The biggest advertiser in the station's early days was Reckitts and their line of products which included 'Beecham's Powders', 'Germolene' and 'Setlers', the latter probably being a popular product on board the ship during heavy weather. Radio London playlists were organised by the station management and were usually tightly adhered to, at least during the day, with presenters not being allowed to make their own selections at all.

Radio Caroline's answer to the 'Fab 40' was their 'Sound Sixty Five', but the cramming of so many discs into a three-hour show meant playing only abbreviated sections from each, which effectively meant that the station was really only mimicking what Radio Luxembourg had been doing at the turn of the decade. The disc jockeys recruited for Radio London were mainly fairly highly experienced with the exception of a 19 year-old Liverpool lad named Maurice James Christopher Cole, who was to become better known as Kenny Everett. He and another disc jockey, Dave Cash, came together in April 1965 to produce a popular, zany show which, despite only lasting for a few months, achieved a 'cult' status in the history of pirate radio. They later recreated this partnership, known as 'Kenny & Cash', for the land-based commercial station Capital Radio.

Another programme which also attained 'cult' status was John Peel's anarchic late night 'Perfumed Garden' show which ran for a few months early in 1967, broadcast between midnight and 2am. Instead of sticking to the playlist it contained a lot of blues music and introduced the British listeners to 'underground' sounds and L.P. tracks from groups like Country Joe and the Fish, Frank Zappa and Velvet Underground, which John had been presenting a short time earlier for a Californian station and was something of a precursor to the 'hippie' movement of the late Sixties.

The station management apparently had a lot less interest in the late night output, which allowed John to create a format which he later used to similar good effect in a show called 'Night Ride' on BBC Radio 1. Radio London was very professional and soon established itself as the main competitor to Radio Caroline, surprisingly being much more in tune with the 'Ready Steady Go!' Mod scene with its high quality presentation and catchy PAMS jingles.

That month, the 'News of The World' Sunday newspaper was persuaded to run a trial advertisement on Radio Invicta by Tom Pepper (Harry Featherbee). The station's senior disc jockey, DJ Ed Moreno, was to do the voice-over so, on 16th December, he and Tom Pepper embarked from Faversham on Pepper's launch, the 36ft 'David', to do the adverts out at the Red Sands fort, also taking along some much-needed food supplies. After unloading Moreno and the cargo, Pepper headed back towards shore along with two of the station staff, disc jockey Simon Ashley (Barry Hoy) and 18 year-old engineer Martin Shaw, who were due to take their Christmas break, but the vessel was hit by a sudden squall and began to ship water.

The two passengers were lost overboard and, when the overworked pump eventually failed, Pepper tied himself to a life-raft and abandoned the vessel, hoping to make it to shore. His body was subsequently washed up near Reeves Beach, Whitstable, but his two passengers remained unaccounted for although it was later reported that an unidentifiable body had been washed ashore in Spain with some Radio Invicta tapes in its clothing. Suspected 'foul play' was never proven and the coroner recorded an 'open' verdict on Tom Pepper's death at the inquest. The station closed forever on December 18th.

Ed Moreno's tribute to Tom Pepper, broadcast while the search for Ashley and Shaw's bodies was still continuing.

The start of 1965 saw some 'big guns' lining up against the pop pirates when, on January 22nd, the governments of Belgium, France, Greece, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Britain signed a Council of Europe Agreement that not only banned broadcasts 'on board ships, aircraft or any other floating or airborne objects' but also banned anyone from those countries from supplying the pirates with materials, supplies or equipment. The stations were forced to obtain new sources of supply from either Holland or Spain, neither of whom had been party to the agreement.

Due to the distances involved this proved to be an expensive exercise and it wasn't long before Radio London, Radio Caroline and later Radio England were all using the same Dutch supply company and vessels, presumably to cut costs.

At a cost of about £7,000, new equipment was installed to improve its output and on March 2nd it started test transmissions around 237 metres as King Radio. King Radio had, apparently, originally been planned as a brand new station and not as a reincarnation of Radio Invicta, evidenced by the pre-recorded test broadcasts that gave their location as the Nore tower, which was somewhat unlikely as the tower had been completely dismantled by the early Sixties and did not actually exist!. There were some announcements for planned programmes that included shows called 'South East Special', 'Mardi Gras', 'Fiesta' and 'Candlelight and Wine', although no such-named shows were ever broadcast by the station.

Some ex-Invicta presenters, including Bruce Holland, Eddie Gerold (Frank Smith) and John Ross-Barnard, stayed with the new station, as did the fort administrator Ed Hinkins. They were joined by some new announcers including programme controller Mike Raven, late of Radio Atlanta, Roger Gomez (later on 270) and Jeff Tyse.

