To all Vintage Radio members who wish to record their progs, prior to broadcast, in the new studio:

1) make sure  the Google calendar we use is set so your studio slot is booked. If you don't have direct access contact Mike  or Ken and we will give you access

2) you need a new memory card, our new system doesn't use Audacity or USB memory sticks as the recording media. To make a recording you will need a SD or SDHC memory card like those used in most digital cameras.. You will also need an SD / SDHC compatible card reader to readthe files on the card. Most recent laptops in past 4 years or so will have such a reader but they only cost s few pounds if you need to buy a seperate one and they just plug into a spare USB slot on your PC.

One of the cheapest on-line shops for memory cards  and card readers is 7 day shop in Guernsey,  http://www.7dayshop.com. As of May 2012 a 4GB SDHC card will  cost about £4 or £5 delivered but if you need one in a hurry then you  can buy them for a few pounds more at ASDA and probably more in PC World or Curry's. It is suggested that the cards are a minimum of 2GB. We are recording at 192kb/s in mp3 format but may chnage to wav fromat files. If we do the storage per hour will go from about 90MB to about  600MB or so per file..

Note: If the card has been used or previously formatted on a PC then it is recommended that it be re-formatted on the Denon before use. A user guide will be made available in the studio and on the web site as soon as possible. But until that happens give Ken a call.

UPDATE 3rd May - 0809hrs

We are running our first Live day in our new studio today. Everything seems to be working - possibly tempting fate! Stil have some tidyig up and some more electronics and PC's to upgrade but they are in hand.

UPDATE 27th April

We finally completed the electronics move and re-comissioned all the equipment but it meant we had to cancel or Thursday Live Day on the 26th April.

We still have to comission our recording system in the studio - we will be replacing a a PC running Audacity with a digital recorder which will accept standard SD and SDHC cards like you find in 90% of digital cameras. It will be ordered soon. We still have to finish some decorating in our office area, remove scrap timber etc.

Wez recommend all Vintage members find the time to go and have a look at the new studio. In terms of operating everything is the same place. The only significant difference is that we have a large switch in the studio to switch it on.(and off) although you still have to start and stop the PC's by the usual Windows method.

The move has been possible with the continuing and generous support of the YMCA here at Birkenhead and a grant from the Riverside Housing Trust.

UPDATE 25TH April

Slow but steady progress today.  Network mostly up and running but still to set up our network VLANSs. A lot of time spent on running and fitting cables plus labelling plugs, sockets etc. Back in again tomorrow.

UPDATE 24th April

We now have a studio that looks like a studio with some working equipment but its not yet finished. We still have a fair bit of work to do hence we have had to postpone the Live Day this Thursday (26th April) but we will be playing some of our extensive back catalogue of programmes.

A couple of pics from today (24th April) showing Barry and Ken hard at work.

We have installed the basic studio and done some basic tests but have the following work still to do:

Check and set up levels for our distribution amplifier network

Setup the Live Day desk encoder system and run the cables to the encoder server.

Do basic studio audio check. We have out some new style acoustic cladding in and and we need to see that its doing the job and whether we need to add more on the other walls.

Finish attaching remaining acoustic tiles along bottom of wall - mainly for appearance sake

Bundle the audio, power and network cables into their cable runs.

Label all 13A plug tops and finish equipment labelling

Configure studio LAN - setting up three new VLANs

Test Live Day configuration

Move Streaming server and reconfigure in new location

Configure and test RAID storage

Setup Live Day recording system

Check that all studio PC's are up to date with latest software patches and anti-virus updates

Update playout software database

No doubt we will have forgotten something!

UPDATE 20th April

We started the move of the electronics today. Most of the equipment has been moved out of the old studio but nothig is connected yet. Still a lot to do. Aiming to be complete before our next Live day (Thursday 26th) but weshall see.

UPDATE 14th April

The studio area is now painted and ready to take the electronics, PC's etc and this phase  is planned to start on the Friday 20th.

We urgently need some volunteers to paint the Green Room/Office area. All paint and dustsheets are supplied you just need your old clothes ad some paint brushes (all paint is water based so the brushes will wash out). Contact Mike or Sandy.

The studio structure is finished pending sound checks and has had some mre paint since this pic was taken.. We may need to put some more acoustic cladding on the walls. As you can see the office area (left hand pic) is still not quite finished

We have finally started building our new studio build. The YMCA in Birkenhead, where we are based, kindly offered us a new larger room for our studio. This will allow us to create a larger studio as our current one is a little on the cosy side. It will also give us some much needed office space, our own 'green room' area for guests on our Live Days and it will also allow us to build an additional small studio for individual recording and training purposes.

