Al Smart

After a lifelong interest in radio broadcasting I started as a volunteer presenter, engineer and fundraiser with Carillon Radio (a hospital radio station) in 2007. Carillon Radio served the hospitals at Loughborough and Coalville primarily, using AM (medium wave) transmitters in the hospital grounds.

 My main signature programme was “Easy Sunday”, which was deemed the breakfast show on a Sunday morning. Originally it was a generic programme able to be repeated as and when, but it was changed to a “semi-live” show which was recorded for a specific date. The idea of this format was to be able to promote the groups fundraising activities for the week ahead. The target of this information was the overspill audience listening outside of the hospitals’ grounds on AM. It was an audience you could not address directly, but a country fayre, for example, is the same to listeners inside and outside of the hospitals.

To record the programme meant a weekly trip to the Loughborough studios, but as I was self employed at the time, it was not always convenient. I subsequently discovered that, with a modest outlay, I could record programmes from home quite easily. I started recording programmes from home a year or so later and have carried on ever since.

I left Carillon Radio and ventured into the big wide world of internet radio. Initially I teamed up with good friends Rob and Charlotte Polland who were also starting out on this adventure. We all provided programmes for NWL Radio, based at Castle Rock High School, Coalville. I also helped with the technical issues, not that they need much, as there are several whizzes behind the scenes.

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