This is when I saw my own chances rapidly diminishing of starting to work
on a real station. Finally I was given the chance to go and see the real thing, just offshore
Scheveningen - a small fishing village next to the city of The Hague. A date was set, after a party at the Caroline HQ, with Mike Haggler (from the
States) Tony Allan and Andy Archer. Right smack in the middle of our wintry storm season (a force 8 storm) I was able to go out to the ‘old lady’ Even if it was a force 10, I
would have still gone out, there was nothing to stop me there.
Caroline House in the VanHogendorp
straat in The Hague
The atmosphere onboard was great, I liked it
streight away, hectic, because of the tender, but tranquil in a strange sort of way.
On
the tender coming out, was Peter Chicago, who was there to switch on the transmitters and do some engineering. That same night the first test transmissions went out and
although I was not allowed to say anything on the air,
but I was playing the records and felt I was working for a real radio station.
On the first of January at 12 noon the new Belgian-Dutch station Radio
Mi Amigo started its transmissions. I came back to the “Lady” a couple of times, to baby-sit the
pre-recorded programs from the Flemish Service. In that short period I learned a lot about becoming a real DJ; with lessons in presenting, compiling
and making
carts plus recording them. In the mean time
I was going back to school in Amsterdam. At the end of that semester I was able to work as a Caroline panel operator in
a small radio studio inside a record store in the centre of Amsterdam. Some of the Caroline programs where recorded at Record World and
some of the DJ's needed a technician
to play the disks. The great thing about it was, I was getting paid now.
When the Dutch government accepted the MOA., its Dutch
equivalent in August of that year, it was all over for me, because working for a ‘Pirate” now, was out of the
question.
The MiAmigo in the middle of the seventies off the Dutch coast This picture was also used as a Q.S.L. cart
So I was to move to Fryslăn, to work as a professional DJ. at a discotheque in the city of Sneek. Sure I have had a taste of the
real live at sea, be it short, and I was set to get back there, one way or the other. Now the first thing was making it as a successful DJ. in the club circuit.That
scene was all right, but I wanted more in live, so I had a talk with Greame,
(an Australian Caroline DJ.)
to see I he
knew what to do next. He suggested I take some broadcasting schooling.
So after a while I went to Australia, with the help of Greame Gill, to skill myself even more in the radio field and ended up in the Announcers
Academy in Melbourne. Well I can tell you, this was such a great
time, after three months of theory, there where three months of
p ractice at the biggest station in Melbourne at that time; 3XY. While over there in the studios of 3XY in
the AGE building, in the centre of the city, I was also recording bits for an Amsterdam station and
some Belgian local stations. This learning period in Australia is worth
going into a lot, but lets stick to the subject. After some 8
months I was back in Fryslăn and wanted to do the real thing, radio!
In the mean time I did a couple of
pirates and finally run into a nice group of people, who I would later see again in some or another offshore projects.
Here is Greame as he looks now, a bit older, like all of us
but still a great man
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"Read my Lips -
the early years"
Now go on to the new part, were I talk about my
days on the Mi Amigo
GO |
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