50 years ago in Portsmouth - Radio Victory
commseng
Posts: 8,224 Forum Member
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Just a quick note that today marks 50 years since Radio Victory came on air in the Portsmouth area.
It lasted for 10 years and 257 days, during which time it went 24 hours a day as the Falklands conflict affected the lives of many in the local area.
It lasted for 10 years and 257 days, during which time it went 24 hours a day as the Falklands conflict affected the lives of many in the local area.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k3-hVngAnyA
Very fond holiday memories of Radio Victory, and their logo was my favourite of all the original 19 ILRs. Their car stickers were made of paper however, and tended to fade in the sun.
I believe their original station idents were done by Blue Mink, or at least the same singers that did some of the early Capital Radio jingles.
One of the lyrics however I could never make out:
Come on and be a soldier of the *****
And a friend with the smile of Victory
Sunshine radio
Victory southern stereo
etc
Any idea what the missing word is?
Soldier of the free.
Hmm, there's a 's/z' sound on the end so it sounds like 'freeze'? But that doesn't make sense.
Here's one of Alfasound's better packages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS8AY6tgzqo
Ha yes. The one in my bedroom window ended up succumbing to condensation !
There were a lot of links like that to Capital. Didn't Capital have a shareholding in the station ?
The 'Victory Roll' at 5pm on Weekdays was a direct copy of Roger Scott's 'Capital Hitline'
A few presenters and management left Capital, to join Victory.
Sarah Ward, Paul Ingrams, Kenny Everett (same time as being on Capital and other ILRs too), David Symonds, even Tommy Vance did a short spell on Drivetime (there's a clip on one of the audio sites of that)
I liked Victory v1.0, it all went down hill when the operation became unsustainable in such a small area. It might just have survived if the franchise had been Portsmouth and Southampton from the outset.
Yes,I believe it was at the bottom or near it in the popularity stakes for the percentage of people who actually listened but then the signal wasn’t nearly as strong as others (the FM one was for me one of the most difficult to get except within a small area) and 257 had the likes of Orwell and Swansea on it as well so a mess especially after dark except close to to the transmitter,they had a bad deal I think when you think of the frequencies Ocean got on FM.
Actually, 257 metres daytime reception here in the Basingstoke area was pretty good, and south of the town, way better than Radio 210. Even driving back from the Pompy area after dark, the signal was usable as far north as Alton.
FM was pathetic though, as commented in here before, BBC Radio London from Wrotham would stamp all over it, the moment, going east on the A27, Fort Widely dropped out of being visible. My grandmother lived in Chichester, at her house it was Victory at the front, Radio London at the back. (257 in Chichester was rock solid, day and night). That improved when BBC London relocated to Crystal P, but 95.0 from Ft W at 200 watts was just hopeless. When Ocean Sound opened the IBA had moved it to 97.5 at 850 watts (and a better Tx antenna)
Last time I was on the A27 (February) the Farlington Marshes mast was still there......
Generally, I thought that Victory sounded far more professional, especially in the late 70s era (before 2CR had started). Sports coverage, for example, was far better, I did think it rather lost its way into the 80s but, from posts above, maybe money was an issue?
Re the the other comment above and the Victory Roll, I believe that was the name of the Sunday afternoon chart show hosted by Keith Butler at one point and then Tony Power. There may have been others that I have forgotten about.
Andy Ferris (who had the best jingle for his name I have ever heard) used to have the Victory Vote, the winner being announced just after IRN at 6pm, which concluded a news show which started at 5.40pm.
All as I remember of course, so could be wrong!
I could get 2CR on 828 loud and clear in Seaford East Sussex so am surprised your signal was so poor West of Southampton.On the FM front the signal didn’t travel that far East as LBC was close but once it moved onto 102.3 I could get it well on the coast in West Sussex until Spirit FM opened it’s Littlehampton relay and wiped it out along with no longer being able to receive Jazz FM from London on 102.2 in my area if I turned the aerial round.I thought 2CR was a better listen in the early to mid 80’s once,as you say,things started to slide on Victory but deteriorated after that.Ocean was good as for a while it gave a choice of four stations,things today seem boring by comparison at least to me.
Plus he was a news reader and did continuity on Radio’s 1 and 2.plus on Grampian too.
You're right, I misremembered, it was indeed the Victory Vote for the tea time chart
AM reception in Southampton city wasn't too bad, they did once mount an OB from there, I'm not sure how popular that idea was with the locals from either city or the IBA !?
Seaford, oh my ! I stayed in the Abbots Lodge Motel in 1990 (long gone thankfully) My company dumped a group of us there for the IBC trade show in Brighton. Awful Motel.
Anyway, the sea path to the Solent area was great. Even managed to get Ocean Sound on 97.5 from Fort Widley.
Living in Totton and the Waterside area I couldn’t pick up Victory unless in rare atmospheric conditions.
Likewise when Ocean Sound had West and East I could only get West.
Might have been my poor tranny aerial though.
I suppose back in the 1970s they were the only other ILR station nearby other than the two London stations.
Keith Butler, Howard Pearce, Pam Spriggs, being some example.
It sounds as if the limited range of the FM transmitter didn't help the station much, the AM one was better, I could just about hear it over the noise floor in north east Hampshire when I lived there, but that was well outside the MCA. Just as well that MW was prefered band for many in those days.
The story of the group who formed Ocean Sound is an interesting one if you haven't seen it. Obviously they were a little disparaging about Victory, although initially they thought that the Southampton franchise was the only one they were trying to win. That changed when the IBA combined it with the Portsmouth one.
https://transdiffusion.org/2022/07/15/ocean-sound-and-me/
We had a family holiday in Torquay in 1976. I was expecting to receive Plymouth Sound there on 261, but the signal was tiny. Next door on the dial there was a solid signal on 257 that I assumed to be Victory, but no, it was Swansea Sound !
Obviously from various posts it was pretty good going In that direction but they presumably tried to make sure that it didn’t interfere with Orwell hence it was difficult if you were North of the area but further East as I was.
I've equally seen suggestions that the IBA chose some ILR allocations to deliberately <cough> interference limit the service areas !?
Being on the south coast probably also didn't help with availabilty back then.
Swansea Sound made it to all sorts of places-I could hear it when on holiday in North Wales,they could hear it on the Irish coast and as you say clear in Devon and around-actually as I’ve suggested before I was expecting to watch Westward when on holiday there but could only get HTV Wales when in places like Lynton where Welsh tv and radio boomed in.