Big Beat Radio

North-Dublin based Big Beat Radio first appeared in the summer of 1986 and was founded by six boys, all aged 15-16, during the school holidays. They were Bobby Gibbson (Brian Greene), Dónal Greene, Michael Redmond, Peter Walsh, Brian Hegarty and Mark Tynan.

The original plan was to go on medium wave, with the copper wires running along the seafront behind the studio, but they ended up on 96.2MHz FM in mono. ERP was only 15w and because the mast was no more than 20 feet off the ground, the signal was limited in range.

The studio consisted of two turntables, a cassette deck, a microphone and headphones.

John Walsh was also involved as a Newsreader. He remembers that: “the sound was terribly over-modulated and a dead ringer for AM, although we were supposedly on the superior quality band. Levels were all over the place and there was plenty of dead air with needles scratching in the groove at the end of records. The station was held together with sellotape and a soldering iron. Our one microphone was wrapped in a cloth to prevent popping and taped to a wooden banister which protruded from a scratchy mixer dating from the 1960s.”

This description is not to denigrate the station at all. As John, who was 15 at the time, says, getting a station on air at all was an achievement in itself and a great buzz.

The station had a phone number for requests - 322215. In true pirate radio-style this was actually the number of the phone box across the road! The postal address was 3A Brookstone Road, Baldoyle.

Big Beat lasted all of seven weeks, closing suddenly at 6pm on Friday August 8th with the Simple Minds song ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ being the last record played. The station closed because of a rumour that a group of rival kids from the nearby suburb of Kilbarrack were on their way over to cause trouble.

Two of the original founders of Big Beat Radio, Brian Greene and Peter Walsh, were involved in setting up Centre Radio.