24 Hour Sustaining Service “Rhapsody” Launches.

Welcome to our Picture board

Some captured moments of Rhapsody Launch.

New Equipment Is Added To the Studios

Engineering & Studio 1 &2 Gain Their Computers and Interface Equipment.

Twenty Four Hour Automated Broadcast System Test Transmissions

The first test transmissions for the service began over the weekend from the 5th April to the 8th April.

The system ran non stop from 6.30 on the Friday evening until Monday at 8pm.

No technical issues resulted from the test.

• Staff Notice of further transmissions from April 2003:-

  Rhapsody Goes Live

  As from 12th April Rhapsody will be delivering the service on an increasing level over the next few weeks building to the full 24 hours 7 days a week.

  Here is the schedule for the next 14 days

  Saturday 12th April 6pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Standard Music Mix

  Sunday 13th April 6pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Standard Music Mix

  Monday 14th April 6pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Standard Music Mix

  Tuesday 15th April 6pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Standard Music Mix

  Wednesday 16th April 6pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Standard Music Mix

  Thursday 17th April 6pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Standard Music Mix

  Good Friday
  24 Hours Sounds of the 70's

  Easter Saturday 24 Hours
  Sounds of the 80's

  Easter Sunday 24 Hours
  Sounds of the 50's including Films & Shows

  Easter Monday Until 12 midnight
  Sounds of the 60's

  Tuesday 22nd April - Friday 25th April 4pm-12pm
  Radio Heatherwood Music Mix

  The standard music mix consists of selections from all music categories. The only program guaranteed is the comedy hour every night at 10pm and also three times a day during the 24 hour days.

• Test Transmission

  Ensuring the service would run for the full 24 hours a day it was essential to get the system up and running before the go live day of the 7th June.

• Staff Training

  Introducing a system as complex as the twenty four hour service demanded a training for staff not only on the basics of computers but also how to use the computer to deliver music in their programs.

  Whilst reviewing the trial software in the preceding years the station engineer drew up some training notes to accompany one to one sessions for all presenters.

  Live Assist Notes

  The first copy of those notes were completed at the end of January and were distributed to staff.These notes formed the cornerstone of the training companion, which was released in later years.

  It was decided we would train presenters in two stages, stage one live assist and familiarization and then stage two, how to construct Jingles/liners for Rhapsody using Cool edit.

  In February the first part of the training evenings gave presenters hands on with the live assist program they would be using, as well as demo's by the engineer.

  The first of the second stage training commenced at the beginning of March and ran for a number of evenings throughout March.

  Team nights from April were given over to staff training allowing extra time to get up to speed with the new equipment and programs.

  Rhapsody was used to deliver the programs in the evenings whilst presenters picked up their training.

• Programme Schedule

  The planning of the programme schedule was originally given to Matthew Robinson as part of his coordinators role, outside commitments left him unable to produce the schedule in the timescale required.

  The task was passed to John Murphy who responded with the programme schedule, which is still in use today.

• Rhapsody Information Service

  The rhapsody service was not just about playing music 24 hours a day it was also about putting out messages and information.

  The web site web page was designed so that local groups could submit items to be used in our patient information slots.

  The criteria for supporting a group they had to be local charities or groups to the hospital.

  The pink leaflet produced was slotted inside programme details and left in leaflet racks or handed to patients.

• Launch Day Schedule

  The launch day schedule here, shows what was played on the day.

  Playlist 7th June 2003

  The program was running already from midnight. At 10 am the live session was in play so the items in dark green were not heard by the listeners as Rhapsody does continue to operate but is not put to air during the live sessions.

  The light green section shows the first hour broadcast whilst the visitors were at the studio.

  Program Format

  At this stage in the development of the rhapsody service,each hour was divided into sections for style of music and promotion. Each item was chosen using an automated scheduler Natural Music. Each hour was 57 minutes of selections and 3 minutes allowed to take news. Three virtual playout decks on the screen would play the items to air and fade where required.

