Liverpool Pirates

[Dave Ross]

Hello having one of them getting old moments thinking back to stuff i had done , thinking of my pirate days , thought i would give it a go to see if any information had been put on the net , i know most of the big stations (pirate) where on the wirral and that inspired me to get involved on the liverpool side only being around 16 years old them lads on scr and meseywaves where the ones i looked up too , i will list a few i had involvement with and some names , Mersey FM , Widnes FM , Network 5 , Central Radio , of course rick dane was a proper old school fella, i helped setup equipment with rick and lost a few i had built that i had give to the cause mw and fm , andy davis being a massive help in them early days with circuit diagrams for valve transmitters , stereo enconders , link units etc wish i had pictures they where like works of art all hand built circuits , and Dobbo from Julie making good use of old taxis radios , even dave moore with commadore fm , is steve bishop or phil davis with his rock and golden oldies still of this earth , and bert who could forget him with his dulcit tones , he would track you down within hours of your first broadcast and introduce himself and very through with his tech advice , and joe Jim Browns buddy bootle again brilliant at knocking a mw tx up out old stuff how any of never got electrocuted i'll never know no health and safety then ha ha, probably missed loads of people out but its been over 30 years now , and i dont reside in uk . would be nice if any has audio of the staions i worked on even better if its of me ( Dave Ross ).

After a liitle look about it's so sad to find out that a few of the guys have sadly passed Rick Dane , Phil Davis, Dobbo & Jim Brown probably a few others looks like ive left it a few years too late for a catchup

[Gary Phillips]

Hi Dave. Nice to hear your recollections of the various pirates you were involved with. I remember you on one or two of the stations you mention. Not sure if I remember Network 5 though. Was that Channel 5 possibly or was Network 5 a totally different station than that? I just cannot remember.

Yes very sad about the various passings of some of the ex pirates. I'm particularly sad about Jim Brown who really was a smashing fella. Feel really bad that I never got to see him before he got too ill.

I see you were involved with Rick Dane. Was that when he was on Radio Atlantis with Steve Bishop or was it even earlier when he was on Radio Jackie North?

Yes, Andy Davis was brilliant to me too. He did exactly the same. He provided me with circuit diagrams of transmitters etc. but unfortunately I'm not as clever as you and never made a decent transmitter. Over the years I ended buying most of my transmitters and stuff!

Yes, Bert Williams is still going strong and long may he continue.

[Brian Grant]

Great post Dave.

So many memories.

Shivering me timbers...

Brian Grant - Central Radio