Laser closed down ?

[Guest]

23 August 2006 - After 12 years of successful broadcasting to Europe, we have reluctantly been forced to shutdown our shortwave transmissions. This is due to action from the radio authorities. In the meantime, we shall keep the Destiny stream and shows on our website available so listeners can continue to hear our programmes. Please keep checking this website for more updates over the coming weeks. Thanks to all the shortwave listeners who have supported us over the years.

This is what I read on the Laser-hot-hits-internet-page.
Anybody here who know anything more about this ?
Has there been an official raid, or.... ?

[Roger Davis]

Sad news indeed that we have lost Laser on SW, without them the band will seem very quiet during the weekdays, you could always rely on them being on air at anytime of the day or night, not many other SW operators have managed to acheive this over the years, now they have gone the SW free radio band will become weekend 'top heavy' which is a great shame.

I am unable to speak on behalf of Laser, but as far as I know they were asked by the authorities to close down to avoid being raided, so it seems they were given a chance to escape, I hope all free radio fans will continue to support the station by listening to their online programmes.

Roger Davis from BRI

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply.
Seems very strange, being forced of air after 12 years of non-stop-broadcasting in 4-5 bands on shortwave.
Any reason mentioned ?

[Roger Davis]

I certainly wouldnt like to speculate at this stage the reasons for the raid, no doubt if Laser wants to give more details then it would be done via their official website.

For the moment, perhaps we should all just support the laser team in the form of email messages etc, to let them know we are still behind them 100% during this very unsettling and uncertain time for the station.

Roger.

[Roger Davis]

I would just like to correct the wording in the previous post,

Of course it should of read..

I certainly wouldnt like to speculate at this stage the reasons why the authorities were planning to raid the station.....

[All Europe Radio]

Although this action has taken place, we would like to wish everybody involved in Laser the best wishes for the future. We have no doubt what-so-ever that their programmes will be missed from the SW bands. If they are unable to continue via SW, then maybe they could continue via a web stream or perhaps monies could be donated in some form for them to continue (part time at least) from the Lativa transmitter.

We have to take our hats off to the authorities for at least having the decency, respect and good grace of allowing Laser to close down properly rather than being raided. It's a shame that the UK Authorities don't have as much respect & good grace. We feel that both free radio oprators would have more respect for the authorities if they were to act in the same way as the authorities who warned Laser. (We presume the authorities who warned Laser were from the Irish Republic).

We wish Colin and his team all the best and hope they can find another way or legal loophole to allow them to re-start their great programmes. Failing this, surely the Irish Republic must have SW frequencies allocated to them, just like every other country in the world, and that they would allow Laser to become, at least, a trial Irish based International radio station. Remember no one knew about 252kHz LW being allocated to the Irish Republic until there was talk of Radio Tara's proposals, etc. The same must apply to SW frequencies in the Republic of Ireland....??

Best wishes Laser,
All Europe Radio Team.