RADIO SCORPIO
RENAMING AND CLOSEDOWN
After the (from today's point of view: temporary) end of Radio Sylvia, it seemed to be too risky to restart broadcasts with an own transmitter. In March 1985 we changed the station's name to Radio Scorpio and contacted various foreign shortwave pirates with the intention to hire airtime. Negotiations with the Belgian station Radio Delmare, which had been broadcasting since autumn 1984 with 1.5 kW on shortwave, were successful. So we were soon able to broadcast a four-hour programme to Europe on every 1st Sunday of the month via Radio Delmare with a strong signal on 6206 kHz. Once again listener feedback was very positive. The regular transmissions continued until the end of 1985, when Radio Delmare had to close down temporarily for security reasons. In June 1986 the station returned to 6206 kHz, and also Radio Scorpio was back on the air on 6th July 1986 with regular broadcasts. However, ten months later, on 17th May 1987, the Belgian authorities finally silenced Radio Delmare.
So we were forced to give up our broadcasts via Radio Delmare. During the following months we contacted the Irish station Radio Ireland International and were soon able to air our regular transmissions via their transmitter on 6312 kHz; unfortunately reception in Central Europe was poor. Several months later we moved to the Scottish pirate Scottish Free Radio Network on 7423 and 7428 kHz. But the problem remained - reception in the German target area was too poor and listener feedback declined. We had to face the fact that our radio project no longer made any sense. So we ceased all broadcasting activities at the end of 1989 with a heavy heart and let our station fall into a long sleep - hoping to be back some day.
