That 'Offshore Radio Museum' Timeline ....

By calling itself the 'Offshore Radio Museum', it might be reasonably expected by a visitor to that cyber site, that they would find a collection of facts about the subject of offshore radio:

Not so.

If Paul Rusling is but one in a long line of self-publishers and careless mainstream book publishers who have issued fiction in the name of fact, then the 'Offshore Radio Museum' has to be associated with that 'Wikipedia' class of unreliable cyber information about maritime broadcasting stations.

For instance, enter the words 'Radio Atlanta' and this is what you find [with my notations added]:

"In 1960 an Australian  ex-wartime bomber pilot and music publisher, Allan Crawford, established a business in London managing minor artists and producing cover versions of hit songs on his own record labels." [A few entries back I had written that Allan Crawford left Peer-Southern on August 17, 1959 following a dispute with the widow of Ralph Peer. However, because of the fuss that people like Scottg were creating over dates, I discovered that Ralph Peer died on January 19, 1960, so I will have to undertake a more thorough review to discover exactly when and why Crawford left Peer-Southern.]

"Crawford had, until 1959, worked both in Britain and Australia as Managing Director of a music publishing company - Southern Music - before leaving to establish his own business, Merit Music Publishing Ltd. which produced records on labels including  Rocket, Sabre, Crossbow and Carnival. .... Crawford set about convincing  a number of wealthy and influential backers of the commercial potential for launching a radio station to challenge the BBC monopoly. The result was the formation of Project Atlanta Ltd., which initially had 38 separate investors each holding anything between just 50 and 10,000 of the company's 150,000 £1 shares." [Now this is where this cyber museum and Wikipedia throw their arms around each other! Project Atlanta Ltd was not incorporated until August 1, 1963, and its directors did not include any of those "wealthy backers" that it came to have by the end of 1964. But that is not what this cyber "Museum" says:] 

"By early summer 1962 Allan Crawford was aware that the Scandinavian offshore stations (with the exception of Radio Syd) were about to close because of new legislation coming into effect at the beginning of August to outlaw them. Crawford had closely followed events surrounding these Scandinavian stations and he negotiated a deal with the American backers of Radio Nord to purchase that station's vessel, Magda Maria, complete and ready to broadcast, together with the entire contents of the fully equipped land-based studios in Stockholm." [The problem for the cyber 'Museum' is that no such deal was concluded because Crawford did not have the kind of money necessary to make such a deal.]

"In addition Crawford was interested in taking on some of the Radio Nord technical staff and marine crew to continue running the Magda Maria and all its equipment. The prospect of this sale to Project Atlanta had, in part, led to the early closure of Radio Nord - in June 1962 rather than at the end of July when the Scandinavian legislation came into effect." [According to Bill Weaver, the man who shut down Radio Nord, there was a far more sinister reason for shutting it down, and that was compounded, according to Weaver with the theft of company assets in Stockholm.]

"Bob Thompson (one of the American backers of Radio Nord) and Allan Crawford reached a preliminary agreement for the purchase by Project Atlanta of the Magda Maria and all the associated radio equipment and even agreed a delivery date for the ship to drop anchor in the Thames Estuary. But before anchoring off the British coast it was agreed that the Magda Maria would go into port for a complete technical and marine overhaul." [Now that is a statement by someone who is unaware of Bill Weaver, because he had full control of the ship and its radio equipment, and his base of operations was a hotel in London.

So, this cyber 'Museum' is stating as fact, something that is factually impossible.

This "deal" that is being supposedly being negotiated by 'Project Atlanta Limited' in 1962, is allegedly taking place one year before the company was registered!

But none of this troubles the script writer for the cyber 'Museum', and so far, until right this minute, right here and right now, no one has laughed this cyber 'Museum' to scorn.

But just to make sure everyone understands that the cyber 'Museum' is talking about 1962 and not 1963, their listing continues with more errors!]

"Even before Radio Nord had closed rumours of the sale of the Magda Maria started to circulate in Sweden during the early part of June 1962 and the station's owners became very nervous that the authorities would attempt in some way to seize the vessel, possibly if she sailed through the narrow channel between Sweden and Denmark. These fears proved unfounded, however, because after lying at anchor for a few days following Radio Nord's closure, the Magda Maria successfully slipped away from Scandinavian waters sailing quietly through The Oresund and into the international waters of the North Sea."
​
"The Magda Maria docked at El Ferrol in northern Spain on 2nd August 1962 where a complete overhaul of the vessel took place as part of the agreement with Project Atlanta. The renovated ship left El Ferrol on 14th September 1962, giving her destination as Dover, England and a few days later she dropped anchor, as agreed, in the Thames Estuary."

Now you wonder, so what?

Well, the cyber 'Museum' seems to dwell in a cyber bubble, unaware of events such as the aftermath of the 'Bay of Pigs' and the US embargo of Cuba, or that Bobby Kennedy had asked for the ship as part of 'Operation Mongoose'.

While the anoraks were busy putting Rusling's 'bible' at the top of the Garry Stevens' Forum, and keeping it there, they were spending waking hours attacking the people behind this blog. Not the issues, just the people, and one person in particular.

Is this their means of distracting from the obvious truth that the Malcolm Smith concoction that calls itself 'Radio Caroline', is based upon nothing more than Rusling's fraud, the nonsense on the cyber 'Museum', and all of those ridiculous 'Jimmy Ross' and 'Caroline Kennedy' myths?

The real problem is that no one before now has tried to set down a definitive account of all of the interrelated and interconnected events that took place between 1964 and 1967, because no one has even set down a definitive account of what exactly happened in 1959 that took events up to the year 1964.

That is what is being worked out here, because CNBC; Voice of Slough and GBOK which is followed by GBLN, are at the moment a confusing sea of ventures that also swirl around the company registered in April 1960 as CBC (Plays) Ltd. But what was that company in 1960: who incorporated it; why did they incorporate it, and why was it specified as a company whose main business was 'plays'?

This is what I will be documenting on this blog, as well as the new Timeline page that I have just created. If these loopy anoraks would spend more time discussing the origins of Radio Caroline and less time attacking me personally, then something might be achieved. Sadly it was when 'The Trio' extended an invitation to Paul Rusling that he merely stole what he wanted to produce yet another deceitful and fraudulent book.

On the other hand, in forthcoming issues of this blog, I will be documenting the real events referred to here.