  The first schedules were produced tailor made for each day of the week and 4 weeks of schedules were produced and administered.

  Back to Top

• Thankyou

  Staff Email 1.6.2003

  This Saturday the radio station will take a quantum leap into a new era in it's broadcasting hours. Not since the introduction of the medium wave service, has the station undertaken such a radical change.

  The future for the patients look's bright as we move into developing the new service. Whilst we have been working to be ready for this date, it's not the end of the story. Over the coming month's/years we will fine tune what we have and the rewards for the station/presenter/league will make us all, very proud to be apart of the station.

  On our road to Rhapsody we are all learning new skills in program production,editing, computing,and awareness in style's of music. These skills have already had an effect on our presentation and quality of output.

  The launch program schedule has exceeded my expectations, during the Sunday evening there will be two programs on the schedule which have been properly voice tracked. For all of us over the coming month's the challenge will be to increase that number substantially.

  At this point I would like to Thank each and everyone for their contribution towards Rhapsody. Thanks to Laraine for coming up with the name, Thanks to John Murphy for the program schedule, Thanks to Matt for all the extra hours in assisting with the training .Thanks to Dave for all the CD Ripping, and a big thankyou to all for the contribution of the liners.

  In the words of Mr Grace From Grace Brothers “ You Have All Done Very Well ”

2003 Year Twenty Seven Story Unfolds

2003 was a very busy year for the station management and as the year unfolded there was much to do and organise

For further information about this year:- Follow the links

• 2003 Year Twenty Seven Summary
• 2003 Rhapsody On-Air
• 2003 Our Stars & Backstage Information
• 2003 Archive News Stories
• 2003 Staff Newsletter
• Story Of the Archive
• Radio Video Archive
• History Site Map

Rhapsody Live At Noon

The launch of the rhapsody service on the 7th June was planned for noon.

The Saturday live program was broadcast from ten am until noon. John Murphy closed the live session and handed to rhapsody.

Rhapsody takes over with the news and launches with a statement from Station Engineer PJ. This is then followed with the sound of silence by Simon and Garfunkel.

In attendance on the day included Richard Dugdale, Cliffe Chermside and Percy Hathaway SFAT, Roy Ryman League of Friends, Gill Hill Hospital, Alan Holder,Sylvia Dungate,John Murphy,Dave Smith,PJ Davidson-Smith, Radio Heatherwood.

Station manager Dave Smith wrote at the time the following article, which is part of the radio main web site.

Archive Gems

Just some extra's we found:-

• Press Release

  Test Transmissions

  Copy of the press release for the test transmission service.

• Voice Tracking

  The term voice tracking was part of the training on producing a program for rhapsody by recording all the links between the chosen items for the program.

  At the launch of rhapsody, two programs completely voice tracked were, a country and western program by John Murphy and the Sunday at 7 religious program by Alan Holder.

  This was some achievement within three months of not being comfortable with computers Alan Holder shone through.

• Live Assist

  The term live assist is given over to the use of the computer to be used by presenters during their live programs.

  Selections of music or speech content can be aired using the computer program in our case the BSI software program Wavecart.

• Press Release

  Launch Day

  Only a small amount of news clip was recovered from the local papers.

• Studio Library

  The original record library was maintained on index cards. This was later added to a computer based library with specialist hospital radio software.

  The introduction of music files on a computer demanded the need to be able to lookup at all types of music formats.

  The existing program was dated and could not take onboard the new format.

  An access database was devised at the start of the mp3 format in 1998 and developed and by 2003 was in version 3&4.

• Sound Card Interface Rack

  Technical Bit

  Installed in both studios, an interface rack to raise the sound levels up, from the output from the soundcards, contained in the PC's. The Behringer 8X2 mixers also allowed distribution to other equipment.

  Each studio gained a computer below the interface rack.