Radio Scotland

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Radio Scotland [1966-1967] was an offshore pirate radio station broadcasting on 1241kHz mediumwave (242 metres), created by Tommy Shields in 1965. The station was located on the former lightship M.V. Comet, which was anchored at various locations off the Scottish coastline, mostly outwith international waters.

The station began broadcasting on January 1, 1966 and featured DJs including Paul Young and Richard Park. Its land-based headquarters, Radio Scotland House, were located at a (now demolished) building at Cranworth Street, Hillhead in Glasgow. (A two-minute walk from BBC's Scottish HQ). As well as being the station's administrative centre, Cranworth Street also allowed the creation of taped programmes - using 1/4" magnetic tape, which were taken out to the ship by tender and replayed as and when required. The late Radio Luxembourg disk jockey Stuart Henry (DJ) spent most of his time here as he was particularly sensitive to sea sickness!

The Comet was initially anchored off Dunbar on east coast of Scotland and the station achieved strong coverage of Edinburgh, but could not be received as clearly in Glasgow. Shields decided to move the ship to Troon off the island of Arran on the west coast, but since it had no working engine this meant that it had to be towed all the way. Adding to the expense was the fact that the station remained on the air during the journey, meaning that it had to take a much longer route to remain outside British territorial waters.

These anchorages off the west coast of Scotland were found to be within territorial waters and the company fined £80 as a result, bringing about the move to offshore Co Down Northern Ireland) the station became known as Radio Scotland and Ireland. for a time, then Irish state broadcaster RTÉ claimed Radio Scotland was causing adjacent channel interference to its Athlone transmitter.

Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, transmissions to the east of Scotland was much worse from this location, so Shields returned the ship to a new anchorage at the east coast off Fife Ness and the Isle of May

The station closed on August 14, 1967, when the Marine Offences Act 1967 legislation came into force. Shields had repeatedly lobbied the British Government to grant Radio Scotland exemption from the act and attempted to negotiate terms under which the station might continue to operate legally, but was always refused.

Tommy Shields died six months after the closure aged 49, and it was often claimed that he had died of heartbreak at the loss of his greatest dream - a truly Scottish radio station.