Owned and operated by the UK pirate radio veteran Chris Cary, the station's first broadcasts were during the summer of 1981 on 88.5 MHz FM and 819 kHz AM.
Prior to Nova's arrival, Irish radio consisted of the government broadcaster RTÉ and a number of local AM pirate stations.
In September 1982, Radio Nova (operating on 88.1FM and 819AM at the time) introduced a new service called Kiss FM on 102.7 MHz - inspired by Los Angeles-based 102.7 KIIS-FM.
Following the raids, the Minister for Communications claimed in the Dáil (25 May 1983) that intermodulation products resulting from co-located transmitters for Radio Nova and its sister station Kiss FM had caused interference to emergency services' frequencies around 74 MHz for a period in the previous month.
The hysteria continued when a rival pirate Sunshine Radio was raided at 9.00 a.m. By 6.00 p.m., there were several thousand people outside the studios of Nova as the station played its last record.
More protest marches continued and following criticism of the government's action by the judge in the State's case against Nova, the station returned to glory some days later.
Although the station remained firmly at number one (some survey books during this time show Nova at 62% reach in Dublin), they faced increasing competition from RTÉ and other pirates like Sunshine Radio.