My involvement in hospital broadcasting started at the same time as amateur radio in 1964. I was mainly interested in the technical aspects but also enjoyed the production and presentation side of things.
We had a network of commentators at the local football grounds and presented live commentaries from the saturday afternoon matches, I presented a 30 minute music programme before kick off which was usually at 3pm.
We broadcast via a rather complicated network of post office lines which criss crossed the country terminating in our studio at which point we distributed the programmes down yet more lines to each of the local hospitals where the audio was amplified and sent to each of the wards and hence to the patients headphones.
As well as live football commentaries and studio produced music and request programmes we also had live outside broadcasts from the local church on special occasions and later on from local night clubs which in those days (sixties) were very good as some very big name acts were heard, this was possible because gambling was permitted in all these establishments at that time which susidised the performances.
Below is a picture of the studio taken in 1966, the equipment looks rather ancient now of course, I am sat in front of the turntable. At that time it took a minimum of 3 people to produce a studio broadcast, later with a change of equipment one man operation was possible.
We had a network of commentators at the local football grounds and presented live commentaries from the saturday afternoon matches, I presented a 30 minute music programme before kick off which was usually at 3pm.
We broadcast via a rather complicated network of post office lines which criss crossed the country terminating in our studio at which point we distributed the programmes down yet more lines to each of the local hospitals where the audio was amplified and sent to each of the wards and hence to the patients headphones.
As well as live football commentaries and studio produced music and request programmes we also had live outside broadcasts from the local church on special occasions and later on from local night clubs which in those days (sixties) were very good as some very big name acts were heard, this was possible because gambling was permitted in all these establishments at that time which susidised the performances.
Below is a picture of the studio taken in 1966, the equipment looks rather ancient now of course, I am sat in front of the turntable. At that time it took a minimum of 3 people to produce a studio broadcast, later with a change of equipment one man operation was possible.
The tall steel rack shown on the left is the main line distribution amplifier and on the desk on the right are the faders etc, the box on far right housed the BBC TV sound receiver, when we were off air this would be broadcast so that patients could watch tv and listen to the sound without disturbing the other patients.
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