Red Sands Radio

Meet the team

Bob Le-Roi

Bob has been in radio virtually all his working life; from the 60’s as a tender inexperienced teenager on Radio City, through the BBC, Caroline, Private, Overseas & ILR Radio to winning a licence for his own station. Red Sands Radio was Bob’s brainchild & has since forming in 2007 been a runaway success

Sandy Le-Roi

When Red Sands Radio first took to the airwaves in 2007, Sandy was a regular working girl looking after the Forensic Laboratory at Police Headquarters in Maidstone, but somehow she was pulled into the project as ‘Mission Control’

The first two years of broadcasting from Red Sands Fort brought unique challenges for Mission Control in terms of transporting personnel and consumable supplies by boat to and from the Fort, often in difficult weather conditions

Five years down the line, and having retired from full-time paid work, Sandy is now an accepted member of the team with responsibility for arranging Presenters’ lodgings, maintaining supplies (including home baked cakes), organising timetables, and trying to keep the boss under control – the hardest bit by far!!

Phil Hadler (  Hooligan )

Born in Whitstable and still living here although have visited many countries throughout the world. Took an interest in Short Wave Radio and Guitar playing at an early age

Started an apprenticeship in radio, recording, television repair and design with a local shop.Served four and a half years and gained C&G certificates, then gave it up to become a professional musician and tour Europe with various bands

Came home to get back into the radio/TV trade before joining ICOM as the service engineer

At that time just three members of staff. Moved on up through the company as it grew, very fast, then became Sales Director and then Managing Director, a post held for many years as the company became very famous and grew to 60 people at one point, then back to a comfortable 40

Sadly, I decided to leave last year as I wanted to follow my music again. This was looked upon as early retirement, it was not my intended goal. I also work with the Dave Lee childrens charity

I still have a keen interest with short wave radio callsign G4CZU

Still working in the music business and took an interest in Red Sands Radio 4 years ago. Spent time on the Red Sands Forts during the AM broadcast time on 1287 Khz. Now a strong member in the team again this year

Roy Gooderson ‘The Fly’

Roy has been a supporter of the station since the fort days, and fan of offshore radio since visiting Radio Caroline & Laser ships back in the 80’s. A familiar face in Whitstable as proprietor of R.G. Electronics in Oxford St. which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary

Roy is a founder member of Canterbury Harriers running club and can be found starting and commentating at the Whitstable 10k & supplies P.A. for Whitstable Festivals and local events. Whitstable Castle is one of many local businesses that rely on a phone system installed by Roy and most local Schools have sound systems and 2 way radio from the shop

As well as running, Roy water ski’s and has been a keen drag racing fan for 35 years having recently taken a ride in a special 2 seater dragster doing 169mph in 7.9 seconds! Roy appeared on ‘The Live Lunch’ on Monday 4th July talking about Mount Ephrain Run on Sunday 10th July

Fiona Glendinning

Fiona is the daughter of the late John Glendinning one of the senior engineers on Radio 390

She’ll be out and about in the Red Sands Radio car looking after the stations unique ‘Shop Watch’

In her own words ”Whilst I’m no engineer I’m thrilled to be part of Red Sands Radio, something I know my dad would have been surprised but delighted about”

You can find out more and see some exclusive never before published photographs on Fiona’s father John here

David Phillips

David has spent most of his working life in Radio and Television engineering.Starting in private mobile radio, moving onto BT and later satellite broadcasting for Arqiva

Worked in radio broadcasting for Radio Windy in Wellington and WDMJ in Mitchigan

Through a mutual friend John Ross Barnard from 60′s offshore radio and his return to the Fort broadcasts of Red Sands Radio, he offerered his experience to the station

Tony Pine

One of the original Offshore Radio engineers, Tony built the 200’ radio mast on Radio City, at the time the tallest Pirate Radio antenna. Tony & his lads as he calls them, went on to erect two antennas for Red Sands Radio in 2007 & 2008 on the Red Sands Fort

More recently he’s constructed the catwalk joining the Southern Gun Tower to the Control Tower on Red Sands a feat he last undertook in 1966 again on Shivering Sands

Peter Chicago

His broadcast technician reputation goes before him as one of the mainstays of Radio Caroline. Radio Engineer on the Mi-Amigo, a spell on Radio Northsea International and very much the man that brought Caroline back to the air from the Ross Revenge

Peter in recent years has been working for Alice Soundtech maintaining transmitters throughout the UK and overseas, he’s been Red Sands Radio’s senior radio engineer since we began in 2007

Tony Bose

Works at Red Sands Radio as a studio & sound engineer; training locally he spent time at Whitstable’s Tele Radio (Now Deco 5) under Nobby Arnold, before going to Canterbury Hi-Fi

Up until the 1980’s he ran a highly successful Disco Roadshow boasting top London Hotels as clients in addition to being a senior engineer at Bose (UK) based in Gillingham. Tony will be hosting a one off ‘the ‘Red Sands Radio Cafe‘ from 13.00 – 16.00 on 9th July

Sean Reilly

Responsible for maintaining and developing the Red Sands Radio website.

Sean has worked within sales and marketing for the last 14 years with brands large and small. Now working as a online marketing consultant his company CanMarket is helping local businesses and organisations get the most out of the digital world

Sean lives in Chartham with his wife and two kids, runs for the Canterbury Harriers as well as being on their committee and likes to get out and have adventures whenever he can!

Matt Smith

Matt Smith the Red Sands Radio I.T guru relaxes with an ever-present mug of tea.He’s been with Red Sands Radio since 2007 when we first operated from the Forts, and was instrumental in providing links and the webstream from the Towers

Matt’s day to day work takes him from looking after the I.T at a number of colleges and schools to designing and proving operating systems. He’s quite a handy man too having just refitted a friend’s motor cruisers. For relaxation he’s quite a dab hand at playing rock guitar

Richard Amos

Richard Amos, a friend of Bob & Sandy for over 30 years, has been recruited to assist the Team this year

A Whitstable Native, he studied at Simon Langton Grammar School then at City University to become a professional electronics engineer in the defence industry

After 44 years service with GEC-Marconi (latterly BAE Systems) at Rochester he retired a couple of years ago as a programme manager responsible for aircraft avionics projects world-wide and notably for the US military

With this engineering and management background he gladly assists behind the scenes in a number of technical and administrative roles