We started the build on the 18th of March 2012. We have a lot of work to do just for the basic studio space. Once the studio structure is built, and decorated as required,   it will divide the room into two work areas.  Once the  partition is built the rest of the work starts. We have to sort out the acoustics, move all the electronics from the old studio to the new, hopefully with minimal downtime. The electronics move means the installation of a new studio LAN, addition of secure RAID storage for our archives, recabling of all audio and network cables including renaming and identifying all cables and running them in dedicated conduits. We are restructuring our power distribution to make it easier and simpler to switch the studio on for lIve day

Here are a few of pictures of our studio move building team Sandy, Jan and Ken who have done  fantatstic job. The first two were taken on the 19th March. The bottom two were taken on 26th Marc showing the tremendous progress the guys have made.

If any Vintage Radio members are reading this we do need some people to volunteer to help with painting and wall papering. We may also need some help with curtains.

Vintage Radio went to the Finalist awards ceremony in London 7th June lasy year and  learnt that they were the winner for the Community Voices award at the national Technology4good (click here to go to their web site) awards. Gordon Nicholas - chairman, Chris Yougman - Programme Coordinator and Ken Harper  - Senior Engineer, attended the ceremony.

Click here to see more information and pictures taken during the ceremony.

Don't forget that the Lunch date for the Old Quay at Parkgate in Neston is on the 30th MAy and is held at the last Wednesday each month. Come along have lunch,  the carvery is very good value (just under £4) and find out about Vintage Radio and meet some of the team.

Its best to be early, no later than around 12 noon as its a very busy and popular eating place.

If you'd like to be a radio broadcaster why not come along join us at Vintage Radio - we are all volunteers. We are always looking for  people who can make their own programmes. If you can't and don't how to start we can  provide some basic mentoring and training to help get you started.

We are also always looking for more technical staff to produce, edit and record programmes, to help support our scheduling systems and much more.

What qualifications do you need to join us at Vintage Radio? Prefderably some experience in radio broadcasting and some engineering ot IT skills for the technical roles. Don't  worry, just enthusiasm, some time and energy plus a willingness to help and learn. Ideally a familiarity with using Windows based PCs would be useful to help with the IT. editing and recording tasks we have.

Just phone us, email us or fill lin the Contact Form (click here to go to the form)and we'll get back to you.

We are broadcasting 7 days a week on the internet as we have been since April 2010 ).

We would welcome any groups, particularly those that work in the or with the community, who would be interested in broadcasting on Vintage Radio  to contact  us.

What sort of things are we looking for?

• We are looking for those groups who work in and with  communities on the Wirral, particularly in and around Birkenhead, to contact us and let us know if you would be interested in taking part in our broadcasts.
• We are also looking for national groups and organisations who would like their message to be heard via our station and vbraodcast throughout the UK
• People  who are involved in speech and/or music productions as groups, solo artists etc. which include  drama, music , writing etc...

Ideally, we are looking for groups or individuals who would come into the station with programmes which we could then schedule or we can arrange for them to be  on-air during one of our Go Live days where we broadcast live from the studio in Birkehead.

Please note: Vintage Radio reserve the right to select and approve groups and individuals for subsequent broadcasting. We will look favourably on those  who have the capability to produce programmes and fit in with the overall station ethos and of course the important OFCOM guidelines for programme content.. Vintage Radio can offer advice for those who have no broadcast experience and some training may be available.

We are desperately short of funds to allow us to go on the radio again to broadcast to our local community in the Birkenhead area please help us by making a donation or our on-line shop.

Just use the Donate button or click on the on-line shopping button.(BuyAt). We do not handle any credit card details, these are dealt with in a secure manner by PayPal or the shops themselves.

The licences we need for 1 months Restricted Service Licence (RSL) to allow us to on the radio cost us about £5000 and just covers the UK OFCOM radio licences and our music copyright fees - nothing else.  Just to apply for an  RSL to the authorities (OFCOM) costs £400. This is why we are only broadcasting on the Internet at the moment because the costs are relatively lower.

We are building up our own music archives and we would love to have those CD's you don't want or no longer listen to.

Contact us via info@vintageradio.org.uk or drop them in at reception at the YMCA in Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead. But if you drop them in at the reception please mark them for attention of Vintage Radio.