Chippenham hospital radio
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Chippenham hospital radio is a volunteer radio station in Chippenham, England.
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[edit] Beginnings
The voluntarily run organisation CHRS was set up around 1983 by a team of local people (several of which remain members to this day). The station was set up to provide news, music and information for the patients and staff of Chippenham's hospitals, aiming to provide an alternative to non hospital based radio stations and television channels available to the patients in the hospital, who perhaps have no other outlets.
[edit] Local Connections
The station enjoys a good relationship with Chippenham Town Football Club, for which it provides regular updates on most match days, and often has a pitchside reporter at home games. It also gives some coverage to selected other sporting events around the town and local area.
The station also get's involved locally in and around the town in form of Outside Broadcasts, and/or coverage of local events. These include, the Chippenham Folk Festival and the North Wilts Festival, both centered around the towns Monkton park.
[edit] The Modern Station
The station had an extremely successful 2005/2006, and has seen a boost in popularity, as well as an increased profile in the local community.
Some of the major changes over the two years, have been an entire studio re-fit, which in part saw it include the ability to receive IRN news bulletins on the hour every hour.
The studio boasts equipment worthy of a fully funded radio station, this includes an Alice Soundtech 19 channel mixer, Compaq Presario presenter & sustainer PC's, 3 mini disc players (1 recorder), 2 Denon cd players, 3 cassette players, not to mention a host of similar equipment in the editing studio, to be completed in 2007.
In 2006 the station took on the mighty task of a 48 hour broadcasting marathon, which it passed with flying colours - in the process raising over £1000.
The station will undertake another broadcasting marathon, to start at 6 pm on Friday March 30th, to be officially launched by the Mayor of Chippenham, Mrs Maureen Lloyd.
[edit] People
The station could not function were it not for the tireless efforts of the team running the operation day by day - the station is run like any other, with the team of presenters, and with official posts including Station Manager, Programme Controller and Station Engineer.
Depending on the number of presenters working at CHRS at any one time, there are shows on at least 6 days a week, primarily weekday during evenings and weekends.
The organisation is run by a full committee, including Chairman, Secretary & Treasurer - who meet monthly to discuss progress, and future events.
CHRS is also the home of the team of people who organise and run Wings FM, the station responsible for broadcasting output at the Royal International Air Tatoo, the largest of it's kind in Europe.
Possibly the most crucial part of hospital broadcasting is ward visiting, the main point of contact between the station and the patient - a good way of gathering requests and dedications, and spreading the news about the station. This is an important role which is carried out by the dedicated ward visitor/s.
[edit] Technological Innovation
CHRS believes itself to be one of the first, if not the first hospital broadcaster to be relayed around the world, via internet radio station service Live 365. The station went live on the internet in June 2005 with an afternoon of special programmes. The service can be accessed at any time by logging on to [1] the station's website.
