Thameside Radio Revisited

Time Out have just run a centre page spread on the London pirate stations featuring Thameside Radio so the team are sounding pleased. It’s clear that there are radio pirates broadcasting pretty much every day and throughout the weekend in London.  This was an interesting week behind the scenes: Rather than just responding to reports of interference Eric Gotts, who ran the Home Office detection unit, was actively trying to close down all the pirates. Many of the pirates had now discovered the radio channel that the detection unit used so they were able to stop broadcasting or change transmitters as soon as they were being tracked. However this week half way through the evening the detection team were heard to say that they were “going home as all the pirates have gone off” so many of the pirates came back on. In fact the Home Office switched channels and ran a number of successful raids.  This does illustrate how this was something of a personal battle between Eric Gotts and the pirates. It was wasn’t just a