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It
had been on air for less than a week on July 17th when
transmissions were interrupted by 'Cheeta' losing her
anchor and ending up aground outside Malmo, Sweden. After
necessary repairs she returned to her original position
and recommenced broadcasting on August 2nd. To prevent
interference with a Swedish land-based radio station the
frequency was changed to 89.55MHz on August 29th and two
days later, with increased power, 'Cheeta' also made experimental
broadcasts in Swedish under the name of SKANES RADIO MERCUR.
It had been realised by then that this small boat was
completely unsuitable and the owners started to make arrangements
to acquire a second, larger boat.
During November 1959 a group of people including Gordon
McLendon, Bob Thompson and Jack Kotschack acquired the
ex-cargo boat 'Olga' ( previously called 'Margarethe'
) from which they planned to operate a Swedish commercial
radio station to be called RADIO NORD. The project experienced
many setbacks and for various reasons took over a year
to get onto the airwaves. From late November 1959 a company
called Anstalt Veronica ( the name was derived from the
original project title VRON which stood for Vrije Radio
Omroep Nederland ) had also been converting a vessel,
the ex-German lightship 'Borkum Riff', for radio broadcasting.
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