Radio SylviaRadio Sylvia

The people behind Radio Sylvia had already run two short-lived pirate outfits out of Hamburg when they started again in July 1977, and this one stuck. They held FM, longwave and shortwave for seven years while the Bundespost hunted them, losing their gear in a 1982 raid and coming back anyway. In December 1984 the police reached the transmitter mid-broadcast, detained four of them and seized everything. The crew printed a death notice for the station, mailed it to listeners, kept going on borrowed Dutch and Irish airtime, and returned legally in 2009.

Punk, metal and alternative, weighted hard toward bands nobody has signed yet. A single of the week runs three times a day, often before its release date, and the inbox is open to anyone who fits. Pariah Burke covers hard rock and hair metal, pMad an Irish indie hour, Tom Kneesen a monthly dig through stoner rock and doom. Mark Andersen, on air here since 1977, presents Blackout.