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Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Charleston Radio Int taken off the air

Some sad news today from Harry Richman of Charleston Radio International on Facebook:

"CHARLESTON RADIO INTERNATIONAL is shut down by authoritys today afternoon. So its history and i thank you for listening and posting over the years. The project was made for 100 years of AM Radio. I hope you remember me fondly BYE BYE."

The station, which was based in Germany Switzerland (see comments) had built up a loyal following with its programmes of music from the 1920s and 1930s. It always operated around the 5140 kHz area and was on air daily.

It had recently started a programme in the Italian language.

Many comments on Charleston Radio International's Facebook page.

***UPDATE: Charleston! This weekend is all about the Charleston at Radio Twente Gold, a local mediumwave station in The Netherlands. One of our programmes is "Charleston Radio International", made by Harry Richman, who ran the Charleston radio station for several years on shortwave. This station has unfortunately stopped broadcasting this week. In honour of the many hours of music programmes compiled by Harry, Radio Twente Gold is rebroadcasting all of Charleston Radio International's programmes this weekend. Exciting music from the 1920s and 1930s. So listen from Saturday morning to Sunday evening (CET).

 In the Twente region in The Netherlands on 1008 kHz, worldwide via www.twentegold.nl and via http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/?tune=1008am for avid AM listeners. (Radio Twente Gold's Facebook page)

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:00 pm

    What a pity. Charleston Radio was valued for its regular daily broadcasts and unique music format.

    And you have to ask yourself, why waste German taxpayers' money on closing down a small free radio station? It's not like they were "taking" listeners or "stealing" advertising revenue from legally authorised commercial stations (which was the motivation for much of the British action against offshore and landbased pirates back in the 80s). I admit that I don't know a huge amount about the history of German pirate radio, but I did once read in an article online that the authorities have a history of being quite draconian against pirates there - apparently, they even used to confiscate people's transistor radios if they were found to be pirate listeners!

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  2. This is very sad... a station on a frequency where no one was hurt by its broadcast. And at the same time an unlicensed station like Radio North from Ireland on 846 kHz is frustrating legal Dutch LPAM stations on a frequency that is not even allocated to Ireland with its commercial broadcasts. Where is the ff-ing EU on this?

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    1. Anonymous6:59 pm

      You keep changing your online name for your constant complaints about Radio North. Are you afraid because Donegal is not so far from the Netherlands.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous11:26 am

    What about the not so legal Dutchies that have no consideration for anyone and just fire up where they want whenever they want with their high power cloud warmer transmitters, spitting out spurious harmonics all over the place.

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  4. Anonymous2:35 pm

    846 ... a random dutch pirate operates there.......

    and yet complains about radio north who have been there since the 80s, and in fact an irish frequency since 1981... Why ask to be allocated a known busy channel....

    what right does a rude dutch pirate have to complain.... ????

    Oh they claim to be an LPAM, but they are not ......

    842 and 843khz is not a Dutch LPAM freq. And in fact they are causing deliberate interference. Where is the EU for this QRM.

    Somebody else a couple of years ago was complaining about 1611khz, and dutch pirates using the channel.... yet it has been a well used channel by the dutch for decades. so again, why ask to be allocated 1611 when it is a known busy frequency...

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    1. Anonymous10:04 pm

      I dont think that not very fair there is also Radio star country on 981mts medium wave free radio for all those blasted plamass tv should be sezied power supply iniin themwalk all over the HF band

      Delete
  5. Anonymous10:54 am

    It wasn't touched until it started Italian shows. Is there a possibility that the Italians complained to the Germans who then had to do something about it?

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  6. It seems the station was Swiss according to report on the Radioascolto a 360 Facebbok page:
    "SWITZERLAND: The pirate station Charleston Radio International was closed by Swiss authorities on the afternoon of February 28, 2024 This station was broadcast daily on 5140 khz with 1 kw of power and was received all over Europe. His peculiarity was broadcasting music from the 20s and 30s, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the radio. It pretended to be a German station and pointed to Berlin, actually its transmitter was located in the south of Switzerland."

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