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This station was born after a survey was carried out on 500 people in 2005. After months of planning and promotion on very limited funds Bay FM started broadcasting from rented rooms in an estate agents on Monday 11th September 2006.
The studios were very basic and our aerial engineer had fun putting up the FM aerial. He said it was the most dangerous job he had ever done, that explains why the aerial was still up 6 months after the broadcast.
The first trial broadcast was for 28 days on 107 fm, at a cost of £5,000. It would have been a lot more had we not owned the broadcast equipment. Some of the fees were funded in advertising revenue due to good support from the local businesses. This was very encouraging considering this was such a new project.
We wanted the name of the station to appeal to people of all ages. The local websites described Exmouth as having great views across Lyme Bay, and with Sandy Bay just around the corner we called it Bay FM.
We had no broadband or phone line because BT had messed the order up (No surprises there) we did have a phone number for a day or so until the owner of a local business called in to tell us that we were giving his company number out. His business was based in the same building as ours and BT had given us his number. I don’t think he appreciated the requests for Michael Jackson, Bee Gees, Madonna etc !
We managed with an old PAYG Nokia mobile phone to receive texts and after spending a week trying to communicate with BT without getting anywhere, we decided to use our own initiative and came up with an idea that could put us online.
We contacted a local computer business who kindly set-up a stream by plugging a radio into one of their computers via the headphone socket, with some fine adjustments we were online and it worked a treat.
We had great support from the community and the local press. On our first day we received a call from Westcountry Television, they were in the area and wanted to do a story about us. Unfortunately I had been up all night and needed a shave and a shower but, my partner Julie (Who refuses say boo down a microphone) was the only one who looked smart enough to be interviewed in front of a camera. I have talked my partner into a lot of things over the years but I still don’t know how I managed to talked her into that one. Her performance was brilliant but still, she refuses to talk on live radio.
The studios were very basic and our aerial engineer had fun putting up the FM aerial. He said it was the most dangerous job he had ever done, that explains why the aerial was still up 6 months after the broadcast.
The first trial broadcast was for 28 days on 107 fm, at a cost of £5,000. It would have been a lot more had we not owned the broadcast equipment. Some of the fees were funded in advertising revenue due to good support from the local businesses. This was very encouraging considering this was such a new project.
We wanted the name of the station to appeal to people of all ages. The local websites described Exmouth as having great views across Lyme Bay, and with Sandy Bay just around the corner we called it Bay FM.
We had no broadband or phone line because BT had messed the order up (No surprises there) we did have a phone number for a day or so until the owner of a local business called in to tell us that we were giving his company number out. His business was based in the same building as ours and BT had given us his number. I don’t think he appreciated the requests for Michael Jackson, Bee Gees, Madonna etc !
We managed with an old PAYG Nokia mobile phone to receive texts and after spending a week trying to communicate with BT without getting anywhere, we decided to use our own initiative and came up with an idea that could put us online.
We contacted a local computer business who kindly set-up a stream by plugging a radio into one of their computers via the headphone socket, with some fine adjustments we were online and it worked a treat.
We had great support from the community and the local press. On our first day we received a call from Westcountry Television, they were in the area and wanted to do a story about us. Unfortunately I had been up all night and needed a shave and a shower but, my partner Julie (Who refuses say boo down a microphone) was the only one who looked smart enough to be interviewed in front of a camera. I have talked my partner into a lot of things over the years but I still don’t know how I managed to talked her into that one. Her performance was brilliant but still, she refuses to talk on live radio.
More...
Aerial Goes Up
Building Our First Studio
The Latin Session
Westcountry TV Arrive
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