Pirate radio in the United Kingdom Caroline and Radio London started to broadcast on medium wave to the UK from offshore ships or disused sea forts. At the time, these stations were not illegal because they were broadcasting from international waters. The stations were set up by entrepreneurs and music enthusiasts to meet the growing demand for pop and rock music, which was not catered for by the legal BBC Radio services. The first British pirate radio station was Radio Caroline, which was launched by Irish music entrepreneur Ronan O'Rahilly, and started broadcasting from a ship off the Essex coast in 1964. By 1967 ten pirate
Radio Atlantis by another Belgian businessman, Sylvain Tack, who had plans for a new Flemish/Dutch station, later to be known as Radio Mi Amigo. Atlantis bought "Zondaxonagon", a small and poorly-equipped radio ship that had tried to broadcast Dutch programmes under the name Radio Condor. Van Landschoot renamed the ship MS "Janine" after his wife. "Janine" was equipped with two transmitters. First a 10 kilowatt transmitter that had formerly belonged to Radio 270 and Capital Radio (the 1970 offshore pirate station of that name). By this time, however, the transmitter had been cannibalized for spare parts and had to be rebuilt. The