THE RADIO ATLANTIS STORY PART III

In our last episode we left Atlantis on 312 metres (962 kHz), where it was acquiring a sizable audience on both sides of the North Sea. However, little did we know then that in 2½ months time Henri van Doom's Marine Offences bill would silence the station! It is the events that took place during these two and a half months that will occupy the third and final part of our story.

Debbie England and Steve England in M.V. Janiene mess room (Photo Hans Knot)

To return to the narrative - the next entry in the "Monitor" logbook was for June 14th, and it records that the supply tender from Vlissingen brought out and fitted a new 4 ton anchor, this replaced the temporary lightweight one which had been used since the original was lost in the gale incident of June 6/7th. Between 23.00-24.00 BST, on June 15th, we heard the first "Michael 0. Soul Show'°, this was one of the few recorded programmes to be broadcast on the International Service. Michael 0. was of course none other than our good friend A. J. Beirens of "Northsea Goes DX" fame. Meanwhile, on the Flemish Service, some personnel changes were occurring, Victor van Rijn was heard for the last time on the 17th (09.00-11.00 BST) not quite his usual time slot and another departure from the station during the month was Luc van Kapellen. A new DJ, Rob Ronder was airborne for the first time from 08.00-09.00 BST on the 20th and on the same day Peter de Vries, who had arrived by tender at 00.30 BST that very morning, did his first show between 10.00-12.00 BST, in it he announced that it was the first LIVE Flemish programme transmitted from the "Janiene" (Note corrected spelling!). By the 21st the Flemish Service programme schedule was as follows:- 07.00-08.00 Peter de Vries (live), 08.00-09.00 Rob Ronder, 09.00-10.00 Ellie Prins, 10.00-12.00 Peter de Vries (live),, 12.00-13-00 Tony Houston, 13.00-15.00 Theo van der Velden 15.00-17.00 Fred van den Bos, & 17.00-18.00 BST Ellie Prins. Another person who was on the tender that brought out Peter de Vries was Don Scott, Monitor's technical adviser. Don spent a week on board working on various items of equipment; within a few hours of being on the ship he had installed a radiation meter in the main studio, from which the DJ's could tell at a glance if their shows were actually going out over the air! The one and only programme to be. done by the Black Printz was heard on the 23rd (00.00-01.00 BST). Printz is a well-known London discotheque DJ and an ardent free radio supporter, his show, which was taped, was relaxed and made enjoyable listening. A further tender arrived on the 26th, this took off Don Scott and deposited Terry Davis. Terry's home town is Barkingside in Essex, and he is no stranger to radio-ships having broadcast for a year on R.N.I. That evening he read the 18.30 BST newscast but he did not present his first record show until 23.00 BST the following night. The final new name to appear during the month of June was that of Dave Townsend, he introduced a taped show entitled the "Synthesizer Experience", the first of which was aired between 00.00-01.00-BST on' the 30th.This proved to be a highly original programme devoted entirely to electronic music Radio Atlantis entered July minus its Chief Engineer, Andy Anderson, who was away on his honeymoon, and as so often happens when key people are off a ship, problems develop! Within hours of Andy's departure the transmitter became temperamental, which in turn caused a marked drop in signal strength. Peter de Vries did his final programme for the station between 07.00-09.00 BST on July 5th, and then left on the afternoon tender never to be heard again. During the 16 days he spent on the radioship he did a total of 33 hours live on the air. The aforementioned tender had rushed out trouble-shooter Tom Barker, who had been hurriedly sent for to sort out the worsening transmitter problems. The job had to be done quickly as the tender could only wait for him 2½ hours. Afterwards, Tom told our Editor: "One of the main problems was that they had had a ceramic capacitor blow out and had put in a vacuum and adjusted it to the same capacitance as the ceramics that had blown out; but in earthing it had created one big RP earth loop and of course, the PA was going into oscillations. Consequently they weren't getting too much out of it. So what I did, I took that vacuum out completely, which meant they were rather short of capacitance because one had blown out, and I gave it more inductance to make the LC ratio correct....and that did improve things tremendously". It was Tom, incidentally, who built and installed the station's linear-amplifier. Rob Ronder came out to replace Peter de Vries on board the "Janiene", his first 'live' show went out from 08.00-09.00 BST on the 6th. Terry Davis' stint as relief DJ and newsreader ended on July 12th, and his last programme was aired between 23.00-01.00 BST on the 11/12th. In the 17 days he worked aboard the radio-ship, he logged 26 hours on the air. His principal contribution to the station was his professionalism. Before leaving them he wrote and recorded a song all about Atlantis, using the music from an instrumental version of the Beatles classic "In My Life" as the backing track, he entitled his rewritten composition "Atlantis, Lovers and Friends". Terry has now resumed his studies at university - he is an extremely talented lad and we wish him luck. The first of a new series of taped shows was heard on the 14th (20.00-21.00 BST), it was presented by Ray Warner. The programme was of a high technical standard and Ray used some nice personalised jingles. Radio Atlantis celebrated its first anniversary on the 15th. (They had started life at 12.00 BST on Sunday 15th July 1973, broadcasting from the "Mi Amigo".) That evening Steve England and Andy Anderson commemorated the event with a special hour and a half long show commencing at 19.00 BST. They related numerous amusing anecdotes and reminiscences of their early trials and tribulations, and also thanked everybody who had assisted the station. In the opinion of many listeners this was the most interesting programme they had ever broadcast.

