We've been off air since Friday 17th! Thanks a bunch Mr Branson!!
We hope to be back on Tuesday 21st August 2012. Apologies to all our loyal listeners, we WILL keep the faith!
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Monday, 27 December 2010
CHRISTMAS PAST
All that fuss and palava and it's over so quickly, It's just the one day now isn't it? I can remember a time when we had the two full days for Christmas, boxing day was just like the big day again, with another lovely roast and perhaps visitors or visits and/or games for entertainment. Hardly any vehicles on the roads as well. Nowadays, boxing day means packed roads and shopping centres - Christmas is over and it's queues for the sales, I'm not in them though - I'm a grumpy old git!
OKay fm was unfortunately off air (line) from late Christmas eve to midday today (Monday) due to a remote systems error that was beyond our control. There was no technician available to fix it - understandably. These things happen from time to time regrettably and I would ask you to please accept our apologies. I was very annoyed because we re-capped the mixing board PSU last week with minimal disruption to service and I love listening to the weekend music.
OKay fm was unfortunately off air (line) from late Christmas eve to midday today (Monday) due to a remote systems error that was beyond our control. There was no technician available to fix it - understandably. These things happen from time to time regrettably and I would ask you to please accept our apologies. I was very annoyed because we re-capped the mixing board PSU last week with minimal disruption to service and I love listening to the weekend music.
Monday, 20 December 2010
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Well, that's nearly another year over and I would just like to say a big THANK YOU to all our loyal listeners for the complimentary emails and for keeping us on our toes with requests - the feedback is much appreciated.
PLEASE NOTE! Engineering are carrying out some work over the Christmas break - this may result in brief disruption to our service from time to time. We are hoping to limit this to the occasional brief loss of audio in either the left or right channel (hopefully not both!) as we connect some new equipment - essentially we are re-capping our board's power supply unit, it hasn't been switched off for eighteen months and it is twenty two years old! So please be assured that it's our end not yours and apologies to those naughty people recording our music.
From the OKay fm team - have a fabulous Christmas and a very happy, healthy and wealthy New Year to everybody and keep on keeping the faith!
PLEASE NOTE! Engineering are carrying out some work over the Christmas break - this may result in brief disruption to our service from time to time. We are hoping to limit this to the occasional brief loss of audio in either the left or right channel (hopefully not both!) as we connect some new equipment - essentially we are re-capping our board's power supply unit, it hasn't been switched off for eighteen months and it is twenty two years old! So please be assured that it's our end not yours and apologies to those naughty people recording our music.
From the OKay fm team - have a fabulous Christmas and a very happy, healthy and wealthy New Year to everybody and keep on keeping the faith!
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Update and about time too!
I suddenly thought yesterday; we've got a blog and I've not posted for ages. Well, there has just been so much going on around here - been really busy with one thing or another and I completely forgot about updating the poor old blog! Anyway, we have been getting some very positive feedback from listeners which is much appreciated making it all worthwhile and we've also had a couple of donations to help with our running costs, thank you very much. We are aware from the stats that our audience figures are increasing nicely too, brilliant!
Now - radio broadcasting! In particular small independent specialist stations like ours; you have little chance of setting up such a terrestrial station in the UK. We would dearly love to have OKay fm broadcasting on FM in our area; a hot spot of northern soul lovers and in fact we thought the introduction of community radio (which we'd being helping to lobby for since the early eighties) was the answer - but no! I was involved in two licence applications locally; each had to include a non-refundable payment of £600 - both were rejected. It transpires that the ethos of community radio is 90% community and 10% radio - fair enough, but as radio and music lovers we feel that we could have done a lot of good for our community. Now - pop across to the other side of the world; New Zealand. There you are positively encouraged by the government to set up a low powered radio station in your area, the stations are completely unregulated, as they're automatically entitled to a GURL (General Users Radio Licence) so long as they meet technical regulations. You are not allocated a frequency - you choose your own! Many other countries have similar schemes. We would love to see that here but there is no breath being held! We could, of course, set up a transmitter and antenna and become pirate broadcasters, or as in our case unlicenced broadcasters as we are self funded and not commercial, but I don't think so - we have the internet and I believe that this is the future. However, one big problem - listening in your car, all the preceding waffle is intended to lead up to what I hope will be some useful information. I have been given a second hand smartphone, a very interesting bit of kit it is as well - I downloaded a code to unlock it and got a free sim card from giffgaff which runs on the O2 network and features free unlimited internet access at the moment. I've been on a learning curve with this phone having no previous interest or experience with anything other than an old Nokia on Orange PAYG. This new one is a mini computer able to access the internet so I thought it might be possible to get a programme to receive internet radio. I tried a couple of apps but the inbuilt browser wouldn't play the files and after a lot of faffing about I was getting ready to give up when I discovered Wunder Radio. This uses the Radiotime directory and we are in there. I don't know whether it uses its own browser but OKay fm now plays beautifully on my phone. As the phone has an audio out jack, I thought if I get one of those gizmos that lets you transmit your mp3 player to your car radio I should be able to listen in the car. That would be brilliant and make a change from Classic FM. In theory this should give nationwide coverage. I'll let you know how I get on....
