Allan Weiner and Randi Steele on 66 WNBC

Allan Weiner and Randi Steele, organizers of the Radio Newyork International (RNI) pirate ship broadcasts, pay a visit to the studios of 66 WNBC on the 2nd floor of 30 Rockerfeller Plaza in New York City. They are joined by longtime associate JP Ferraro. The date is July 28, 1988 and there are thunderstorms in the area which can be heard as static bursts on this off air recording.

The trio speak about their experiences with the FCC and take calls from supportive listeners. Also of interest are the commercials for NYNEX Mobile, proud that they are adding a new 5 MHz of spectrum to their cellular system; and regular advertisers Sears and K-Mart.

Host Alan Colmes also pokes fun at Randi as a former troublemaker, based upon phone calls that he -- yes Randi was still identifying as a he at that time -- made to radio stations back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is also revealed that Randi worked nights at WNBC back in those days as a producer to Big Jay Sorensen who these days is to be found on WCBS-FM in NYC.

Give a listen and I hope that you enjoy it.

Ed Armstrong and Marconi on KPRC

I was quite surprised this evening to hear a KPRC broadcast from 30 years ago being aired on WBCQ. I tuned past 7,490 kHz and heard some vaguely familiar segues and then the voices of Ed Armstrong (aka Randi Steele) and Marconi (aka Dan Lewis) coming out of my radio. Allan Weiner, owner of WBCQ, found some old reel-to-reel tapes in storage that had not seen the light of day for 30 years and decided to put them on the air. The pogram will resume at 10 PM Eastern (0200 UTC) on 7,490 kHz and on the web. Join me as we travel back 30 years in time to Pirate Radio Central in New York City.

RNI Friday Follies via WRNO, New Orelans

On March 20, 1991 the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on fetal protection in the workplace in the case of UAW v. Johnson Controls.  What does this have to do with Dan Lewis op de radio?  The release of the decision was instrumental in dating the next show presented for your listening enjoyment.  It was found on an undated cassette tape.

Back in early 1991, Radio New York International made the bold move of providing a 7 day per week broadcast schedule.  I took Friday nights, naming them the Friday follies, and Tina agreed to help with the RNI Information news segment.

This program was somewhat unusual.  It was done live, and instead of doing a 5 minute news segment over the phone, Tina was able to join me in Randi's Flushing studio that evening.  It quite by accident turned into our version of Howard and Robin doing the news for an hour, but it was definitely done in Dan and Tina style.  Tina had a lot of airtime and used it well.  The discussion took the audience through sex, rape, culture, and strange crimes of passion.  NYC crime in the days before Giuliani, Bloomberg and Kelly was a topic, as were the price of luxuries and taxes disguised as user fees and tolls.

What is also unusual is that this was part of the brief 5 evening per week broadcast stint done via the facilities of WRNO in New Orelans, LA.  I was very happy to find this recording and be able to share it.  The date appears to be Friday March 22, 1991 at 9 PM Eastern (0200 UTC Saturday) based upon the release of the Supreme Court decision that week.

At about halfway through the program, Randi is featured in a spot which announced the complete RNI broadcast schedule:

Sunday @ 0200 via WWCR, Nashville
Monday - Friday @ 0200 via WRNO, New Orelans
Saturday - Radio for Peace International, Costa Rica @ 2230 and 0500

Times are UTC but in all instances except the 2230 RFPI transmission, the UTC days were actually the next day.  RNI could never get UTC quite right.  But on the web, anytime is party time, so listen here whenever you want.