Debbie England on tender leaving M.V. Janiene (Photo:- Steve England)

A new DJ named Frank van Leeuwen appeared on the Flemish Service on the 16th, he played host to a show called the "Optimisten Club" that was to become a daily feature, excepting Sundays, between 11.00-12.00 BST. Frank had some delightful little red, yellow, black & white stickers printed to publicise his programme. A belated birthday party was held aboard the "Janiene" on the 18th with the arrival of station owner Adriaan van Landschoot and a tender full of guests, according to Steve England some 50-70 people, including Adriaan's brother, Tony Houston, Fred van den Bos, A.J. Beirens, Vonnie & Gerry. Once on board the radio-ship Tony Houston took over the 18.00-19.00 BST programme slot, and in place of the usual Ellie Prins Show we heard Tony on the air live. During this programme Adriaan came to the microphone and addressed a short message to Flemish listeners. At 19.00 BST when Steve took over with the International Service the festive atmosphere was still very much in evidence. However, the waiting tender was due to sail tack to Vlissingen with its passengers; but before it did Steve persuaded Adriaan to say a few words to the English-speaking audience, a gesture which was much appreciated by the listeners, as it typified all that was beast in offshore radio. This was undoubtedly one of the highspots in the station's history and, at the same time, it made excellent entertainment,....but then, let's face it, it could only have happened-at sea!.

Shortly afterwards Adriaan & Co. departed taking with them Rob Render who had completed 14 days on board, his final live show was the "Drie Een Twee Matinee" that afternoon between 14.00-16.00 BST., During the time he was on the ship he clocked-up 46½ hours of broadcasting. He was to be the last resident Flemish DJ aboard the "Janiene" as no replacement was forthcoming for him; but unlike Peter de Vries he did continue to record programmes in the station's studios at Nieuwstraat 73 in-Oostburg. The next noteworthy date was the 25th, this was the day Radio Atlantis activated its Short Wave transmitter with a power output of 200 watts it broadcast on 6225 kHz (48.17 metres)the new transmitter was switched on at 02.00 BST and carried the same programme that was being radiated on Medium Wave. It was not audible here in Benfleet until 11.05 BST; the signal strength varied from S.4 to S.9+20 dbs, but by 13.00 BST it had faded away altogether. The SW experiment lasted only a few days - lack of power and a clear channel hastened its end. Lynnda Anderson made her broadcasting debut on the 28th when she introduced the "Beatles Spectacular" at 23.00 BST. `This- proved to be her only solo performance.

There was a minor catastrophe on August 1st when, at approximately 17.30 BST, a fault occurred- in the oscillator of the transmitter destroying the 962 kHz crystal (crystals are very, fragile things - precision made, which have to be handled with extreme care), It was thought that it would be a good idea to use a variable frequency oscillator by which means, the transmitter could have been tuned up to roughly 312 metres; but the idea was abandoned when it was found that there were insufficient parts on the ship to make a sufficiently good VFO that would keep the stability of the radio station on channel, exactly 962 kHz. Had an unstable oscillator been used it could very easily have interfered with nearby stations. Therefore, Adriaan van Landschoot was contacted via the ship-to-shore link, and it was put to him than an oscillator could be made to keep the station on around about 312 metres. The situation was explained to him about the lack of stability of such an oscillator with the parts to hand, so it was decided, instead, to use a crystal that they had for the split-frequency of 1317.5. Frantic activity by Andy Anderson got the station back on the air by about 00.05 BST the following day, on, what was announced as 229 metres, They were to remain on this channel until the 10th when the 1317.5 kHz crystal became, intermittent due to a manufacturing fault. This necessitated a further frequency change, and we awoke on the 11th to find that they had moved to 1313 kHz, however, this channel was prone to heavy interference after dark from a 100 kW transmitter at Stravanger in Norway.

