Chapter 4 - Pirates In A Jam!

Acting on an order made by the Ministry of Posts And Telcommunications, on April 15th 1970, the Royal Navy's radio station at Rochester in Kent began jamming RNIs' medium-wave transmissions by broadcasting an 800 Hz tone on the same frequency. It was claimed at the time that it was being done at the request of Norway and Italy. At a little after 8:30pm that evening, with reception severely impaired over much of the UK, the medium wave transmitter was again switched off. Managing Director of Mebo Telecommunications, Mr Urs Emmeneger told the press: "We certainly do not want to endanger human lives, we did not know the interference could grow so much when we moved the ship."

MEBO 2 - At anchor

MEBO 2 At Anchor

Test transmissions resumed on a new frequency of 1385 kHz, 217 meters at around 9:00pm on the evening of April 30th, and the FM service also resumed on a different frequency, that of 100 mHz. However, the return was but a brief one, for at 12:10pm the following day, the tests ceased, and RNI was heard only intermittently over the next few days. At approximately 10:25am on May 13th tests were made on 1230 kHz, 244 meters for a couple of hours, and regular broadcasts resumed on this frequency on May 16th. After five days, the jamming returned too. The MPT stated that this time it was being carried out at the request of Czechoslovakia. The plot thickened as the owners of RNI then claimed that they had permission from the Czechs to use the frequency. The power of the Naval stations' signal was said to be 10kw, though many thought it to be much higher. Not only did the signal interfere with RNIs broadcasts, it also caused widespread interference to reception of the BBCs' Radio One signal on the adjacent chanel of 1215 kHz and brought a deluge of complaints!

It was decided stick with 1230 kHz, despite the jamming, but from May 28th, RNI adopted the tactic of switching frequencies back and forth between 1227 kHz and 1232 kHz every few minutes, but as they did so, the jamming followed soon after. Later the jamming signal was changed, the modulated carrier now also carried a pulsed beep, making things sound even worse! The cat and mouse exercise had proved pointless, and was therefore abandoned.