Atlantic 252 What happened?

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769862#Comment_121769862

Radio Nova International - a different station, but another angle! Was Robin Banks the only person involved with satellite station Radio Nova International to turn up on Atlantic 252? Edit: I will answer my own question! David Lee Stone presented a few programs on RNI.

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769318#Comment_121769318

Apart from the Sony one my brother had? 🤫

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121769862#Comment_121769862

There actually was another Robin Banks in the good old days.

Robin Adcroft was a TX engineer mate of Chris Cary back from the days of Caroline and RNI. Although not a natural DJ, he often found himself on air over the years. He worked with Cary setting up the original Nova, eventually being asked by Don Allen (Himself an ex comrade of the offshore scene.) to set up the powerful AM set up of Cork's ERI, a. He used Banks on air because it was his Grans surname, although he also worked on air as Roger Lane. Doubtless he would have appeared on air in Ireland during the 80's although I can't positively point to any such examples.

Coincidentally this Robin also worked on The Voice of Peace, a good 20 years before Christian Richardson appeared on it.

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121780113#Comment_121780113

So the ‘original’ Robin Banks also used the name Roger Lane? But he wasn’t the ‘origina’l Roger Lane from Sunshine 101 .. no wonder 252 made everyone change their names so!

alzer100

Roger Latham from Sunshine 101 is nowadays on Christmas FM.

Robin Banks aka Christian Richardson is at HiFM in Muscat Oman where he hosts breakfast and is PD.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121780113#Comment_121780113

So, both Robin Banks appeared on The Voice of Peace! I know that Laser was also represented on Atlantic 252.Was there any ex-Radio Caroline presenters involved with Atlantic 252?

TheBMG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121781302#Comment_121781302

Keith York worked for Caroline AFAIK. there was a very strong Laser 558 presence! Charlie Wolf, Mary Ellen O’Brien, Andrew Turner, John Catlett.

Keith York, Robin Banks and Cliff Walker also did spells on the Voice of Peace.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121781345#Comment_121781345

I was referring to ex-Caroline on Atlantic 252. Was Keith York involved with Atlantic 252? Yeah, I mentioned the Laser 558 presence earlier, which also included David Lee Stone. John Catlett is a new name to me - good to know. I did not realise that Cliff Walker was ex-Voice of Peace - also good to know.

alzer100

MaryEllen O'Brien was never on board The M.V. Communicator. She worked at WEZF 92.9 "Star 92.9" in South Burlington, Vermont, prior to joining Atlantic 252.

Star is a "Class C" FM with 86,000watts ERP (there are hardly any Irish FM transmitters on the Island of Ireland with that kind of power output) and can be heard in 5 US States and in Canada due to its proximity to the US/Canadian Border. Jesse Brandon, Holly Michaels, Erin Kelly and Liz West were all Laser jocks but they nor any of the Laser ladies worked on Atlantic 252.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121781489#Comment_121781489

There are a number of different articles that refer to Mary Ellen O'Brien as being an ex-Laser jock, but it does look like they may well have been coming from a similar source with potentially the same mistake repeated.

Going back to the Sunshine 101 link, Peter Gibney, engineer for Sunshine as well as various other Dublin pirates, was one of the studio engineers for Atlantic 252.

Declan A Walsh

So, who from Atlantic 252 is still involved with Irish Radio?

Rick O'Shea - RTE Gold

Al Dunne - RTE Gold

Liam Coburn, aka Batman Gomez - Dublin's Q102

Enda Caldwell - Radio Nova (amongst all the other radio projects he is involved with!)

Mark Whelan, aka Dickie Bow - Limerick's Live 95

Steven Cooper - iRadio

Emily Owens (producer) - Head of Commercial Production with Today FM and Bauer Irl. As well as Today FM, the latter owns Newstalk, Spin1038, Spin SW, Dublin's 98FM and Red FM.

*Steve Haze, aka Hollywood Haze - Wireless Ireland Group Music Scheduling role - Wireless owns Q102, FM104, LMFM, Corks C103 and his old station Cork's 96FM.

Any more current examples?

*Steve Haze as Steve Kelly was yet another presenter on Sunshine 101.

its_steve116

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121785931#Comment_121785931

When was Enda last on Nova?

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121786454#Comment_121786454

Over the Christmas period and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Okay, he may no longer be currently on Irish radio. He is a busy man with his different radio projects!

alzer100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121785931#Comment_121785931

*Steve Haze as Steve Kelly was yet another presenter on Sunshine 101.

Just on Steve Kelly and the Atlantic 252/Sunshine 101/HotHits format connection. Steve Kelly was the first jock to present the new format on Sunshine 101 at 7pm after Pat Courtney's drive time on air stunt. Although the first two weeks of the new format did not permit talking, as it purely consisted of back to back power A Listers and recurrents with ads. During this time Steve Kelly and other Sunshine presenters could only be heard doing a time-check and then casually introducing the news reader to read a reduced bulletin at 6-9 mins past the hour.

TAFKAlawhec

Just on the note of sound quality of A252 in its heyday - it's worth remembering that most LW (and MW) receivers sold in Europe from about the late 1970's onwards (inc. most high end receivers) had their audio frequency response in those wavebands sharply cut off in a lot of cases above 4kHz to help prevent adjacent channel interference at a time where a lot of services on MW & LW were still transmitting away and these bands were full across Europe. I'm not sure what audio bandwidth Atlantic 252 broadcast in its time with but I do remember that prior to its closedown RTÉ Radio 1 on 252kHz was providing 6kHz audio per sideband so I'll presume Atlantic 252 had that amount of room too - however unless the receiver had a wide enough filter to pass this full 6kHz on (and was more likely on older receivers e.g. those made up to around the 1960's), then it would have sounded quite muffled. There can be quite a noticeable difference between 4kHz and 6kHz audio bandwidth - no, 6kHz audio is never going to take on the 15kHz possible on FM in the quality stakes, but it can be surprising to hear how brighter it sounds compared to just 4kHz or even less. Then match that to the frequency response of the speakers of most transistor radios or even HiFi units.

