Aircheck UK - Londonderry
UPDATED: 13/09/2003
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NORTHERN IRELAND
AIRCHECK County Londonderry
BBC LOCAL RADIO:
BBC RADIO ULSTER broadcasts nationally on the following frequencies: 92.7 (Rostrevor Forest) 93.1 (Londonderry), 93.5 (Larne), 93.8 (Brougher Mountain & Kilkeel), 94.5 (Divis), 95.1 (Ballycastle) & 95.4 (Limavady). The AM transmitters are: 873 (Enniskillen), 1341 (Lisnagarvey) & 792 (Londonderry) - Lisnagarvey's transmitter offers thee main AM service at 100kW as opposed to 1kw for the others. No other information on the station's history is known currently.
BBC RADIO FOYLE. This BBC service went on air, initially on VHF only, on 11th September 1979 to serve the North West of Northern Ireland, from Strabane to Derry and Limavady - supplying 20 hours of programming per week from the Northern Counties building in the City Centre of Derry. Amongst noteable moment for the station there were two bomb explosions directly outside the studios, on December 19th 1979 and again on June 8th the following year - without disrupting output. The station moved to new premises on Rock Road in Derry on July 28th 1980. More recently on November 18th 1983, work started on new studios on Northland Road which forms part of a central BBC broadcasting centre. It cost £1million to build and equip. It provides an opt out service from BBC Radio Ulster for Londonderry on 93.1FM and 792 AM.
The Radio Ulster service can also be heard by Northern Ireland listeners via DSat - at EPG number 868, via the Score Digital Northern Ireland multiplex and via DCable. NTL distributes the service across it's digital network in the UK and Northern Ireland on channel 871, and it can also be heard via SKY Digital Audio channel 868.
COMMERCIAL: LOCAL (ILR)
COOL FM operates on just one frequency across Northern Ireland on the Belfast based transmitter of 97.4 It started broadcasting adult contemporary music and news from Belfast on 7th February 1990. It is owned and operated by Scottish Radio Holdings plc. It is a sister station to Downtown Radio and targets over 900,000 people aged 15-34 with a rock and pop service, lifestyle information and competitions.
Addendum by Stuart Robinson ' ...it may be of interest for you to know that Cool FM only uses 97.4FM and broadcasts to roughly the same area as ourselves at Citybeat. In short, Downtown has 8 frequencies and Cool has one! Bsically Cool FM was born after the 1989 legislation that all stations which operated on AM and FM must provide a separate service. (the old use it or loose it that effected a lot of stations at the time). So in 1990 Cool took over from Downtown using 97.4FM in the greater Belfast area while Downtown continued using 1026AM in the same area. Outside of Greater Belfast, Downtown continued to operate on a couple of FMs in the like of Derry and Fermanagh they had acquired since 1976 however since 1990 they have obtained several more low powered FMs in other areas outside Belfast too!'
Thanks go to Stuart for the additional information.
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NORTHSIDE SOUND: Long before the Radio Authority came to power, in 1979 to be precise, the Independent Broadcasting Authority, (IBA) was blitzing through a fresh round of licensing for commercial radio. Londonderry was on what we now call the 'working list'. In the Summer of 1980, the winner of the licence for the area was Northside Sound, who made strong aims to be broadcasting by the following year. Radio is a hard game, and finances have often been difficult to come by for a number of stations that have either gone to the wall, or continued to broadcast with great risks taken behind the scenes. Northside Sound was no different, and the former applied, i.e. insufficient funds were raised to get the project of the ground. The IBA commiserated, and allowed a delay of the broadcast until late 1983. By 1984, things hadn't really got any better. Enough was enough for the IBA and the licence was revoked, without further re-advertisement. Downtown Radio later used it's allocated frequency as a relay.
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Q97.2 Causeway Coast Radio: Offering an adult contemporary and hot adult contemporary service during weekdays and specialist music at weekends including dance and gospel music, along with general speech content of community information, and local & national news & sport, Q97.2 came to air on 26th January 2000 from studios at 24 Cloyfin Road in Coleraine. The station's target audience is the younger element, over 18 and particularly the over 25s. Despite this, the station plays classic hits from the 1960s to the current chart, along with Irish Country music. Music led, there's further speech content focusing on local affairs and lifestyles. Previously known as Causeway Coast Radio, the name stems from the legendary piece of Irish coastline which features 'The Giants Causeway' - part of the Northern Ireland 'Triangle' including the Port towns of Rush and Stewart.
RIVERSIDE 101 / Q102.9: Who says crime doesn't pay? It did for Riverside 101, who, in 1989 took to the airwaves without the permission of either the IBA or Irish broadcasting authorities. There were still some loopholes in legislation to slip through back then, and this station stepped straight through them, running four years worth of air-time on a commercial footing, despite pressure to close it down. The Radio Authority finally found the muscle to advertising a new licence for the are, but the Riverside team blew the rules of tradition apart, winning the licence, despite the illegality alleged previously. The transition from loophole station to licenced station came in the form of a change in name to Q102.9, but retaining some of the old station's presenters.
Today, broadcasting from The Riverside Suite of the Old Waterside Railway Station on Duke Street, this FM station plays classic and contemporary hits amongst speech content of local and international news and sport. It commenced broadcasting on 21st October 1993.
The stations form part of a small group of Northern Ireland based 'Q' stations. The other station, in County Tyrone, is the newer sister station, called Q101.2 which launched in March 2002 for Omagh & Enniskillen.
However, these stations should not be confused with the GWR station Q103 for Cambridge & Newmarket, or Renfrewshire's 96.3 QFM in Scotland which have nothing to do with these stations whatsoever.
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HOSPITAL RADIO:
RSL:
DIGITAL:
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