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Wonderful Radio London was the brainchild of Don Pierson who lived in Eastland, Texas, USA. According to an interview conducted by Dr. Eric Gilder with Don Pierson which was published by Sibiu University Press in Romania during 2001, Don Pierson got the idea to start Wonderful Radio London while reading the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper carried an account of the start-up of Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta from two ships which at that time were anchored off the coastline of Southeast England.
Pierson said he was captivated by the fact that these two offshore broadcasting operations were the first and only all-day commercial radio stations serving England. Because Pierson was an entrepreneurAn entrepreneur is a business innovator who establishes a new business entity to offer a new or existing product or service into a new or existing market for profitable motivations. Entrepreneurs often have strong beliefs about a market opportunity and ar, he compared the number of stations then serving the population of Northwest TexasTexas joined the United States of America as its 28th member state in 1845. It has the postal abbreviation TX . The state name derives from a word in a Caddoan language of the Hasinai, tejas meaning friends or allies Spanish explorers mistakenly applied t where he lived, with these two stations serving the population of England. As he told his story, he concluded that he had an idea that would be worth a lot of money.
Pierson caught the next available "red eye" flight from Dallas Love Field to England to investigate the British broadcasting scene for himself. Upon arrival he chartered a small plane and flew out over the two radio ships and after taking photographs, he returned to Texas with the idea of creating a station that was bigger and better.
His immediate thought was to take recordings from Gordon McLendon 's highly successful radio station KLIF in Dallas, TexasTexas joined the United States of America as its 28th member state in 1845. It has the postal abbreviation TX . The state name derives from a word in a Caddoan language of the Hasinai, tejas meaning friends or allies Spanish explorers mistakenly applied t, remove the local commercials and then retransmit the tape-recorded output with local BritishThe word British has several different uses. See the article on Britain for more details. In a geographical context, it usually applies to a person or object from, or the people or nation of ("the British") the island of Great Britain though, confusingly, commercials from his own ship anchored offshore. In other words KLIF in " Big D" would become KLIF broadcasting to "Big L".
The station's transmitter was rated at 50,000 wattsThe watt (symbol: W is the SI derived unit for power. It is equivalent to 1 joule per second (1 J/s), or in electrical units, 1 volt- ampere (1 V · A). It is the rate in joules per second at which energy is being converted, used or dissipated. Equations :, although it initially operated at just 17,000. By contrast, its main rival Radio Caroline South had a maximum power of 10,000. In 1966 Caroline upgraded to 50,000 and Radio London retaliated by upgrading to 75,000.