Now - radio broadcasting! In particular small independent specialist stations like ours; you have little chance of setting up such a terrestrial station in the UK. We would dearly love to have OKay fm broadcasting on FM in our area; a hot spot of northern soul lovers and in fact we thought the introduction of community radio (which we'd being helping to lobby for since the early eighties) was the answer - but no! I was involved in two licence applications locally; each had to include a non-refundable payment of £600 - both were rejected. It transpires that the ethos of community radio is 90% community and 10% radio - fair enough, but as radio and music lovers we feel that we could have done a lot of good for our community. Now - pop across to the other side of the world; New Zealand. There you are positively encouraged by the government to set up a low powered radio station in your area, the stations are completely unregulated, as they're automatically entitled to a GURL (General Users Radio Licence) so long as they meet technical regulations. You are not allocated a frequency - you choose your own! Many other countries have similar schemes. We would love to see that here but there is no breath being held! We could, of course, set up a transmitter and antenna and become pirate broadcasters, or as in our case unlicenced broadcasters as we are self funded and not commercial, but I don't think so - we have the internet and I believe that this is the future. However, one big problem - listening in your car, all the preceding waffle is intended to lead up to what I hope will be some useful information. I have been given a second hand smartphone, a very interesting bit of kit it is as well - I downloaded a code to unlock it and got a free sim card from giffgaff which runs on the O2 network and features free unlimited internet access at the moment. I've been on a learning curve with this phone having no previous interest or experience with anything other than an old Nokia on Orange PAYG. This new one is a mini computer able to access the internet so I thought it might be possible to get a programme to receive internet radio. I tried a couple of apps but the inbuilt browser wouldn't play the files and after a lot of faffing about I was getting ready to give up when I discovered Wunder Radio. This uses the Radiotime directory and we are in there. I don't know whether it uses its own browser but OKay fm now plays beautifully on my phone. As the phone has an audio out jack, I thought if I get one of those gizmos that lets you transmit your mp3 player to your car radio I should be able to listen in the car. That would be brilliant and make a change from Classic FM. In theory this should give nationwide coverage. I'll let you know how I get on....
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Sorry I forgot!
Apologies - I forgot to say that, hopefully, we will have a new weekend DJ starting soon. DJ Andy, who is into EW & F, Leroy Hutson, ROY AYERS and much more, has contacted us to say that he would like to come on in and join us, so we've identified a potential weekend slot for him and are taking things further, so stay tuned for further information.
Update from your old VJ
A couple of things to share with you - well three actually! We were walking our Harry dog across the fields yesterday morning, what a beautiful day, I just happened to glance down and I saw something shiny and guess what - a bright shiny 5p piece!! (Adjust my voice patterns to my Harry Hill approach) - "What are the chances of that happening, eh?" I thought: hey up, this could signify a big lottery win!!! Well there was nothing last night - but it's imminent, I feel it in my water!
So, we walked a bit further, into the next field. I then heard a sound I haven't heard for a couple of years at least - the beautiful melodic tones (two) of a cuckoo, coming from a tree a couple of hundred yards away. We just stood and listened enraptured as it is the sound of early summer and you don't hear it very often now. She or he was obviously aware of us as the cuckooing was quite intense but after a while it stopped and we saw a bird fly out of the tree and away.
