Early 1990s Dublin Pirate Called Rock/Capital?

Declan A Walsh

According to Infoanon in the thread about Rock104, there was a pirate in the early 1990s called Rock : "As an aside there was a Dublin pirate called Rock who then changed their name to....Capital."

- https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058220631/old-dublin-rock-station#latest

That is interesting to say the least. I was not aware of any pure rock pirate in Dublin until briefly a few years ago, if you exclude the alternative rock-oriented ones like Capitol/Nitesky Radio (from the 1980s) and Phantom and its related predecessors. I'm not sure if The Zone from the '00s was one - I stand corrected on that!

And yet another pirate calling itself Capital or Capitol!

Does anybody know anything about this pirate: how long was it on for, where did it broadcast from (I'm guessing low-power operation), what was its frequencies and who was involved?

end of the road

the zone was indeed a rock pirate, dublin's weekend rock was it's tag line i am almost sure.

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058221015/early-1990s-dublin-pirate-called-rock-capital

Initially the operator (Brian Johnson) called himself Signal on 1224 but then went on FM as Rock 103. The station was in Blackrock.

When Capital flipped format to Rock 104 Brian called himself Capital for a few weeks out of mischief.

Later on in 1991 he would broadcast some great late night radio that was rebroadcast by some of the other stations (including Coast and the early Sunset) as “The Night Network”.

Early in 1992 Sunset moved into Brian’s studio but it didn’t work out and they went their own way. Shortly afterwards there was another merger, this time between Brian and NSR. This would’ve been Spring/early Summer of 1992 and the station then went seven days a week .. weekdays from Blackrock studio and weekends from the Stillorgan studio. I actually have a photo of myself in the Blackrock studio but won’t be sharing it here 😂

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118264276#Comment_118264276

From reading NSR's own history, the split station from Sunset FM in Blackrock was called Music Radio. When NSR merged with Music Radio, it was initially called NSR Music Radio. When Brian was running Signal/Rock 103/Capital previously, was there any other personnel?

TheBMG

No, think it was just mainly Brian doing it for the craic. The late night stuff was great - lots of album tracks and new wave.

That reminds me - a couple of years after NSR closed Brian would occasionally pop up on air as “RAT FM” playing loads of Stranglers and Boomtown Rats. Great presenter btw

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118266546#Comment_118266546

I learn so much here! I wish I had known about any of his stations or that late night stuff at the time. I don't think the home radio in Dundrum or the car radio going across the Liffey could pick up the smaller stations coming from Blackrock - I did pick up NSR, Sunset and Coast FM (one of my favourites) and a few bizarre stations from the city centre! Did Rat FM come from Blackrock too?

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118266664#Comment_118266664

Yup, same studio in Blackrock. Wasn’t a great location to get out towards Dundrum but did hit Dun Laoghaire and some of the ‘bay area’ quite well!

radiowaves

A recording...

http://radiowaves.fm/ire/blog/1991/10/20/capital-105-october-20th-1991/

Declan A Walsh

I was just listening to a small bit of it. Brian sounded very professional. What ever happened to him? Was he involved in any other radio stations, besides NSR, after his own stations?