Atlantic 252 - A good example of a Red Pill

Does anyone know if Steve Haze, aka Hollywood Haze was Steve Kelly of Sunshine 101? Steve Kelly had a weekday slot circa '86,'87 from 7-10pm later on he went from 10 - 1am.
Just curious as Hollywood Haze sounded very much like him.

So where did you first hear presenters of Atlantic 252 previously - Irish or otherwise?
Here's mine.

Nails Mahoney and Mark Byrne - Sunshine 101

Enda Caldwell - Sunset FM (as Enda Storey)

Liam Coburn - Capital Radio (now FM104)

Andrew Turner - BBC Radio One (news)

Simon Bates (think that was a syndicated program) - Top of The Pops!

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

So where did you first hear presenters of Atlantic 252 previously - Irish or otherwise?
Here's mine.

Nails Mahoney and Mark Byrne - Sunshine 101

Enda Caldwell - Sunset FM (as Enda Storey)

Liam Coburn - Capital Radio (now FM104)

Andrew Turner - BBC Radio One (news)

Simon Bates (think that was a syndicated program) - Top of The Pops!

I first heard Liam Coburn on Q102 (Super-Q) in 1988.

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

So which of the Irish presenters had you not heard of before Atlantic 252.

Here's my list of the ones I can think of. And, yes, I did find out some more about what some of them were doing before Atlantic 252 since then!

Paul Kavanagh
Dusty Rhodes
Rick O'Shea
Stephen Cooper (I think that's where I heard him first, although it could have been the '90s pirates before his stint)
Henry Owens
Jo King
Al Dunne
Robin Banks
Hollywood Haze (assuming he's Irish)

I would have said Greg Parke, but I don't think I heard of him until after Atlantic 252.

Is Limerick's Live 95FM's Mark Whelan, aka Dickie Bow on Atlantic 252, Irish? I had not heard of him before Atlantic 252.

ford fiesta

James Whale was also on 252 on Friday afternoons in around 1991 and flew weekly from London to Trim to do the show if I remember.

Simon Bates (Ex BBC R1) "Our Tune" was a pre-recorded segment

The late Dave Lee Stone was another U.S. presenter on the station in the early days:
https://www.mixcloud.com/gcamblin/atlantic-252-david-lee-stone-1st-day-friday-16th-feb-1990/

Liam Coburn - Boyneside Drogheda to Energy 103 to Q102.

Many of the Irish DJS on Atlantic where ex Sunshine / Q102 /:Energy / Nova

TheBoyConor

alzer100 wrote: »

As much as I liked Atlantic 252 especially in its early years, it wasn't really an original idea or thinking outside the box with respect to its format, sound and target audience as far as RTE was concerned. Its concept was born from Dublin's super pirates of the late 1980's, namely Sunshine 101 and Super-Q102. RTE were just able to bring that particular "sound" to a wider audience in the UK and it worked (for a couple of years anyway).

Nostalgia anyone?
http://radiowaves.fm/ire/database/atlantic-252/

Apparently Rick O'Shea entered and came in second place on Sunshine 101's The Big Kahuna DJ/prizes competition in 1988.

thejuggler

Henry Owens (Condon) was fairly prominent in the Cork pirate scene in the 80s. Later went on to set up RedFM in Cork in 2001/2002. Sadly passed away a few years back after battling cancer.

thejuggler wrote: »

Henry Owens (Condon) was fairly prominent in the Cork pirate scene in the 80s. Later went on to set up RedFM in Cork in 2001/2002. Sadly passed away a few years back after battling cancer.

A true gentleman of Irish radio. In Dublin he also worked at Nova and Q102. RIP

Grandeeod

The music was great and the jocks rocked, but have we mentioned the fact that the LW signal was absolute crap and the Pirates had been banging away for years on FM before it. The whole 252 thing was a good idea, but got knocked to fook by its own premise. LW across Ireland and the UK. Video killied the radio star but the internet killed 252. Bless her and once again thanks for the thread.:D

Grandeeod wrote: »

The music was great and the jocks rocked, but have we mentioned the fact that the LW signal was absolute crap /QUOTE]

The signal, despite claims by Mike Hogan( Capital 104) was crystal clear across Ireland - 500 kw - the audio quality was of course the problem - am optimod tweaked to loud !

Grandeeod

Infoanon wrote: »

Grandeeod wrote: »

The music was great and the jocks rocked, but have we mentioned the fact that the LW signal was absolute crap /QUOTE]

The signal, despite claims by Mike Hogan( Capital 104) was crystal clear across Ireland - 500 kw - the audio quality was of course the problem - am optimod tweaked to loud !

My apologies. I was of course talking about the LW audio quality.

Not forgetting that Nails Mahoney, Al Dunne and Mark Byrne all did stints on Millennium 88FM post the December 1988 closedown, whilst transitioning to their respective radio stations.

