You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reasons:

This IP address has been blocked from editing Wikipedia.
This does not affect your ability to read Wikipedia pages.
Most people who see this message have done nothing wrong. Some kinds of blocks restrict editing from specific service providers or telecom companies in response to recent abuse or vandalism, and can sometimes affect other users who are unrelated to that abuse. Review the information below for assistance if you do not believe that you have done anything wrong.

The IP address or range 3.231.0.0/16 has been blocked (disabled) by ‪ST47‬ for the following reason(s):

The IP address that you are currently using has been blocked because it is believed to be a web host provider. To prevent abuse, web hosts may be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
You will not be able to edit Wikipedia using a web host provider because it hides your IP address, much like a proxy or VPN.
We recommend that you attempt to use another connection to edit. For example, if you use a proxy or VPN to connect to the internet, turn it off when editing Wikipedia. If you edit using a mobile connection, try using a Wi-Fi connection, and vice versa. If you are using a corporate internet connection, switch to a different Wi-Fi network. If you have a Wikipedia account, please log in.
If you do not have any other way to edit Wikipedia, you will need to request an IP block exemption.

How to appeal if you are confident that your connection does not use a web host's IP address:
If you are confident that you are not using a web host, you may appeal this block by adding the following text on your talk page: ((unblock|reason=Caught by a web host block but this host or IP is not a web host. My IP address is _______. Place any further information here. ~~~~)). You must fill in the blank with your IP address for this block to be investigated. Your IP address can be determined here. Alternatively, if you wish to keep your IP address private you can use the unblock ticket request system. There are several reasons you might be editing using the IP address of a web host (such as if you are using VPN software or a business network); please use this method of appeal only if you think your IP address is in fact not a web host.

Administrators: The IP block exemption user right should only be applied to allow users to edit using web host in exceptional circumstances, and they should usually be directed to the functionaries team via email. If you intend to give the IPBE user right, a CheckUser needs to take a look at the account. This can be requested most easily at SPI Quick Checkuser Requests. Unblocking an IP or IP range with this template is highly discouraged without at least contacting the blocking administrator.

This block will expire on 06:15, 30 September 2026.

Even when blocked, you will usually still be able to edit your user talk page, as well as email administrators and other editors.

For information on how to proceed, please read the FAQ for blocked users and the guideline on block appeals. The guide to appealing blocks may also be helpful.

Other useful links: Blocking policy · Help:I have been blocked
Your IP address is in a range that has been blocked on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. The block was made by ‪Jon Kolbert‬. The reason given is Open proxy/Webhost: See the help page if you are affected .
- Start of block: 05:35, 21 February 2024
- Expiry of block: 05:35, 21 February 2029
Your current IP address is 3.231.50.33. The blocked range is 3.231.0.0/16. Please include all above details in any queries you make. If you believe you were blocked by mistake, you can find additional information and instructions in the No open proxies global policy. Otherwise, to discuss the block please post a request for review on Meta-Wiki. You could also send an email to the stewards VRT queue at stewards@wikimedia.org including all above details.

You can view and copy the source of this page:

((Short description|Danish offshore commercial radio station))
((more citations needed|date=April 2008))

'''Radio Mercur''' was a [[Denmark|Danish]] offshore broadcasting commercial radio station. It started regular transmission on 2 August 1958 and ceased officially on 31 July 1962, followed by 3 days of transmissions from 13 to 15 August 1962. Later broadcasting took place under the name of Radio Mercur in Majorca from 1969–70 and again on the Spanish Costa del Sol from 1982–84 and finally in Copenhagen, Denmark as a local radio station from 1987-94.

==The first pirate radio==
A Swedish "pirate" station, Skånes Radio Mercur (changed name to Radio Syd in 1962), started broadcasting on 14 December 1958 from the same ship. It broadcast to the southern province of Sweden, Skåne, and was run by a young man, Nils-Eric Svensson, who had studied radio and TV in the USA and had worked at the government-run Swedish Radio for a very short time.

Radio Mercur was probably the first commercial offshore radio station in the world and gave inspiration to a whole number of offshore radios or pirate radios in Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom during the 1960s.<ref>((cite book |last = Leonard |first = Mike |authorlink = Mike Leonard (author) |title = From International Waters |publisher = Forest Press |year = 1997 |isbn = 0-9527684-0-2))</ref> The Danish press soon began to use the expression "[[pirate radio]]" on Radio Mercur, and a number of cartoons in newspapers and magazines pictured the radio station with pirate symbols.

Radio Mercur used the fact that radio transmitting in international water was only regulated by international agreements; these didn't take into account the possibility to transmit regularly from an anchored ship. The inspiration for the radio station came from [[Radio Luxembourg (English)|Radio Luxembourg]] and the American [[Voice of America]], which broadcast from a military vessel, the [[USCGC Courier (WAGR-410)|USCGC ''Courier'']], in the Mediterranean.<ref>((cite book |last = Nørgaard |first = Henrik |authorlink = Henrik Nørgaard (author) |title = Pirater i æteren |publisher = Syddansk Universitetsforlag |year = 2003 |isbn = 87-7838-809-0))</ref>

The success of Radio Mercur directly inspired other groups of radio enthusiasts to begin their own ship-based stations. These included the Dutch stations [[Radio Veronica]] and the artificial island based [[REM Island|Radio Noordzee]] along with the Swedish stations Skånes Radio Mercur and [[Radio Nord]] close to Stockholm.

