected by interference and the station was almost blotted out completely in Scandinavia and much of Northern Europe, while the primary target area of Belgium and Holland suffered from interference early in the morning as well. As a consequence some religious sponsors had withdrawn their programming when reception on 963kHz became badly affected by the Finnish station's transmissions.

Radio Monique's change in frequency was made with hardly any prior notice. The station closed at 6.00pm on 13th November 1987 and a brief announcement was broadcast saying that there would soon be a frequency change for both Radio Monique and Viewpoint, with full details being announced in due course on Caroline 558. Transmissions from the Ross Revenge on 963kHz then closed for the last time. On 15th November 1987 Radio Monique recommenced transmissions on a new frequency of 819kHz (366m).

On 24th November 1987 programming continued as normal throughout the day on both Caroline 558 and Radio Monique, despite a strong north easterly gale starting to buffet the Ross Revenge during the afternoon. The storm continued throughout the evening and night, increasing in intensity and whipping up heavy seas which caused the radio ship to pitch and roll.

Radio Monique closed as normal at 7.00pm with the usual announcement that the station would return at 5.00am the following morning. After Viewpoint programmes had finished that evening the 819kHz transmitter was switched off while Caroline 558 continued to broadcast, but it too left the air suddenly at 2.51am the following morning, 25th November, when aerial feeder cables split.

About an hour and a half later DJs and crew on the Ross Revenge heard a huge crash and went on deck to discover to their horror that the ship's massive 300' aerial tower had broken away at deck level and fallen into the sea. The full extent of other damage caused by the falling mast was revealed when the crew set about cleaning up the rest of the ship. It was discovered that the falling tower had shattered the main insulator at deck level, this in turn had forced a copper rod through the deck, striking and damaging the diplexer unit, a device which enabled the two stations to broadcast from the same aerial.

Some damage had also been caused by sea water entering the studio through a leaking porthole and various items of equipment in the galley, messroom and living quarters had been dislodged and strewn about. The records in the library had been spilled from the wall racks and the Radio Monique studio had sustained damage caused by heavy items of equipment being flung around during the storm.

Radio Monique never returned to the air from the Ross Revenge, but some of the people behind the station were later involved in launching Radio 819 (Radio 558).