Radio Syd
Radio Syd was the first commercially operated radio station in Sweden, who later became the first commercial radio station, The Gambia was.
Radio in Sweden
The station was launched in December 1958 as Skåne Radio Mercur, which acquired the broadcasting time of the Danish pirate radio station Radio Mercur. The distance of the FM transmitter covered the southwest of Sweden with Malmö, Landskrona and Helsingborg.
The founder of Radio Syd, Nils Eric Svensson, left the station in 1961 and the actress Britt Wadner, which was responsible for marketing, took over the management. 1962 acquired Skåne Radio Mercur the transmitter ship Cheeta the Danish Radio Mercur.
The now -based on the ship station was renamed Radio Syd, in reference to Radio Nord, a similar station near Stockholm.
From the adoption of the "Pirate Radio documents" in June 1962 which prohibited the operation of such stations by law, the operators of Radio Syd did not impress. 1964 was bought with Cheeta II a larger ship of Radio Mercur, the Cheeta I sank in the port of Malmö. Radio Mercur had started broadcasting now ceased, as from 1962 there was a similar law against pirate radio stations in Denmark. 1966 ended Syd Radio broadcasting in Sweden.
Radio in Gambia
Britt Wadner sailed with the ship Cheeta II to the south and after a stopover in the Canary Islands, it was founded in 1967 by the then Prime Minister Gambian President Dawda Jawara and later invited to settle in The Gambia. There, Radio Syd was put back into operation.
Britt Wadner focused from 1970 with the construction of a hotel and left the operation of the transmitter her daughter Connie. The ship in which there was also a boutique that was run by the Miss Sweden in 1968, was sold to a Senegalese - but fell shortly thereafter. The station was initially housed in an adjacent cargo sailing ship, and later in 1977 in a building near the hotel, which was also performed later by the daughter.
By 2001, the station has been operated with a daily twenty -hour program to 329 m medium wave on. The transmitter radiated mainly from music programs, but in addition also economic and information programs in the local languages as well as English and French. Also tourist information was sent in Swedish.
A storm destroyed the transmitting antenna, which was not rebuilt.