96.5

[zoostorm]

A legal has popped up on 96.5. Maritime Radio which seems to be a new small scale legal for Greenwich is booming out round my sides in SE22. I suspect it may be using Shooters Hill.

[famefm]

Yes believe it or not they won the license at the same time as flex 2 years ago and have taken this long to start

[4therecord]

No way is that coming off Shooters Hill! - I live right in the borough of Greenwich and the signal is AWFUL! - I cannot believe that's the best they can come up with for the local station for Greenwich...... terrible..... the Ghanaian thing on 964 doesn't help granted... I think the TX is in Charlton

[zoostorm]

No way is that coming off Shooters Hill! - I live right in the borough of Greenwich and the signal is AWFUL! - I cannot believe that's the best they can come up with for the local station for Greenwich...... terrible..... the Ghanaian thing on 964 doesn't help granted... I think the TX is in Charlton

The studio is certainly in Shooters Hill. It'd be easier to microwave link it from the community centre they're in to Shooters Hill than to Charlton where they were originally going to based according to their Ofcom application.

[4therecord]

Yes the studio appears to be up at Shrewsbury House according to Maritime's own socials but if that signal is coming from that area it's a very poor set-up!

[famefm]

Also one of the worst frequencies given to any of the new community stations I can think of

[4therecord]

Yep, nothing done about the 964 thing and a signal so poor (IN the TSA) that I'd be embarrassed to have it on... good old Ofcom and their "Community Radio".... excellent job

[4therecord]

Oh and to add to the post by zoostorm... to microwave from Shrewsbury House down to Charlton is no problem whatsoever I can assure you!

[Albert H]

Yep, nothing done about the 964 thing and a signal so poor (IN the TSA) that I'd be embarrassed to have it on... good old Ofcom and their "Community Radio".... excellent job

OFCOM don't want "Community Radio" to be successful. They issue the licences to those least likely to succeed (look at the Voice of Africa disaster), they pick stupid frequencies that are certain to suffer interference - usually from first adjacent stations that are legal, but "outside the Primary Service Area". They put stupid restrictions on how much money the station can make (not enough to be self-financing). and they put every obstacle in the way of getting the damn things on the air!

I provided gear to a station up in Yorkshire a couple of years ago. The transmitter was a nice little Siel GX series rig - clean as a whistle and carefully adjusted to the power level demanded by the idiots. OFCOM held the station air date up for almost 3 months by failing to have anyone available to bring a power meter and a spectrum analyser to the site to check it out. That's all it needed - an official idiot with some basic test gear to do a two-minute test.

When the thing went on the air, one of the zillions of Heart repeaters (about 75 miles away) suffered minor interference at the fringes of their coverage, so Heart complained to OFCOM and demanded that the little "Community" station be moved to another frequency! Technically, that was no problem, but all their publicity paperwork and posters had advertised the frequency that OFCOM had first offered..... In the end, a threat of legal action stopped OFCOM in their tracks, and the station went on the air. They lasted just over a year, and then the restrictions on earning money killed them off. I now have a spare Siel 60W transmitter in my second-hand stock!

[4therecord]

Hi Albert, yes I know you've long said this and when I see how Maritime has come on (and how many YEARS they've been waiting for a shot like this, broadcasting through various RSL's etc) then it is very hard to disagree with what you say... in fact it proves your point out entirely

[Albert H]

It's really sad.....

Back in the Late 70s, an ex-BBC engineer - Fred Wise - was commissioned to look into the future of FM broadcasting.

The first thing he pointed out was that now national radio distribution was done digitally, transmitters could be properly synchronised, and each national network would only require two adjacent frequencies (ideally 200kHz apart) and the AFC on analogue car radios would have tracked these transmitters well enough to give continual national coverage!

The BBC nationals could easily be confined to 87.6 - 92 MHz and would be called Class "A" stations, instead of spreading across half the band, as they had to with the poor selectivity of early domestic VHF receivers. He suggested that there could be as many as eight nationals, with intelligent planning, competent engineering and smart frequency re-use.

The next type of stations would be "Regional" ones - like Crapital, BRMB, Hallam and so on - called Class "B". These could be in a sub-band from 92 - 96MHz.

There would be low power "Parish Pump" stations - Class "C", covering a Borough or two from 96 - 101MHz.

Finally, there would be "Community of Interest" stations - Class "D" - which could be as powerful as Regional Class "B"s. These would carry specialist programming - Jazz, Gospel, Soul, Classical, Spoken Word (News, Drama etc) and their sub-band would be 101 - 107.9MHz.

There was widespread support for the Wise Report, but the Labour Government at the time were terrified of the idea of losing control of broadcasting (early commercial radio scared them shitless), so the whole thing was dumped......

Just consider what would have happened if the Wise Plan had been adopted. There would have been more national FM stations, and getting a licence would have been made much easier because there wouldn't be the constant claim of "no frequencies available". Sensible band planning and competent engineering would have made our FM broadcasting the envy of the world, and we wouldn't have needed RDS to make car radios track national stations by "Other Network" frequency hopping! Also DAB wouldn't have ever seen the light of day - until a proper, high quality system was available!

[zach_dx]

Where is the TX located and what is the power output than? I am receiving it in Hatfield, Herts with poor signal.

[Ironman]

Crystal over here in Romford. Not as though I will be listening to it. We have our own unlistenable Time FM over here.

[teckniqs]

Charlton FC Stadium.

[4therecord]

Albert, that's a ridiculous idea.... makes far too much sense that does!

Interesting that zach_dx is getting a poor signal in Hatfield, we know from your previous posts your a DX'er so I'm guessing it's not just a normal radio / antenna picking it up? - I also have a poor signal at mine but the problem is, I live IN Greenwich!!! - which is the target area / borough - I just feel a bit sorry for them, they waited a long time for their chance and must be thinking, was it worth it... early days though, perhaps it can be improved

[famefm]

I came to the 02 areina today and did a reception check for 96.5 and it got further than I expected almost to Hammersmith on my way home and I don't think the suprise thing on 96.4 was on so that would have helped

[zoostorm]

The problem with this Maritime lot is they're doing the same commercial shit that Time FM did on 106.8 back in the day. What's the point of doing something that has already failed?

[famefm]

Perhaps but I think they are after the older listeners who knows?

[Effemm]

Fame on a Mendes Trip. Oi Oi.

[famefm]

Yes it reminded me of small local stations from the 1970s long before the big boys ruined every thing with endless heart station with presenters with about as much persantly as a dead rat