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The history of Dublin’s Freedom 92 fm - by Ralph
McGarry
The Beginning: March 1995 to March 1996.
On Sunday
22nd January, 1995 I noticed a new radio signal on the Dublin
airwaves. It was a station called Freedom FM and it was
broadcasting on 107.2 FM. I don’t think it lasted
long.
At 6.30pm on Thursday, 2nd March 1995, Andy
Walker rang me to tell me he had just put a 30-watt tone on
103.0 FM, and he wanted me to give him a reception report from
my house near Tallaght village. I rang him back twenty minutes
later telling him I could indeed hear the signal. He then
began to tell me of, what turned out to be, the successful
launch of Freedom FM. Himself and Simon Davis were so prepared
that they even had a mobile phone number with which their
listeners could contact them. The phone was actually Andy’s,
and it turns out that he was the first teenager I knew who had
a mobile phone. Remember, this was the days when mobile phones
were the size of a shoebox and confined solely to the
possession of businessmen and drug pushers. Andy was neither.
I was impressed.
The following day Freedom commenced
test broadcasts on 103 FM.
I marked in my diary that
Freedom FM officially launched at 7pm on Monday 6th March,
1995. I think Andy and Simon were quite happy with that
achievement, as they managed to go on air around 2 weeks
before Pulse FM, adjacent to the frequency they were planning
to use, and a week before the planned launch of HOT
107.
I presented a once off ambient music programme
from Simon Davis’s bedroom on Sunday 16th April 1995. Andy had
asked me to join the station, but as I was going to Israel for
the summer, I could only commit to a number of shows in May of
that year.
Whilst in Israel, Andy kept me abreast of
the pirate situation at home, and when I returned, offered me
the post of Head of Programming and Promotion. One of the
first things I set about doing was to get some press coverage,
and later that September, both Hot Press and Tallaght’s Echo
newspaper covered Freedom. Simon and Andy also wanted me to
put some structure to the station. It was already beginning to
sound like a pop/chart music station. We introduced a play
clock to nurture this type of music format. We devised the tag
line “Dublin’s Premier Chart Music Station” (a derivative of
which is still used today!) and we introduced specialist
programmes, featured artist weekends, and a comedy programme.
The now infamous Alternative Crew also made their debut during
this period. Those early days of Freedom FM were the most raw,
yet creative time in the station’s history. The problem was if
you lived outside the postal codes of Dublin 12 or 6W, you
weren’t going to hear any of it. Something needed to be done
about this situation.
During the summer of ’95,
Freedom FM had to move to 102.9 FM due to the establishment of
Pulse FM on 103.2 FM. Even with this separation, Pulse’s
mighty power output was killing Freedom’s weak signal. In
early 1996, I suggested that Simon and Andy re-position the
station to 92.4 FM, for two reasons. Firstly, Q95 were linking
on 92.0 FM and hadn’t had any problems being so close to 2FM,
and secondly, I could see the IRTC allocating the frequencies
at the higher end of the band to licensed stations, forcing
the established pirates off the air (Which is what
subsequently happened). I argued that being down so close to
RTE, no-one was going to interfere with our signal, and we
were assured of a long tenure on that spot on the dial.
I remember Simon being very much against the idea. And
I could understand why. He had spent much time and effort in
trying to establish a station on 102.9 FM, and felt all his
work, which was beginning to bear fruit, would be washed down
the tubes. He also felt that we would be isolated down the
other end of the band. In early 1996, the main tx’s of pirates
were at the upper end of the FM band, with the lower end being
used for just link transmitters. Freedom would be the first
pirate in a very long time to pin all it’s hopes on a
frequency below 99 FM.
Simon finally gave in, and the
decision was made to move Freedom FM to 92.4 FM. DJ Power was
so excited of this new beginning that he produced hundreds of
flyers and placed them on windscreens of cars in the Square
shopping centre. At 9.24 am, on Monday 4th March, 1996, 3 days
before Freedom’s first Birthday, the station switched on it’s
transmitter on 92.4 FM. Myself, Simon and Andy were present at
the launch. Within days, we got a call from Cablelink asking
us to move as they had received a complaint our signal was
interfering with their relay of BBC Radio 3 on 92.3 FM. At the
same time, for some strange reason, Q95 moved their link from
92.0 FM. How fortuitous!
Freedom slotted nicely into that spot and has remained
there ever since!
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