==Station and ships==
The radio station was founded by Peer Jansen and Ib Fogh. It was called a pirate radio, because it was considered a lawless attack on the monopoly of the Danish National Broadcasting Corporation, though the authorities didn't have any weapon in the first place to stop the "radio pirates".

Radio Mercur made all of its recordings in studios in Copenhagen, Denmark and the tapes were then sailed to a transmitting vessel in international water in Øresund between Denmark and Sweden. Transmissions took place on the FM-band, first on 88,00&nbsp;MHz, later on different frequencies to be able to meet complaints from the Danish authorities and also to transmit in stereo with dual transmissions on two frequencies simultaneously.

The first transmitting vessel was Cheeta Mercur. It was later accompanied by the larger Cheeta II, placed in Storebaelt between Zeeland and Fuenen in order to cover most parts of Denmark.

In September 1961 another pirate radio station began to compete under the name DCR/The Commercial Radio of Denmark (Danmarks Commercielle Radio). This was started by a group of former Mercur employees. The two stations merged in January 1962 and continued under the name Radio Mercur but with the jingle from DCR. DCR used the vessel Lucky Star for its transmissions.

==Legislation changed==
The Danish parliament decided on a bill in June 1962, that effectively prohibited all participation in activities supporting transmissions, recordings, etc. after 1 August 1962. At the same time similar bills were pushed through in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. The final song played was [[Auld Lang Syne]] by [[Mitch Miller]].

Transmissions started again some days later, but the Danish authorities took immediate action and sent police out to seize the vessel and end transmissions. In Sweden the station [[Radio Syd]], using two of Mercur's former ships in succession, succeeded transmissions up to 1966 in defiance of the law.<ref>((cite web |url=http://www.scandinavianoffshoreradio.com/default.asp?page=tekst.asp&id=61&changeLang=3 |title=Scandinavianoffshoreradio - - www.scandinavianoffshoreradio.com - 25-04-2012 |website=www.scandinavianoffshoreradio.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425152919/http://www.scandinavianoffshoreradio.com/default.asp?page=tekst.asp&id=61&changeLang=3 |archive-date=2012-04-25)) </ref>

The National Danish Broadcasting Corporation ([[Danmarks Radio]]) started a new programme, the so-called Melody Radio (later known as programme 3) on 1 January 1963. The programme was very similar to the programmes on Radio Mercur and several key employees from the pirate radio were working on the programme.<ref>((cite web | url=http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Samfund,_jura_og_politik/Massemedier/Massemedier_i_verden/Danmark_(Massemedier)/Danmark_(Massemedier_-_Radio_1922-80) | title=Denstoredanske.dk &#124; lex.dk ))</ref>

==References==
((Reflist))

==Further reading==
*Mike Leonard: From International Waters. 60 Years of Offshore Broadcasting, Forest Press, 1997 (((ISBN|0-9527684-0-2)))
*Paul Harris: When Pirates Ruled The Waves, Kennedy and Boyd, 2007

==External links==
* [http://www.radio-mercur.dk www.radio-mercur.dk (in Danish)]
* [http://www.scandinavianoffshoreradio.com www.scandinavianoffshoreradio.com (in Danish and English)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111011113636/http://radiohistoria.jvnf.org/oresund.htm radiohistoria.jvnf.org/oresund.htm (in Swedish)]
* [http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/RP2/Mercur01.shtml Soundscapes by Hans Knot]

((Offshore radio))
((coord missing|Denmark))

[[Category:Offshore radio]]
[[Category:Radio stations in Denmark]]
[[Category:Radio stations established in 1958]]
[[Category:Radio stations disestablished in 1962]]
[[Category:Defunct mass media in Denmark]]

Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page (help):

Radio Mercur (edit)
Template:!(( (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:))! (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Ambox (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Catalog lookup link (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Cite book (view source) (protected)
Template:Cite web (view source) (protected)
Template:Coord missing (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Coord missing/CheckCat (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Find sources mainspace (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Hlist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:ISBN (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:If (view source) (protected)
Template:MV (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Main other (view source) (protected)
Template:More citations needed (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Navbox (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Offshore radio (edit)
Template:P2 (view source) (protected)
Template:Pagetype (view source) (protected)
Template:Reflist (view source) (protected)
Template:Reflist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:Resolve category redirect (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:SDcat (view source) (protected)
Template:Ship (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Ship/maintenancecategory (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Short description (view source) (protected)
Template:Short description/lowercasecheck (view source) (protected)
Template:Wikidata (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Yesno (view source) (protected)
Template:Yesno-no (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Yesno-yes (view source) (template editor protected)
Category:Denmark articles missing geocoordinate data (edit)
Module:Arguments (view source) (protected)
Module:Catalog lookup link (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Category handler (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/blacklist (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/data (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/shared (view source) (protected)
Module:Check for unknown parameters (view source) (protected)
Module:Check isxn (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Citation/CS1 (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/COinS (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Disambiguation/templates (view source) (protected)
Module:Find sources (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Find sources/config (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Find sources/links (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources mainspace (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Message box (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box/ambox.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box/configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Namespace detect/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Namespace detect/data (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar/configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbox (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Navbox/configuration (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Navbox/styles.css (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Pagetype (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/disambiguation (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/setindex (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/softredirect (view source) (protected)
Module:Resolve category redirect (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:SDcat (view source) (protected)
Module:String (view source) (protected)
Module:Unsubst (view source) (protected)
Module:Wd (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Wd/i18n (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Wikitext Parsing (view source) (protected)
Module:Yesno (view source) (protected)

Return to Radio Mercur.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Mercur"