Stoke Mandeville Hospital Radio [SMHR] continues its landmark achievements and is becoming one of a handful of hospital radio stations to be granted an FM licence from Ofcom, which will see the station start broadcasting on 87.7 FM from 2pm on 24th May 2019.
The station having recently celebrated its 40th Birthday in December 2018 and strives to provide the best possible service to the patients and staff of the hospital.
Simon Daniels, Chairman and Station Engineer said: “This is a major change for SMHR and we, the team of volunteers, are absolutely delighted to have been granted the new FM frequency, 87.7. With the fantastic help of the NHS Trust, supporting organisations and charities, we continue to strive to provide the best possible radio entertainment to our listeners”.
The stations program controller and Trustee, Mike Oxlade, continued: “The output of the station is lose and fantastic, no show is the same, and now we can be heard in crystal clear FM quality around the hospital by staff, patients and visitors. Whilst we have had an app for several years (free to download from any app store), as well as our online stream, both of which were already bringing you the station in stereo, we are pleased our radio output has had an update and the sound quality will be fantastic whichever way people want to listen. The station is run entirely by volunteers who give up their time, skills and knowledge to bring entertainment to the hospital and we are always on the lookout for more volunteers to get involved”.
To celebrate the move to FM, the station is taking part in Local Radio Day 2019, a special day of live programs is planned.
The day starts with a breakfast show from 7am to 10am from our studio, then programmes will move to the Royal Voluntary Services Café, based inside the National Spinal Injury Centre, for a six hour live special broadcast which will include interviews with people from the NHS Trust as well as others around the café and hospital.
The frequency change and the history of the station will be the big talking point around lunchtime, ready for the actual switch over at 2pm.
Neil Macdonald, Chief Executive of the Bucks Healthcare Trust, will be there at the switchover to help the station celebrate, along with Alan Dedicoat (HBA Patron, voice of the National Lottery balls & Strictly Come Dancing), Peter Dickson (voice of X Factor) and childrens book author Matt Brown will also be visiting with a selection of his books.
The broadcast will return to the studios at 4pm for an extended edition of the magazine show followed by our primetime weekday request show 8-10pm.