support from one of Radio Caroline's partners Phil Solomon. Shortly after making its first test transmissions the station's main aerial tower was vandalised and subsequently collapsed. Cary and Solomon backed out of the venture and sold to Dale only weeks after the station opened. Sunshine Radio started on 531 kHz (announced as 539 metres) medium wave, adding an FM service a year later. Chris Cary went on to start Radio Nova in the following year, 1981, with studios in Herbert Street, Dublin. Nova was the first major Irish pirate to commence with FM, on 88.1 MHz (it ended up on 102.7 MHz). The station added an AM frequency at a later stage which varied between 819 kHz, 828 kHz, 846 kHz and 738 kHz. After the success of Radio Nova on FM, Robbie Robinson broadcast Sunshine at high power on 101 MHz, and renamed the station Sunshine 101. Nova ran until 1986 when Chris Cary closed the station following a dispute with the National Union of Journalists. Other stations came on air like Q102 some claiming a Cary connection like NRG 103 (some thought that "NRG" was an abbreviation for "Nova Radio Group"), but the name sounded like Energy 103 and Power FM, but none were able to come near to the Nova or Sunshine success. Sunshine 101 dominated the Dublin radio market until it closed down at the end of December 1988 in compliance with the new Broadcasting & Wireless Telegraphy act, which had come into effect at midnight on 31 December that year. Many of the present-day stars of Irish broadcasting are proud to acknowledge their early days as part of the teams to come out of Sunshine and Nova. The stations provided 24-hour music, with hourly news updates to Dublin City and County. The stations were raided only once, in 1983, leaving Nova off the air for less than a week and Sunshine a little longer because it waited for the District Court to order the return of its equipment confiscated in the raid. Pirate radio had a very noticeable impact on both listener figures and the advertising revenue of RTÉ, which could resort only to frequency jamming of the Nova and Sunshine MW & FM transmitters to try to reduce listenership. The Irish communications minister ordered the then chairman of RTÉ Fred O'Donovan to stop the illegal jamming campaign. Well-known names in radio associated with the