Many thanks to Mark Stafford who shares the following news:

RIP Tom Taylor/ Barry Stephens a Short Wave Pirate Radio Legend

Just got some very bad news: Barry Stephens (Tom Taylor) of European Music Radio fame has died.

To many of us learning the art of Pirate Radio Broadcasting in the South East of England in the 1970’s, Tom was “The Governor”.

EMR was a class station, probably the best Short Wave Pirate in the late 70’s. Barry and his colleague Roger Tate were legends.

Tom/Barry was also a really nice guy who helped us so much. He fixed our transmitters so many times for us and taught us how important good modulation was. Tom used to tell us “you have got to have hissing sidebands, mate”! By that he meant, lots of top end so that it cut through the noise and splashed audio on the next door channel!

Tom had a famous three wheeler Reliant Robin that the he took the EMR gear out into the woods with! We will all remember that.

Thank you, Mark. Tom was an on the SWLing Post readers and even sent his EMR weekend notes which I happily published. Though I never got to meet him in real life, he was always a good soul–and of course, a tremendous figure in the world of shortwave pirate radio.

Rest in peace, Tom.