The Barones soundtrack

Well I hope you have enjoyed the last five days of Barones recordings. It's been interesting going through old tapes and reliving some good times from the past and remembering what I was doing back then. 

You heard a couple of recordings from the 1990s when I was at college and should have been studying, rather than listening to pirate stations into the early hours of the morning. And you heard the sound of some more recent broadcasts. During those inbetween years I moved out of my parents house and bought my first place. I met my wife and our first daughter was born. We moved to our current home and our second daughter was born. A lot has happened during that time - and Barones was on air the whole time with international programmes.

In around 2005 I would sometimes fire up the ultra-heavy Racal RA17 and have a tune around the bands.

The old Racal. The one I have used to belong to Baro

Although I can't find any recordings from that time, I sometimes found Barones on air late at night and remember giving him a call on one occasion. I had been away from the hobby for several years and he was surprised to hear from me, but that contact lit the pirate spark for me, just as it did when I moved to my current house. And other listeners around Europe tell me a similar story - they have come and gone from the hobby but always been pleased to hear this voice coming from their radio when they listened around again.

It seems the pirate hobby is always there, sometimes dormant, but once you've got it, there's no shaking it. Interestingly, the current silence from Barones is the longest in his 40-year history. He was last on air on December 23, 2012. I'm guessing it won't be long now until he is back and working towards making it to half a century.