In the summer especially, on a clear evening, you could find a quiet place away from electrical interference and pull in Radio London or Caroline, or even Radio Scotland. And definitely Radio Noordzee Internationaal
But, of course, the pirates were closed down.
The BBC launched Radio 1, based on Radio London and with many familiar faces like Tony Blackburn, Dave Cash and John Peel, but it wasn’t the same.
Long wave was still used for Radio 4. FM became more of a thing.
I bought a Sony radio that had amazing tuning including all short wave, and spent hours while living in Essex catching obscure stuff. I wish I’d lived in Essex in the 1960s with all those pirates off Clacton.
When I moved to London, the electrical interference made it more difficult to pull in stations clearly..