Frequency 1525khz, 197 metres Medium wave. Circa 1968 / 1969
Address 51 The Chase, Norbury, London SW16
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The Helen Broadcasting Network grew out of Radio Helen (elsewhere on this site) and was first heard around Christmas 1968.
The 'broadcast' actually consisted of any number of operators who would provide programming in thirty minute blocks, (it was considered 'unsafe' to broadcast for longer periods) each service going to air following the close of the previous station.
In the beginning the participating operators adopted numerical Helen callsigns, Helen 3, Helen 6 etc. but this later gave way to a more individual approach with names like Radio Freedom, Radio Apollo, Radio Spectrum, Radio Rose, Radio Jackie etc.
By 1968, no pirates had ever thought of broadcasting from 'mobile' locations so all Helen broadcasts took place from the comfort of flats and houses but this led to limited movement of transmitters and poor aerials and limited broadcast range. Despite this, each Sunday programming on the frequency would extend to several hours and later would spill over to Saturday too, although this day was generally set aside for transmitter 'testing' purposes.
Each week the station operators would meet to exchange notes, discuss the programming and determine the correct order of transmission.
Even though broadcast times were limited to just thirty minutes, Post Office (The Radio Interference Section of,) activity increased, leading to the raiding and subsequent closure and conviction of many of these home based operators.
Although on the face of it, The Helen Broadcasting Network appeared to be a clever way of providing an early, unlicensed radio service, it was unwieldy and common transmitter failure, poor reception and other technical problems caused the 'Network' to close. An 'official' closedown of the Network broadcast was heard on April 1st 1969.
Following the official closure, several stations continued broadcasting, relocating to different frequencies including Radio Deacon on 197metres, Radio Telstar on 207 and later 255 metres and the legendary Radio Jackie, 197, 225 and 227 metres Medium wave. Raids on all these stations saw their closure with the exception of Radio Jackie, which was to continue for almost another fifteen years.
As a final footnote, this was not the last time the Helen callsign was heard. An ambitious plan was hatched to build a much larger transmitter, built from the components of smaller Helen Network transmitters (in reality a plan of self regulation to silence many of the remaining operators!) and a few broadcasts were heard on 227metres identified as Radio Helen International.
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