On Saturday August 19^th the Caroline Day for the Dutch listeners was organised on board the MV Norderney, the former transmission vessel of Radio Veronica, which is harboured in Leeuwarden harbour in the north of Holland.

August 19^th is of course, a date in Caroline’s history, that no one will forget. In 1983 on that date a 50 kW signal was beamed over Europe on 963 kHz when the new radio ship, the Ross Revenge, was heard officially for the first time. Caroline was back on the air after tragedy came in March 1980, when their long used radio ship, the MV Mi Amigo sunk in the Thames Estuary. In 1989 another thing happened to the radio ship. A boarding party, lead by Dutch and English authorities went onboard the Ross Revenge, taking away all the studio equipment, the transmitter gear as well as the record library. It was, as it was stated more than a year later, an illegal operation, so all the equipment, which was stored in Holland, was given back to the Caroline organisation.

After a storm in 1991, the radio ship Ross Revenge had to be towed into Dover harbour and the AM transmissions from international waters came to an end. Since then the Caroline organisation has had 10 Restricted Service Licences on which they could transmit for 28 days periods on several locations at the east coast of England. Next to that they hired, during the past two years, airtime from Flechtech in Maidstone Kent to air satellite radio programmes to Europe during the weekends. It seemed that the real Radio Caroline listeners had found the way back to the station by listening on their dish receiver. August 19^th 2000 can be written down as another historic day in Caroline’s history as during 13 hours Caroline could be heard over the main part of Europe using a 600 kW transmitter, which was hired by the Dutch Caroline club for only one time transmissions from Merlin Communications. This transmitter is normally on air during evening time, transmitting BBC World Programmes. Many e-mails, faxes and phone calls came in from all over Europe during these one day only powerful transmissions. They seemed to be having a lot of listeners that day and I think the Dutch team deserved it.

Reason for this very powerful transmissions was to promote the start of another Radio Caroline exclusive, as from this day on, the 24 hours a day internet radio officially started. First on a low basis as during the forthcoming period 9 hours a week will be specially recorded by Johnny Reece and Gill Legine, as well as the satellite weekend programmes will be repeated during the week on Internet. The rest of the hours will be non stop music. The album format, which made Radio Caroline so big in the seventies and eighties, will be used on Internet.

On the press conference it was told by initiator Sietse Brouwer, a Dutchman from Harlingen in Holland, that in the future they hope to get more former Caroline deejays to record special Internet programming. But also they want to use the 1296 kHz in the future, to bring back Radio Caroline on AM through daytime hours. But the future will tell if they will ever succeed in bringing it back on 1296 Khz. As well as Brouwer station manager Peter Moore, who flew over from London, told the press that Caroline wants to be a Pan European Station again, but will bring only English language programmes. And that is, in my opinion, the real problem for the organisation. In the past, since the start of Radio Caroline in 1964, there were only three years, up till August 1967, that the money to run the station came from British investors and advertisers. When the Marine Offences Act became law on August 15^th 1967, the station lost a lot of advertisers and the two radio ships, the MV Mi Amigo and MV Fredericia, were towed away from international waters in March 1968 as they ‘forgot’ to pay the bills to the Dutch tendering companies.

When Radio Caroline came back in 1972 it was there because a Dutch organisation put in some money. April 1973 saw the stranding of the Veronicavessel Norderney and Caroline came to help. Radio Veronica could use the Mi Amigo but Veronica had to buy new equipment and a generator. After 10 days of transmissions Radio Veronica went back to her own ship, leaving the equipment and generator, so Radio Caroline could come back herself for a small period. July 1973 saw the start of the sister station Radio Atlantis, from Belgium, who was responsible for the running costs of 4 months. From January 1974 up till October 1978 another Flemish investor paid all the bills. Then the station came back in April 1979 up till March 1980 and due to the fact there were, next to the English language programmes, also Dutch language shows and Dutch and Belgium advertisers, the station could go on.

When the programmes restarted in 1983 from the new radio ship Ross Revenge they could be there for a year only due to a big financial injection from some American investors. Again Radio Caroline could be saved for the period from summer 1984 up till late 1989 due to the fact sister stations like Radio Monique, Radio 819 and Radio 558 (all from the Netherlands) paid for the running costs for the ship and the crew. When the Dutch stopped programming from the Ross Revenge the conditions on the ship got worse and at one stage, a few weeks before the ship stranded on the Goodwin Sands in 1991, the crew had only one heater left on the bridge. Programming was impossible as a result of failed equipment.

The ship was towed into Dover harbour and again the money came from unexpected sources. Several Free Radio Organisations, including the Ross Revenge Support Group, the Foundation for Media Communication from Holland and individual listeners put a lot of money into the organisation with the main idea to rebuilt the studio and transmitters and get the ship back to sea. The last thing never happened.

Now they think to find backers to pay 1 million guilders a year to hire the 1296 kHz during daytime hours. But where do they think the money can come from? Now British advertisers will invest, maybe a few small companies. From the Dutch side also nothing can be expected as long asthere will be no Dutch language programmes. So there’s only one thing to do for station manager Moore and his team: deciding to go some hours a day in Dutch and try to gain as much as Dutch advertising to see if there's any future for the station.

On the subject 'Ross Revenge' Peter Moore told on the press conference that the radio ship will be used again in the future as a base for programming. Although the running costs for the ship are high, the accommodation and atmosphere on board the ship is far much better that the conditions in the studio's at Flechtech in Maidstone. There a deejay, who has finished his programme, will leave soon afterwards. On the ship they will stay and socialise more with the other people of the team, who all still do their work as volunteers.