Their format was light, middle of the road music, essentially aimed at listening housewives, but this proved to be comparatively unsuccessful, failing to live up to such grandiose self-description such as 'your monarch of music for the metropolis' and 'the most melodic delicatessen on the medium wave'. Simon Dee made his last broadcast for Radio Caroline from the 'Mi Amigo' in March 1965 but continued to work at the company's London offices for a few months afterwards.

In April a proposed project called 'Radex TV' , headed by New Zealander James DeGrey and two years in the planning, announced that it would be broadcasting recorded television programmes for 18 hours a day, from a ship 14 miles off Whitstable in the next few months.

A jointly-owned company was set up to handle advertising sales for both stations and, when the agreement came into effect on October 1st, regular listeners at the time would have heard Radio City starting to broadcast Caroline's pre-recorded 'Newsbeat' items and promoting some of the Caroline programmes. As part of this agreement Project Atlanta director Smedley agreed to finance a new, more powerful transmitter to relay Caroline's transmissions via the fort while Radio City owner Calvert ran the day-to-day operations on behalf of Radio Caroline South.

Despite this, Reg Calvert had not yet totally abandoned his plan for a second station and, during September, he moved some staff and around £3,000 of equipment onto the vacant Knock John navy fort, about 18 miles off Southend. This was, ostensibly, to carry out some preliminary transmission tests, but it seems quite likely that he was planning to start a new station there once the contract with Project Atlanta had gone through.

The previously mentioned Essex businessman, Roy Bates, had followed the commercial success of the ship-based radio stations Caroline and London and was also very aware of Radio City and King Radio that were already operating from the estuary forts. By early September he had also made plans to utilise Knock John for his own station, Radio Essex. Bates arrived at the tower to find it already occupied by Calvert's people. This potentially thwarted his plans and, about a week later, on 10th October, Roy Bates took action to remedy the situation. He organised a group of nine men as a 'raiding party', boarded the fort while only two Radio City staff were present and proceeded to claim 'squatter's rights'. Two teenaged fishermen, 17 year-old Malcolm Westmoreland and 19 year-old Dennis Church, were left to 'guard' the fort while the bemused Radio City staff were ferried ashore at Whitstable.

Reg Calvert was, understandably, unhappy about 'losing' the equipment he had already transferred there and a territorial feud ensued between the two organisations, lasting about a month. In brief, Calvert's immediate response was to retake the fort, allowing the two teenagers to leave, leaving two men there himself. Westmoreland reportedly said to 'The People' newspaper "The men were very friendly but they promised trouble if we put up resistance. As we were hopelessly outnumbered we reluctantly surrendered. A lot more sparks are going to fly before the dispute is settled". He was right, as Bates, in turn, despatched these two, leaving two more of his own.

Calvert then used the Radio City supply boat and a group of ten men to oust these, this time leaving three men aboard. "The other chaps went moderately quietly - we promised them safe conduct" said a station spokesman at the time. A further sortie from Southend by Bates removed these three, transporting them back to Shivering Sands.

Disc jockey Dick Dixon told 'The Sun' "We had no choice but to leave. Nine Radio Essex men boarded the fort and told us: 'You'd better get off'. They arrived at the fort in a fishing boat. We broke down the ladders to try to stop them but they managed to get aboard by climbing a derelict crane alongside. They were all very big men. We decided it was better not to put up a fight. They took us to Radio City's No. 1 station four miles away and left us there. Another disc jockey, Alex Dee, said "They are obviously waiting for us to go back for equipment we left behind but we'll let them sweat it out for a bit".

This series of 'attacks' and 'kidnappings' were meat and drink to the local and national press, being very much in keeping with the 'pirate' radio name that had arisen, and they keenly reported on the activities of the two rival groups 'battling' over possession of Knock John. A 'Sun' reporter was allowed to visit the fort on 11th October and quoted Roy Bates as saying "I intend to stay here indefinitely - there is no law which says I cannot and possession is everything. So far, there has been no question of using violence on either side". Of the Radio City stores and equipment he said "We aren't touching any of that. It will just have to stay until the matter is sorted out". They did, however, start to use City's generator and transmitter. "They'll hate that when they read about it" said Bates, "But we have over £5,500 worth of equipment waiting to be landed in calmer weather".

Looking at Knock John the same evening, Reg Calvert is quoted as saying "We are no longer interested in that. There are other towers in the area that we can use. As far as I am concerned we are withdrawing from the fight".

A peaceful settlement was eventually reached between the protagonists whereby Reg Calvert got his equipment back but with Roy Bates retaining possession of the fort. Radio City's managing director, Peter Jameson, told the Evening Standard "They can have the wretched place but we will be going back there to get our equipment back. We are a respectable organisation and we do not go in for punch-ups. There is no need for it. We chose it because it was near to our transmitting station and because it is in good condition. We left about £3,000 worth of equipment there a month ago. The trouble started about a week after that when Bates arrived on the scene".