Radio Free Helen Poster 197m – 1969 – (Courtesy Roger Neil)

It was a network of pirates in South London each station did 30 minutes and one followed the other on 197m (1525 kHz).

 What was supposed to happen was you would get a continuous broadcast with little chance of a raid. Seems a reasonable idea in practice but in theory it didn’t work as most of the stations were low power with poor aerials. Even if the next station came on which often they didn’t one might be strong the next weak. No continuity at all,

 The Helen network folded very quickly. Radio Jackie was a part of it for a few weeks but then we went our own way. We recruited Ian West from Radio Helen North. Radio Helen was a guy called Andy Mashieski (probably wrong spelling) from Tavistock Road, Croydon.

 Before Radio Jackie started I let Helen 6 broadcast from my house in Sutton. They brought the transmitter round on Saturday and set everything up and left it overnight. Here’s the transmitter (Tx) set up in my bedroom.

Radio Free Helen ready to broadcast from Nick Catfords bedroom at Sutton, London circa 1969 (Courtesy Nick Catford)

Other entries about this station would be  welcome !!!!