And now for something slightly more radio related: you may or may not be aware of the fact that we play proper records on OKay fm and unlike seedys, playing records means not only more work, pleasurable though it is, but the gramophone needles (stylii we call them in Staffordshire) don't last for ever, they need replacing after about 500 hours and there is always the danger of damage too. So we need to have a stock of spares. Unfortunately, nothing lasts for ever and the ones that we like and use are not made any more. It is possible to buy generic or after market stylii, but they are not the same. So I thought - let's have a little look on the old eBay and yes; a dealer offering exactly the make and model that we need, brand new in a sealed box - I won the item for a very good price and the dealer immediately put another one on, I won that too and one after that! I don't know how many he's got but I'm going to keep bidding until I've got a good stock in. Well, some blokes spend loadsa money on fishing and golf and stuff so I reckon I'm allowed to spend a few quid on stylii - until the petticoat government notices anyway!
So, we walked a bit further, into the next field. I then heard a sound I haven't heard for a couple of years at least - the beautiful melodic tones (two) of a cuckoo, coming from a tree a couple of hundred yards away. We just stood and listened enraptured as it is the sound of early summer and you don't hear it very often now. She or he was obviously aware of us as the cuckooing was quite intense but after a while it stopped and we saw a bird fly out of the tree and away.
And now for something slightly more radio related: you may or may not be aware of the fact that we play proper records on OKay fm and unlike seedys, playing records means not only more work, pleasurable though it is, but the gramophone needles (stylii we call them in Staffordshire) don't last for ever, they need replacing after about 500 hours and there is always the danger of damage too. So we need to have a stock of spares. Unfortunately, nothing lasts for ever and the ones that we like and use are not made any more. It is possible to buy generic or after market stylii, but they are not the same. So I thought - let's have a little look on the old eBay and yes; a dealer offering exactly the make and model that we need, brand new in a sealed box - I won the item for a very good price and the dealer immediately put another one on, I won that too and one after that! I don't know how many he's got but I'm going to keep bidding until I've got a good stock in. Well, some blokes spend loadsa money on fishing and golf and stuff so I reckon I'm allowed to spend a few quid on stylii - until the petticoat government notices anyway!
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Shhhhhhh!
If you have problems listening, try clicking here ....that's assuming that you would like to hear our fabulous music of course!! Oh and by the way - we are now on Facebook - I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not - time will tell, we may get fed up with that pretty quickly although it has to be said that star weekday evening DJ Pam is well into it!!
Right then - a subtle change to our weekend broadcasting - although the 70s are still very prominent, we are expanding into the 80s, 90s and even up to date with our music - weekends are now known as " classic soul dance weekends", very exciting times, we will be playing more fabulous tracks every week. We have a new Sunday evening jock, or should that be jockette, starting soon - Mrs G ( I think that's correct); apart from playing you some fabulous music - she also intends to share with you her immense catalogue of extremely useful hints and tips - I can't wait!
We always love listening to Dicky Davies on a Saturday morning, but we noticed that this morning 17th April, he seemed to be mostly standing at the back of the studio - there must have been a valid reason for this, perhaps he was trying to emulate the hip 60s jocks in NYC on WABC - speaking into an echo chamber or maybe there was a more fundamental reason - he needed to be nearer the loo! We're looking forward to next week's instalment with great interest.
Right then - a subtle change to our weekend broadcasting - although the 70s are still very prominent, we are expanding into the 80s, 90s and even up to date with our music - weekends are now known as " classic soul dance weekends", very exciting times, we will be playing more fabulous tracks every week. We have a new Sunday evening jock, or should that be jockette, starting soon - Mrs G ( I think that's correct); apart from playing you some fabulous music - she also intends to share with you her immense catalogue of extremely useful hints and tips - I can't wait!
We always love listening to Dicky Davies on a Saturday morning, but we noticed that this morning 17th April, he seemed to be mostly standing at the back of the studio - there must have been a valid reason for this, perhaps he was trying to emulate the hip 60s jocks in NYC on WABC - speaking into an echo chamber or maybe there was a more fundamental reason - he needed to be nearer the loo! We're looking forward to next week's instalment with great interest.
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