Seahaven FM Broadcasting

Seahaven FM is a Not-for-Profit Ofcom licensed Community Radio station. The idea for the station started in 2006 and some initial 28 day Restricted Service Licence (RSL) broadcasts were made in 2008, ahead of applying for the full time Community Radio licence. Ofcom permits a station to have two short term (28 day max) broadcasts in any 12 month pe... riod. These are hugely expensive to licence and are allowed for special events and, in our case, as a test for a Community Radio Station and the frequency allocated was 87.7, which is one of the three test channels allowed by Ofcom for these RSLs. Using the Internet we were also able to stream the station's broadcast via this website. We started these broadcasts on 1st February 2008 and continued through the test RSL broadcasts and right up to the full time FM launch, and it continues today. So in the 3 years that we were broadcasting only via the Internet we were able to build a strong team of presenters and support staff. This meant the transition to the full time FM service was made easier as we had been producing live programmes for nearly 3 years. It took far longer than anticipated to get the station on air full time. We were awarded the licence by Ofcom on the 8th September 2009 and were able to announce this via the Internet broadcast at 09:09 on Wednesday the 9th of September 2009 or 09:09:09 on the 09/09/2009. The process of getting the transmission site and the equipment set up threw up other challenges and it wasn't until the 9th January 2011, after a few weeks of test transmissions over the Christmas period, that the station was finally launched full time. As a Not-for-Profit Community Radio station Seahaven FM all the presenters you hear on air are not paid to do their shows they give up their time fitting them in around their normal jobs. Some of the people you hear on air also help with the technical and management side of running the station along with a strong team of admin volunteers. We are always happy to hear from people wishing to offer a few ...Read More