In Memory of Tom Taylor (Barry Stephens)
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August 31st 1980 saw the start of FRSH including Tom’s involvement presenting the English Service. In fact it was him presenting the first ever official FRS show on that final August Sunday back in 1980. E.M.R. went from strength to strength every 3rd Sunday and FRS followed one week later on a 4th Sunday. We exchanged DX News on a monthly basis (on cassette) and Tom supplied me with monthly news about London’s very lively and professional landbased scene adding many AM & FM recordings on the audio letter cassettes.
We often phoned…every month when I returned from the FRS site after firing up the transmitter(s), Tom would call me at approx. 10:15 CET to give a live report. Tom let me hear FRS loud and clear from his Eddystone receiver through the phone. Absolutely amazing… Typically Tom: always supportive, showing interest in FRS’ broadcasts. Tom’s technical skills- building solid transmitters- and giving good advice were of great value: one very important lesson he taught me was to put out the modulation as loud as possible. He used to say to me the audio had to be distorted at the transmitting site with ‘hissy sidebands’ meaning that it had to splash, cutting the noise. Very useful! A louder modulation was achieved by using the loudspeaker output of the cassette machine instead of using the normal DIN output. A simple yet very effective adjustment!
The fact E.M.R. received monthly thick piles of letters throughout the famous Kent Place address proved it was a leading and popular station. Leading also in a different way: (as far as I know) E.M.R.was the first ever SW Free Radio station introducing a second (41 mb) service on 7325 kHz in September 1978. And: just over a year later E.M.R. came up with tests to North America resulting in reports from the U.S.A. and Canada!