Radio Jackie North first took to the airwaves around January of 1977
In the six years Jackie North was broadcasting the station was never off the air for more than a weekend or so. This was due to the determination of Eric Haydock (Rick Dane) to be on the air at all costs. Even after a raid and the confiscation of the transmitter Eric would be at work on another with the aim of being back on the air for the next weekend. No one could ever say that Eric wasnt dedicated or took his broadcasting lightly. Over 30 years on the mersey airwaves proves that.
Eric Haydock aka Rick Dane RIP 16-11-2002
Broadcasting mainly on a frequency of 1395Khz & 1404Khz at 217 Meters MW/AM. Though there were some secondary frequency broadcasts on 287 meters during the 80's. in 1983 some frequencies used were 945Khz on 317m. 963Khz. 977khz. 1017Khz. these were logged by Gary Hogg.
The Stations theme tune and signature was 'Jackie Blue' by the Ozark Mountain Daredevels. This was a constant feature throughout the life of Jackie North and was played to the hour each hour and served as a marker for tape changes when the station wasnt able to go live.
In the Early days Radio Jackie North was a 'field Station' transmitting out in the open air with aerial slung between two trees. The main set up consisted of the Transmitter, A cassette player, Car batteries and a handfull of pre recorded tapes.
Later the station moved indoors and way up above ground level and into the clouds, as far from the ground as we could get without needing wings to keep us there. This sky high studio was based in one of the area's Highrise blocks on an overspill housing estate on the city's outskirts. This provided the perfect position for setting up a good long aerial from the top of the 22 floor block down to the treetops of the woods below. At one time there was an aerial slung between two of the blocks.
The beauty with the towerblock studio was that we had the advantage of being able to see Mr Bird and his collegues from the GPO/RA trying to get a fix on the transmitter down on the road below. There were gladly only a few occasions when they managed to sneek up on us unannounced.*Rock Nites*In late 1979 Radio Jackie North got its first residency at 'Annabells Club' Thursday nights 50p admission. 8pm-2am. Always a good crowd and a good night. "Six hour's of your favorite rock music"1980 saw a move to 'The Lincolns Inn' in the city center. This was quite a step up for RJN. Here we were doing two nights a week Friday/Saturday. Being in the city this was an even more popular venue and soon became the place to be on the weekends.
The next move was in 1981 to the famous 'Eric's Punk Club' that had recently closed down. We had the honour of having the club rename to 'Jackie North's Cave' Im not sure why the residency there was lost but it did run for almost 2 years and was by far the best of the three venue's if you didnt count the toilets flooding during rainstorms, and the sticky carpets.Radio Jackie North vanished from the airwaves somewhere in 1983/4 For what reasons I do not know, but I know that there are a lot of people out there that gained a lot of enjoyment from tuning to the station and attending the rocknights during the stations time on the air.The towerblocks were demolished in the mid 80's and maybe this was one of the reasons for the demise of Radio Jackie North from the airwaves of Merseyside.This is only a rough potted history of what I can remember and we hope to add more to it as we contact people and blow cobwebs away to reveale their lost memories.
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