It was at about this time that bad weather prevented the regular tender from coming out with fresh tapes for the Flemish Service, and many programmes of non-stop had to be substituted on the 9th & 10th. To overcome this difficulty the International Service was temporarily extended to 24 hours per day; and so, on Sunday August 11th not only did we find a new frequency, but also daytime programmes in English! For those who missed hearing them the days schedule ran as follows: 06.00-09.00 "Snap, Crackle & Pop" Dave Owen 09.00-12.00 "The Dave Rogers Ranch" Steve England, 12.00-15.00 "Andy's Sunday Feast" Andy Anderson, 15.00-18.00 "Sunday Rave-up" John Harding, 18.00-19.00 "Nurkarama Show" Steve England & Andy Anderson, 19.00-20.00 Ray Warner, 20.00-21.00 "Blast Off" Steve England, 21.00-24.00 "The Dave Owen Stamp Collection" DaveOwen, 00.00-03.00 BST "Beatles Spectacular" Debbie England. On the 12th, after only one day on 1313 kHz, Radio Atlantis changed frequency yet again. They moved to 1331 kHz in an attempt to avoid the night time interference from the Norwegian station. Their stay on this channel was also short-lived for at 23.26 BST that night the Italian "Jamming" resumed, making the frequency useless as far as Atlantis was concerned. So it was back to 1313 kHz by the 13th. Throughout all these changes the wavelength was constantly being referred to as 229 metres. That afternoon the tender finally got alongside and with it came the awaited Flemish programme tapes.

August 14th saw the return of the Flemish Service, it included two new DJ’s so the details are worth quoting in full:- 07.00-08.00 Mona, (her first show. Mona is the wife of Frank van Leeuwen), 08.00-09.00 Frank van Leeuwen, 09.00-11.00 Ellie Prins, 11.00-12.00 n/s music, 12.00-13.00 Tony Houston, 13.00-14.00 "Muziek voor Eve" Mister Galaxy (1st show. "Music for Eve"), 14.00-16.00 "312 Matinee" Rob Ronder, 16.00-18.00 Fred van den Bos, 18.00-19.00 BST Ellie Prins. A programme of current American Top 20 music recorded on land by Rob Day was heard between 20.00-21.00 BST on the 16th, This was to be his last broadcast on Atlantis, Rob now works in London where he is in charge of radio promotions at Trojan Records. At 15.01 BST on the 17th it fell to Steve to make the sad announcement of the closure dates for the Flemish and International Services. They were to be August 25th & 31st respectively, By this time it was realised that the station's days were numbered, Behind the scenes no stone had been left unturned in the search for ways of circumventing the Dutch Government's legislation, but all to no avail. The close down of the Flemish Service took place as planned on Sunday the 25th. The day's programmes merit a closer inspection, so here goes:07.00-08.00 "The Michael 0. Continuous Music Show", 08.00-09.00 Frank van Leeuwen, 09.00-11.00 "Katers en Koppijn" (Hangovers and Headaches) Rob Ronder, 11.00-12.00 "Optimisten Club" Frank van Leeuwen, 12.00-14.00 Final Flemish-language show, farewell messages, etc. From this point onwards the International Service took over and all programmes were in English: 14.00-15.00 Andy Anderson, 15.00-18.00 A Guided Tour of the "Janiene" with Steve, Andy, Derek, John, Dave Owen, Dave Rogers, Debbie & Lynda, all taking part, 18.00-19.00 John Harding, 19.00-20.00 Ray Warner, 20.00-21.00 John Handing, 21.00-24.00 Derek Jones, 24.00-03.00 BST "Beatles Spectacular" Debbie England.

