The seventies weekend was great, but part of it's charm was that it's such a rare treat. A summertime special once a year works very well. The majority of those involved would not be available to do anything more regular than that.

The Caroline North broadcasts are more sustainable, but even then, some months the schedules can be rather weak. The upcoming weekend looks quite strong to me, so hopefully should be a good one.

The comments about the 558 era also struck me as rather unfair, but as Stephen says it was just an opinion. Personally, I loved the 558 format - it was perfect for that time just as the album format was approprite for the mid seventies.

Pretty much every Caroline presenter thinks their era was the best, and it was never as good after they left. Tony Blackburn was the first I can remember making comments like that but many others have over the years, including myself.

Also circumstances were very different. In the seventies a large part of any crew member's time was spent nursing the Mi Amigo, keeping it afloat and tending to aging broadcast equipment. It was often the case that someone was hired as an engineer but then turned out to be not bad on the radio. It was totally different in the eighties. The Ross Revenge was a strong ship, the broadcast equipment was a little old but was bomb proof. Lack of supplies in latter days made things more difficult, but the Ross Revenge was not in imminent danger of sinking. Most people I worked with on Caroline in the late eighties, although primarily hired as broadcasters, were there because they believed in the station and were dedicated to helping it continue.

It was a very different radio industry by then. ILR was thriving, there were lots of jobs in radio if you decided to give that a go. There were one or two who did Caroline just to get it on their cv and advance their careers, but they were a very small minority.