Was Al Dunne the only one mentioned that went from Millennium to Atlantic???
I think Nails Mahoney went from Millennium to 2FM and Mark Byrne went from Millennium to Century???

Infoanon wrote: »

Liam Coburn - Boyneside Drogheda to Energy 103 to Q102.

Many of the Irish DJS on Atlantic where ex Sunshine / Q102 /:Energy / Nova

From what I can make out, most of the Irish deejays on the station up until the mid 90s had previously been with Sunshine and a small number had previously been with Q102 and/or Energy 103 and/or Radio Nova. There were of course a couple of exceptions during that period: Rick O'Shea and (if he is Irish) Mark Whelan. From the late '90s on, they were likely to have come from 90s pirates, e.g. Enda Caldwell, Greg Parke and Stephen Cooper.

alzer100 wrote: »

Not forgetting that Nails Mahoney, Al Dunne and Mark Byrne all did stints on Millennium 88FM post the December 1988 closedown, whilst transitioning to their respective radio stations.

Was Al Dunne the only one mentioned that went from Millennium to Atlantic???
I think Nails Mahoney went from Millennium to 2FM and Mark Byrne went from Millennium to Century???

You're right about Nails Mahoney and Mark Byrne. Mark only got the last month of Millennium, having been involved with Riviera Radio just before that. Paul Kavanagh was to eventually became the boss of Riviera Radio, by a strange coincidence.

I never knew Al Dunne was involved with Millennium. When was he there?

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

You're right about Nails Mahoney and Mark Byrne. Mark only got the last month of Millennium, having been involved with Riviera Radio just before that. Paul Kavanagh was to eventually became the boss of Riviera Radio, by a strange coincidence.

I never knew Al Dunne was involved with Millennium. When was he there?

Not too sure tbh, think it was early 1989 as I think the station had gotten a small extension to its licence. It was supposed to close at the end of 1988. I think it ended up going to April.

alzer100 wrote: »

Not too sure tbh, think it was early 1989 as I think the station had gotten a small extension to its licence. It was supposed to close at the end of 1988. I think it ended up going to April.

Millennium Radio closed at the end of May 1989.

Declan A Walsh wrote: »

Millennium Radio closed at the end of May 1989.

I can recall hearing Al Dunne on it but when exactly - not too sure.

During it's first year, as well as the influence of the Irish superpirates, there was a strong offshore pirate influence, particularly Laser 558, which is where the American connections came in. English newsreader Andrew Turner was also involved with that station. Robin Banks, as well as doing a stint with Radio Nova, had also been on Israeli offshore pirate The Voice of Peace. I think Charlie Wolf was the last of the Laser 558 presenters to leave Atlantic 252.

Just a question on Century Radio. That tiny antenna attached to the side of the building at Christchurch. Was that some sort of microwave link to RTE?

TheBoyConor wrote: »

Nostalgia anyone?
http://radiowaves.fm/ire/database/atlantic-252/

Just looking at the link now.

Love the Anorak Facts, especially the one marked in Bold!

Anorak Facts
Atlantic 252 launched at 8am on September 1st 1989
The original frequency was actually 254kHz
Gary King was the first voice heard
First track played was “Sowing the Seeds of Love” by Tears for Fears
“Where music comes first. And talk comes joint 15th” – early billboard campaigns
Overnight automated programming was called ‘The Big Mattress’
Who else but Chris Cary beat RTÉ to Irish Long Wave broadcasting
Last live programme was December 20th 2001 but the station didn’t shut until January 2002
TeamTalk took over the transmitter and frequency

Like this bit of information as well:
In the early days it used to close at 7pm – with listeners advised to retune to sister station Radio Luxembourg (Atlantic was owned by Radio Tara – a joint effort between RTÉ and Luxy). The hours were extended to 2am in August 1990 with 24 hour a day broadcasts starting in September 1991.

alzer100 wrote: »

Just a question on Century Radio. That tiny antenna attached to the side of the building at Christchurch. Was that some sort of microwave link to RTE?

Sounds like it - Heartbeats microwave link antenna is still in place last time I looked - arrow shaped antenna / short ?

Infoanon wrote: »

Sounds like it - Heartbeats microwave link antenna is still in place last time I looked - arrow shaped antenna / short ?

No, the one at Century Radio wasn't arrow shaped. It was extremely small and thin. Maybe that wasn't the link, I don't know. I would have thought that they had to get their signal over to the transmission providers somehow. Physically, it was the ONLY antenna mounted on that building as far as I could see at the time. It looked extremely vunerable as it looked like it could be taken out quite easily if someone had a devilish streak. The cable feeding it was also quite accessible for someone with a ladder. The cable actually exited exactly where the studio was located.
It was before the internet and broadband so I don't know if they were maybe using ISDN to link to RTE. Anyway this thing looked extremely delicate.