The origins of Radio Overdrive began in 1974 when Sunkhead Radio took to the airwaves on 254m Medium Wave, the operator "Jolly" Roger Stevens was a member of the Offshore Magazine team at the famous address of Eastworth Road, Chertsey. By 1975 the station name was changed to Swinging Radio England. 

Transmissions from Radio England continued well into 1977 but moved from Roger's house in Shepperton after a raid from GPO official Jim Crow.

There were no prosecutions as the official only found a non-functioning ex-army No.19 set, Roger had hidden the MW rig. Further transmissions continued from field sites. By then Roger had moved from Shepperton to a new location in Hampton and it is there that he started Radio Corsair in 1975.

Radio Corsair first broadcast on October 25th 1975 on medium wave 1331 kHz. 227 meters. These broadcasts were made every Sunday between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM. Later, Radio Corsair decided to switch to short wave because of the greater response from listeners. The first shortwave broadcasts were quite weak. The power was 5 Watts and the first broadcast took place on July 17, 1976 on 6225 kHz. Later, Radio Corsair increased the power to the current 15 Watts and switched to 6250 kHz.

Radio Corsair then broadcast every Sunday on 6250 kHz. from 09:00 to 10:30 GMT. The program format consisted of Roger Stevens (see photo) with guest disc jockeys from various free radio stations. For example, Mark King from Skyport Radio, Oscar Hoanson from Radio Viking, Ian Harling, aka Phil Collins, and Mark Stafford who has worked for Radio Caroline since the 1990's.

The music selection mainly consisted of rock music from LPs. On December 18, 1977, Radio Corsair went off the air for a "Christmas holiday" and returned to 6250 kHz in January 1978. The power was increased to 60 Watts.

Radio Corsair had two studios: one consists of 2 of BSR turntables, 6 channel mixer and a cassette deck. The other was the same, but had 2 Garrard SP Mk 25 turntables and a Grundig tape recorder.

Long-wire antennas were used.

Radio Corsair broadcast without any problems from the authorities until 1982, although for the last few months they joined forces with Skyport Radio and broadcast on the 41m band 7395kHz as the Skyport Corsair Network.

Fast forward to 2019 and Roger once again started a new station after a short spell on local radio in the North West of England. Radio Overdrive began in 2019 as Ten Sixtyfive Overdrive after it's frequency of 106.5MHz FM.  Ten Sixtyfive Overdrive on 106.5MHz started up as a community station during the lockdowns on October 12th 2019, and when the first lockdown came into force in November of that year, it was  on air daily from 2pm till 5pm.

Roger continues the story "I came on the air quite by accident as I wasn't going to to bother with a serious pirate station anymore but I wanted to help the pub community of the town and surrounding areas as the government at that time were leaving the hospitality services to their own devices, and too my surprise, I got rather a lot of listeners as everybody was in lock down and I personally was going insane with nothing to do, so I started up a Facebook group, and bought a cheap mobile for the station. I already had studio equipment from my last project, a 60's 70's station called Veronica VHF but shut  that down due to no listeners apart from my next door neighbour, and that was only because he couldn't receive a anything else on his radio when I was on a cheap Chinese transmitter with poor filtering and only 30 Watts output.

In February this year, Ten Sixtyfive Overdrive changed frequency from 106.5MHz to 100.8MHz and changed it's name to Radio Overdrive using a brand new transmitter with much more power than the previous one. So up to the present day, Overdrive has now evolved from a low power community station to a regional clandestine radio station supporting peace, socialism and climate change.

On October 29th 2023 at 12 noon, Radio Overdrive returned after various tests during the week and is back on full power on the new frequency of 101.4MHz due to the recent congestion on 100.8MHz"

Coming up: Workers Radio  '24 on air from 11am till 5pm on Wednesday May 1st celebrating International Workers Day. Workers Radio is an associated affiliate to Radio Overdrive and Skyport Radio and follows the historical broadcasts of Workers Radio '78 and '82.

Radio Corsair will also take to the air this year again as a one off. This is envisaged to be on the birthday of the station July 17th

UPDATE

Workers Radio will broadcast on May 1st 2024 from 1pm to 7pm, followed by Skyport Radio 7pm to 8pm both on 101.4MHz

Radio Corsair will broadcast on July 17th 87.5MHz, times TBC. Medium Shortwave frequencies maybe added, check back for updates

Roger Stevens 

April 2024