Peak 107 FM won the ILR licence to serve Chesterfield and North Derbyshire in 1998, beating off competition from rivals Trust FM  (linked to Chesterfield Royal Hospital Radio) and Spire FM.

Test transmissions began in September 1998, on 107.4 (serving the Chesterfield area, easily audible in Clowne) and 102.0 (serving the Peak District, just audible in Clowne with a very weak signal). As well as music and announcements, a long jingle/promo was aired during the test transmissions, which listed the towns served by Peak 107 FM - from Shirebrook (near my home village of Clowne) to Matlock.

Full programmes started on Wednesday 7th October that year, at 8.00 am. Several local DJ's were taken on by the station.

Peak 107 has made its presence felt in the Chesterfield area; soon after its opening, stickers advertizing the station were soon to appear  many shops and garages, and bus adverts were common for a while. Peak 107 have also appeared at, and broadcast live from, several local events - including a rally at Clay Cross in mid-19999, against the Econotec toxic waste dump.

In 1999, I moved to Worksop for much of the year. But I continued to listen to Peak 107 sometimes, even though the signal there was rather weak - as Worksop is in a valley, the Peak 107 signal was blocked by the "ridge" on which Clowne and Bolsover are built.

In the early hours of Saturday 3/7/1999, a vicious thunderstorm was over Worksop (and much of the North Midlands). I suffer from tonitrophobia (fear of thunderstorms), and this was not helped by the fact that the thunder was booming and there was so much lightning that the sky looked like God was having a rave party!

So, in an attempt to take my mind off it, I turned on my radio. The station on my radio at the time was Peak 107.4 FM; and through the hiss and 'crackling' interference, I heard a 'phone in show about (as Nostradamus had predicted for the following day) the coming end of the world. Very reassuring - not !

Peak 107 (and the world !) survived into this millennium, and in May 2001 they had an on-air election debate between the candidates who were standing for the Chesterfield parliamentary seat.

Is now called Peak FM, and is currently owned by UTV Radio, who also own a number of radio stations - including TalkSport.

The Peak FM website - as well as the usual station info and schedules, this site also has old-style arcade games (eg Space Invaders and Pacman) which you can play online

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