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| Mickey Nold |
Radio Nold (Nold being my nick name from school) was on-and-off the air for many years,first starting in 1966 while I was still at Selly Oak Boys school. I had a deep interest in all the sciences, but a lack of good education held me back a little. I failed my Eleven-Plus exam while at junior school which ended up with me being sent to at a Secondary Modern School for boys that's what they called them at the time. I also had my fingers in a research organisation as the membership secretary (Midlands area) for a UFO research group called Contact UK. We carried out Sky Watches all over the UK and visited supposed landing sites with tape recorders, Geiger counters, walkie-talkies and telescopes.
Leaving school in the Summer of 1967 I took on a 3 year electrical apprenticeship with a television rental company called Rent-a-vision (they had a shop next to Selly Oak Police Station) and attended Matthew Boulton Technical Collage where I studied full time for 12 months and part time for 2 years, and passed exams on; Amateur Radio, Radio & TV Principles and Colour TV Principles. This then aloud me to build bigger and better AM radio transmitters than before. I got lots of help from fellow students, one even tracked my signal from this home in Solihull to the broadcast site one Sunday afternoon.
1969 broadcast from Bournbrook
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| Whiz aka Mack |
As with any radio station you need help from other dj's to fill the hours of transmissions with meaningful dialect (lol,) So I got a few friends interested and during the week-ends we would transmit shows like the one above that still survives. A few cans of beer and flashing lights helped break the inhibitions of the guests on the microphones. It soon turned into a house party that was live on-air and bad language was hard to stop, the tapes have been bleeped-out, even words like fart, lol
The studio was named 'Kinmac' studios an anagram of the Laurence's surname shown here. We broadcast from his home while his Mom worked the Summer seasons at Margate. Lots of catch phases were printed out on cards and dotted around the downstairs rooms, some can be seen in this photograph. A few of the lines were taken from James Brown songs of the day (always been a big fan of JB) When the guest vocals dried-up I would play comedy clips from the Grundig cassette recorder by Mac's right hand. My income was virtually zero at this time (collage student) so all the equipment (transmitter, decks, flashing lights, etc) were all home made using 2nd hand bits or wood that fell over the wall at the local timber merchant.
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| Transmitter & 100w valve amp |
The 100 watt medium wave transmitter (we were on 222 meters- radio one was 247 quite near) was on a drinks trolley and the un-screened aerial cable ran all through the house, and via an open window into the back garden, anybody that touched or went near to it (dancers included), had a green spark (RF power) jump from the wire to earth via them. The transmitter would quite often break down due to low voltage components being used (they were cheaper), it could never be left unattended due to the flames. When I used to test the transmitter I would walk down the street with a potable radio listening to a JB's (James Brown's backing band) vinyl album and suddenly there would be a loud humming noise and I would have to run back to the house that was full of smoke and see to it. A mate at the time called 'Funky Dunk' (Duncan Finlayson, RIP,) would do much research on African American Soul singers and was a good friend of Les Ross, a BBC DJ on radio Birmingham at the time, so I would get them to interview the groups or singers at their live venues and we would broadcast them, including people like; Doris Troy, Chairmen Of The Board, Ben E. King, Tammi Lynn, Sam & Dave, Jr. Walker, Detroit Emeralds, even Freda Payne all were given FRN air time.
Broadcast from 1972 with interviews
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| Party time! |
The legal airways around now were virtually black music free and did not represent the growing diversity of the UK population at the time. In America riots were rampant and the Vietnam War was being frowned upon, and black activists such as Dr Martin Luther King Jr. had recently been assassinated.
Radio One launched in 1967 (with mainly pirate DJ's from sea) had only the Mike Raven show on a Saturday Mornings for 1 hour. of soul releases. In all fairness he didn't play much good stuff anyway. I would turn to AFN (American Forces Radio) in Germany, here you could hear some good US black music but the signal was weak, only intended for the Frankfort area. I was a big fan of Jazz and especially instrumental albums like Jimmy Mc Griff, The Mar-Keys, and Booker T. & The MG's, all of which you can hear playing in the background while we ad-libbed live on the airways.
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| Letraset plaques all over (JB's horn player) |
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