An easy way to listen to the difference between the audio bandwidths of 4kHz & 6kHz is to use a modern SDR tuned to a strong enough station that passes at least 6kHz of audio per sideband - one you can try is the Malin Head Kiwi SDR tuned to Radio North on 846kHz (best to do this in the daytime as adjacent channel interference at hight becomes an issue) - the SDR will start with an audio bandwidth of just 2.5kHz (2500) - increase this to 4000 for 4kHz and as wise as possible for 6kHz (I think it stops at a maximum of 5998) and notice the difference you hear as you increase audio bandwidth. You only need to increase one sideband to change things.

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121780552#Comment_121780552

Can't say I'd blame them either. I remember being told years ago that it was a thing to change the DJ's name to basically distract attention away from the DJ's ID and to make it more about the music and the Now Now Now vibe of the place; ironic much how we are talking about their names decades later!

Anecdote; when PC was starting he was offered the name of Rick O'Shea or Elvis O'Brien, an easy one to make. Seemingly a rake of presenters turned down Elvis until a certain red headed gentleman from Castleknock bucked the trend....

Declan A Walsh

Going back to the Dublin superpirate Q102 connection, I only realized today that John O'Hara also did a stint there too. That's along with his time with Radio Nova and Energy 103.

So apart from Sunshine Radio/Sunshine 101, of which there are many examples, here are Atlantic 252 people that turned up on other Dublin superpirates.

Q102/SuperQ: John O’Hara, Al Dunne, Liam Coburn and Henry Condon

Radio Nova: Paul Kavanagh, Henry Condon and John O’Hara

Energy 103: Cass Jones, John O’Hara and Liam Coburn

I am not aware of anybody who was involved with Radio Nova's sister station Kiss FM, another superpirate, that was also connected to Atlantic 252.

California Dreamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121785931#Comment_121785931

Sean Ashmore was on 252 for a brief stint but cant remember the name he used

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121818047#Comment_121818047

I have it on good authority that Sean Ashmore used the name Mark Little on Atlantic. Sean is currently one of the co-owners of Kildares's KFM and a weekend presenter on, and a director of, Sunshine 106.8.

alzer100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121818555#Comment_121818555

Correct! Sean Ashmore's 252 name was Mark Little. He was only on the station for about a year in 1997-1998 at weekends mainly.

Declan A Walsh

My post above re the "other" super pirates has been updated to include Cass Jones for Energy 103.

Re the Radio Luxembourg connection, the list includes David Lee Stone, Gary King, Jeff Graham, Cass Jones, Sandy Beach and Enda Caldwell. Henry Owens/Condon did voice overs for promotions on Luxy as well. I wonder are there more, particularly among the UK presenters.

California Dreamer

https://chrismoyles.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=26965

alzer100

Sandy Beach (Real name Adrian Greene) is now out of prison and living somewhere in Cyprus. His radio station (Sunshine Cyprus) and other businesses have long since been dissolved. For a while Dusty Rhodes was running the station after Sandy Beach went to prison but the station had no success due to the stigma connected to the owner so it had to be dissolved. He is still making and producing audio but anonymously under another name or in "stealth" mode.

TheBaldyRef

Hi lads, was only discussing A252 in work yesterday. There was a competition around 1994 that when they played three songs in a row the 252nd caller to ring won a grand. Haddaway what is love REM the sidewinder sleeps tonight and there was one more any ideas what it was?

its_steve116

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121836443#Comment_121836443

I'm going to a take a wild guess and go with "What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes.

TheBaldyRef

One of the lads said the same last night.

Declan A Walsh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121836443#Comment_121836443

I thinks I vaguely remember that competition. Did A252 (like the name!) have any more money competitions?

squonk

Funny, I thought those “pay to listen” competitions were $hít at tge time but now I kind of miss them from a nostalgic standpoint. Think either 98FM or FM104 did likewise. Onv the 98th or 104th caller… yadda yadda.

alzer100

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121836542#Comment_121836542

The song is Simply Red "Stars" you are looking for. In fact its mentioned by Mark Byrne on the tribute co-produced by Eric Murphy and Enda Caldwell which was broadcast on the station closedown 20th December 2001 at 5.pm.

Atlantic ran many competitions over its 12 year history from The Daily Star Name Game in 1989 to The Millennium's Most Awesome Holiday in 2000-01. Many of the winning Triple plays happened in the 91-95 Hot AC era and were sponsored by the likes of Trebor and many more. There were dozens of them. Other notable comps were the Cadbury's Boost Daily Free Money Hit, "His n' Hers Jeeps For Keeps" Charlie's Rotten Sneaker Contest , "Live Free For A Year" "Get High For Free" the 12 in a row competition, The Midland Bank Cashcall and so many, many more fun, innovative and interactive competitions. They also brought back the Sunshine 101 "Don't Say Hello" Promotion too. As the listeners loved the station there was no question of listeners being "bought" as these were already proven, successful ratings boosters which did not affect music flow (like a huge 5 min Cashcall sequence on bauer stations) or long, ponderous sequences like the Dublin market was synonymous with. Most of the competitions involved listening to the musical output and spotting a sequence or cue. These were large bona fide US competitions on UK / European Hit Radio. Not some local Irish or RTE type scams (like the Late Late text competition etc).

alzer100

Listen to Atlantic 252 Tribute *33rd Anniversary Special* by Enda W. Caldwell on #SoundCloud

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?show_artwork=true&visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F42049152#