Background to The Music of The 24 Hour Service
The first time we looked at introducing the service was when articles
appeared in the national association magazine in 1998 with an article
by Radio Hillingdon. It was also the investigations into Low Power AM
which made us aware that we would have to supply a sustaining service
other than re transmitting radio 2.
To facilitate the introduction, we would need to provide a library of
MP3 files and also a database which could be searched by presenters at
the same time, as searching our conventional library.
The first cd's were converted at the end of June 1999 and the first
access database was created along with categories for all songs
converted.
This work was continuing in the background throughout 1999 and
continues to this day with new additions of mp3's.
22,660 MP3's including music and speech are used in the delivery of
the service. These figures from December 2016.
2002 and the project is top of the agenda for the radio.
The story unfolds:-
Rhapsody Gets it's funding
On the 19th November the final piece of the puzzle arrived with
news the balance of the funding required would be forthcoming.
The following email was sent to staff:-
Rhapsody Our Future ?( It’s in Our Interest )
I am writing these notes to make everyone on the station, newcomers
and old timers aware of how and why rhapsody is important to the
station and the very future of our society at Heatherwood. These words
might seem strong but let’s look at the facts:-
Over the last couple of years it has been increasingly difficult to
staff the station every night of the week. We have been running with
the three nights and a Saturday morning for some time. This is
unlikely to improve for the foreseeable future.
As far as the hospital is aware, the management have no way of knowing
what and when we broadcast live programs. They pay for all our
services and our studio’s, despite some problems; our facilities are
the best I’ve seen, and we have visited a few broom cupboards in our
time.
The hospital will soon be wired for the patient power project, once
that goes live. They will have at their disposal statistics on what
the patients are doing with their terminals, including the time they
spend listening to whatever channels. Armed with that information
further down the road what’s to say they don’t look at our listener
ship and weigh up what they are spending to maintain us ?
We must remember trusts/management never look at the social
implications of actions they will always take the line
statistics/money/benefit ?. I’m not saying the present management
structure will do this, but we have no way of knowing what crazy ideas
further down the road might materialize.
Rhapsody ( Boys with Toys ? )
No definitely not!
What this has given us, is the ability to ensure the statistics of
listener ship to the Radio Heatherwood channel will be higher, than if
we were relying on the 12 hours a week of our live programs. Hopefully
they will endorse the service we provide!.
That’s the reality, which wasn't in the project folder that went to
the sponsors. What did go to the sponsors is our commitment to offer a
localized service geared towards patients in Heatherwood with local
news/information etc which will make us stand out from the rest. They
have promised the funds we now have the hard part and must deliver on
that promise.
Patient Power is a recent idea by the government and the worry over
the statistics was not the reason for going down this road.
It was in December 1998 whilst investigating the possibility of
bringing LPAM to Heatherwood I found out that we would be required to
produce our own sustaining service by computer; if we were to start
broadcasting by Low Power AM.
It’s now almost 4 years later and this is the longest time I have
spent on trying to bring a change to the radio which is going to
benefit many. As we know the hospital have scuppered our plans for
LPAM.. That’s not to say that I agree with what they have done. The
LPAM system still has role to play at hospital sites. This did however
highlight to us the benefits perhaps of making Radio Heatherwood 24
hours a day on our existing distribution systems.
In recent times David, Matthew and I have visited other stations and
have seen the service in action and all the statements which are on
the web pages about the project are first and foremost in our minds of
why we want this to work.
It’s been a long road to get to this stage, where we have the money,
we can buy the equipment; but we need the support of each and everyone
of us. An incredible amount of work has been done so far but we still
have an enormous hill to climb.
Matthew is trying to coordinate the next stage which will be to create
a program schedule and coordinate the recording of trivia and inserts.
I for my sins have the task of getting it all to work and installed.
I cannot emphasize this enough it is important that each and everyone
one of us help where we can, covering for nights etc recording the
trivia, recording programs and generally selling the idea to the ward
staff as well.
We are the guardians of the future of the radio service at Heatherwood
and the league of friends. With Rhapsody in our pockets we have the
power to dazzle the patients and staff with good music and programs
for everyone.
When the service is launched officially next June, I want to be able
to stand tall with the sponsors and say we have met all our promises
and the sponsors can be proud to have been associated with Radio
Heatherwood.
Ask Now, What You Can Do To Contribute To The Rhapsody Service ?
Regards
Peter J Davidson-Smith 21.November 2002
As the year draws to a close, work is well underway to launch the
service in the new year.
