Radio Cavell
Radio Cavell is the hospital radio station for The Royal Oldham Hospital (TROH) in Oldham, England, a member of Pennine Acute Trust. It broadcasts both through the Hospedia Headsets (previously Patient Line) in the hospital grounds and on Medium Wave 1350AM. It is a limited company and has six directors who are in charge of organising the station. The station is run entirely by volunteers and all the broadcasters give up their time for free.
| City | Oldham |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Royal Oldham Hospital |
| Frequency | 1350 kHz |
| Technical information | |
| Transmitter coordinates | 53.5528°N 2.1227°W |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
Radio Cavell has a huge record library with about 2,000 Vinyls and 1,000 CDs. They also use a program that could run the channel for several weeks on its own in case of a technical failure or station shutdown.
History
Oldham has a very long tradition of hospital broadcasting. In the mid 1930s the Matron at the Boundary Park Hospital organised regular Friday afternoon "patient entertainment broadcasts" over the Tannoy system.
From 1952 a team of volunteers started to broadcast commentary on the football matches at Oldham Athletic to Patients in Oldham Hospitals. Football commentaries from Boundary Park have continued to this day.
Radio Cavell was formed in 1972, and since then has continued to develop into the service we hear today.
The name originated from World War I nurse Edith Cavell. She was responsible for over 200 soldiers and the service is dedicated to her. The volunteers aim to provide the best entertainment possible for patients to make their stay a little less stressful.
The station first started broadcasting from a cellar in the hospital. However as these premises did not provide disabled access, nor meet modern standards the station moved operations temporarily to premises within the nearby Hospital Trust headquarters. In 2008 the organisation moved into new purpose designed refurbished premises on the main hospital site.
In 1999 the station launched their medium wave service on 1350AM, being one of the UK's first hospital radio stations to take advantage of the new Low Powered AM licenses.
Request shows
Every night of the week the station put out a request show for the patients. Previous to the show, they stand at reception asking visitors if they would like a request on the show. They are usually there between 7:30 pm and 8:15 pm. They also accept requests directly from the patient over the telephone or through email.
Request shows usually last around one hour and are dedicated to the patients in the hospital.
Other shows
Radio Cavell also features a range of other shows. There are specialist music genre shows including Motown and Country Music. There is also a show called Frankly Speaking, which is an interview based show in which presenter Frank Eaton talks to somebody from the hospital or from around Oldham. Every Sunday morning, there is a live broadcast from the hospitals chapel which allows patients to hear the Sunday morning service live. There are also patient participation programmes including a music quiz, a general knowledge quiz and the crossword quiz.
Charity
Radio Cavell is also a registered charity, and the station is completely funded by donations and fundraising. As well as presenting shows, volunteers also take part in sponsored bag packing sessions at supermarkets and also live events including an annual Folk and Acoustic Music concert. They also regularly hold raffles and tombolas.