2008 Situation
Since the text below was edited in August 2007, the radio station has succeeded in obtaining a five-year broadcast licence - but on medium wave AM, instead of FM. This was not as good a result as I hoped for but it is not a bad effort and they will continue to webcast their programmes for a wider audience. This means that the name has changed from 'Penistone FM' to 'Penistone Community Radio' (PCR). So far, neither start date nor frequency has been announced but I'll give it a fair plug when it is.
Penistone FM's Trial Broadcasts
Penistone FM was received with great enthusiasm during its trial period in Sept 2006, which took in Penistone Show. They had a stand at the show but a Barnsley station had more influence and had a better location. PFM was the hot topic of conversation at the time and Penistone people took it very much to their hearts. Customers in 'Scissor Happy' hairdressers were thrilled to hear a music request that I phoned in from the hot seat. It was 'The First Cut is the Deepest' by PP Arnold.
They had a multitude of presenters who all performed well and, although there were a few initial glitches, it was a job well done. They transmitted adverts for local businesses, jobs, interviews (including one of me), a roving reporter who visited local businesses and schools. They also had a special link-up with Barnsley Hospital Radio to brighten up the patients. Their presenters went to a great deal of trouble to do a good and professional job under sometimes difficult conditions. Musicians were encouraged to send samples of their music to expose their talents to a wider audience and local people were generally invited to become involved in the station.
Programme Output
The studio team expressed their hope that in future they would reach the trickier reception areas of Thurgoland, Cawthorne, Silkstone and Millhouse Green. Programmes are expected to include a wide range of music genres, such as brass, northern soul, dance and jazz and music from the 1950s. There will also be coverage of local events, community features, sporting activities and programme material for and by young listeners.
The Studio
I was privileged to be able to visit the studio during the 2006 trial broadcasts to have a quick look round. The shaky picture above shows station manager Darren Holmes at the controls. The music was held on a computer, allowing for very quick selections to be made on the desk monitors. Darren said that there had been a major computer failure before their first broadcast, which meant that several thousand music files had to be re-installed with little time to spare.
Text and email messages were displayed on an upper monitor. A 'live room' was available (background of picture) for group recordings and broadcasts. As with all radio stations (including Radio3), some sound compression was applied to the outgoing modulation using a standard 'Optimod' unit and the studio used an SHF radio link (yagi aerial) to the transmitter tower on top of a suitable hill. That's where it became a Frequency Modulated VHF radio signal. The small picture above shows the main transmitter equipment. The top unit is an SHF transmitter, middle unit is RDS data injection and the bottom unit is the Optimod.
'This is Penistone'
As remarked above, the radio station has a website but they also have a sister website, 'This is Penistone'. This has articles of news, pictures and local events and it is being expanded to include such as Silkstone and other places in the Penistone catchment area. Please note the new URL for the radio website.
Links:
Downloadable MP3 files