Steve England in main Radio Atlantis broadcast studio (Photo:- Hans Knot)

During their final few days on the air a short taped message from Adriaan was repeatedly being broadcast, the text of which was as follows: "To all the listeners of Radio Atlantis this is Adriaan van Landschoot - the boss, and the owner of the station. I really feel very sad that we have to close; but on Sunday the 1st of September, around 10 o'clock, we'll be in the harbour. We arrive in the harbour of Vlissingen around 10 o'clock in the morning, and we stay there till 4 o'clock in the afternoon. All Flemish disc-jockeys and all English disc-jockeys, and all the people who helped Atlantis to make it a real fact will be there to say a last good-bye. Come to us and say a last good-bye to us too". Mention should also be made of the 'station-idents' and 'CIB promos' that were made for them by ex-Radio London DJ Tony Windsor, what a pleasant surprise it was to hear his unmistakable voice again after all these years'. After innumerable delays the Atlantis QSL cards and headed notepaper did eventually arrive. The notepaper was most colourful being printed in green, red & black. The design incorporated a ladybird in the top right-hand corner, whilst in the centre of the page was a picture of the "Janiene" taken from a photograph supplied by Roy Brooker in the bottom left-hand corner a heart and a fish were depicted.

The station's last two days can best be summarised by giving a complete programme run-down: (30th) 06.00-09.00 "Snap, Crackle & Pop" Dave Owen, 09.00-11.00 "The Rogers' Ranch" Dave Rogers, 11.00-13.00 "The Nightmare Affair" Scott Mitchell & Gabby Hernandez Omilado (a repeat of an earlier broadcast. The characters of Scott and Gabby were both impersonated by ex-Radio City and Radio 270 DJ Leon Tipler), 13.00-15.00 "Luncheon Voucher" Andy Anderson, 15.00-16.00 Dave Johns (his 1st and only show, it was recorded in London where Dave acted as station representative), 16.00-17.00 Ray Warner, 17.00-19.00 Steve England, 19.00-21.00 "Blast-off" John Handing, 21.00-24.00 Derek Jones, 24.00-03,00 Debbie England. (31st) 06.00-08.00 John Harding, 08.00-10.00 Dave Rogers, 10.00-11.00 Debbie England, 11.00-13.00 Dave Owen, 13.00-14.00 Derek Jones, 14.00-16.00 Steve England, 16.00-18.00 Andy Anderson, 18.00-19.00 "Good-bye Party", 19.00 BST Finis.

The end of a dream, M.V. Janiene in Vlissingen Harbour with Dave Rogers on the bank (Photo:- Steve England)

Early the next morning the tender "En Rust" came out to tow the "Janiene" into Vlissingen. What happened then was described to us by Dave Rogers.... "They arrived at a quarter past four. They pulled the anchor up and they put a little flag on the front of our ship, a Van Den Akker flag, to show that it was in the hands of that company, and they towed us very slowly back towards Vlissingen. It was quite a calm day, perhaps a little bit choppy at times; but quite reasonable. Then, when we were coming quite close to Vlissingen, the "Deurloo" came out, which was a tug, and the "Deurloo' pulled us in, and the "En Rust", tied up alongside us; the "Deurloo" was in fact pulling two ships. There was a nice crowd of people there to greet us actually, it was very very touching. We had a loud-speaker on top of the bridge playing the "Atlantis" theme, and it was all rather exciting I suppose, but depressing at the same time. We tied up at the quay, the "En Rust" was right beside the quay and we were beside the "En Rust", so there was a ship between us and the quay. We couldn't go off for quite a long time because we had to wait for the customs, we had to wait a couple of hours and it was 2 o'clock before we went off".

M.V. Janiene in Vlssingen Harbour with Steve England on the bank (Photo:- Debbie England)

Upwards of 1000 people had gathered at the harbour to welcome in the radio-ship, including Adriaan & Janiene; Flemish DJ's Tony, Fred, Ellie, Rob and Frank; Dave Johns & Martin Stevens from England, and even a fan who had travelled all the way from Sweden! A special tribute must be paid to Gerry & Vonnie van Heumen. Gerry was the station's shore superintendent, it was his job to arrange the tenders and to see that Radio Atlantis did not run out of supplies; while his wife Vonnie was responsible for the vital radio link to the ship, and she was frequently up half the night operating the 'break-break' (27 MHz walkie-talkie). On September 3rd the "Janiene" was arrested on orders from a Mr. Swanneveld who alleged Adriaan owed him 60,000 guilders for the use of his RCA transmitter. At the time of writing (November) the ship is still in Vlissingen, and the words VERBODEN TOEGANG (entry forbidden) have been painted on her hull. We understand that letters for the Flemish DJ's can still be sent to the P. 0. Box 385, Oostburg address. We will let Monitor-reader Martin Page of London E.18 have the final word, he wrote to us saying: "I was particularly sorry to see Atlantis go as it seemed to me that the station had a sort of quality of enthusiasm & friendliness. It must have been really heartbreaking for all concerned after all the hard work that had gone into the station".

(First printed in MONITOR issue number 7)