History of ALEX-FM
An application for a temporary community broadcasting licence was
lodged with the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) within a few
weeks and Alex FM was judged to be suitable for one to be issued.
However this coincided with the time when two permanent licences were
to be assigned in Victor Harbor. Alex FM applied for one of these
without any great expectation of success, because we were not at that
time a working station. The licences were awarded to the holders of
the existing temporary licences.
However, a few weeks before the ABA's decision was announced, Alex FM
was offered the use of a narrowcast frequency by the licence holder,
Rola Australia, for a tourist information service. This is how
87.6MHz came into being. The Committee accepted the offer and by June
2003 was ready to transmit a short pre-recorded program from the
aerial located at The Marina Hindmarsh Island. Over the course of the
next few weeks the program was extended in length and subsequently
changed to a computer mix.
By May 2003 Alex FM had reached the stage where the business could no
longer continue to be run from the Vice Chairman's living room.
Fortunately the lease for the Railway Superintendent's Cottage in
Goolwa became vacant at this time. Alex FM came to an agreement with
the National Trust and took up the lease from 1 June 2003. At around
the same time we were informed that an application for a grant we had
submitted to the South Australian Govenment for an Inter-Generational
Links project had been successful and we were awarded $20,000. This
meant we could now go ahead and set up the studios.
At this time too we were offered a Paul Kirk desk at a very
reasonable price and set about incorporating it into a studio at the
cottage. We started to train a group of presenters in September 2003
and by Christmas we were ready to replace the computer mix with
pre-recorded programs generated as if live in the studio and replayed
from The Marina. We were also successful in applying for a $2,000
grant from the Office of Volunteers to help us set up a production
studio.
Attempts to relay the signal electronically from the studio in the
cottage to the transmitter at The Marina proved to be unsatisfactory,
so it was decided to apply to the ACA to move the point of
transmission from The Marina to the cottage. This was successful and
on 21 July 2004 we began transmitting live programs on 87.6MHz from
the studio.
Meanwhile, we had commissioned, with the assistance of the Rotary
Club of Goolwa a survey to identify a frequency which could be used
for community broadcasting. This resulted in the selection of 96.5MHz
and another application for a temporary licence in August 2003.
Approval for the temporary licence came from the ABA in May 2004, but
with the condition that we share the frequency with Spirit FM. The
management of the two stations met and came to an amicable agreement
on how the sharing arrangement would work and how costs could be
reduced by common use of some equipment. A period of test
transmissions followed that resulted in a temporary community
broadcasting licence being issued to be effective from 29 January
2005.
The consequence of all this activity is that Alex FM now broadcasts
on 96.5MHz between midnight on Saturday to midday on Wednesday each
week and every day on 87.6MHz.
We have always tried to involve the community in our activities and
with this in mind we held a family day with the official opening of
the station on 2 April 2005. A number of community groups
participated, several councillors attended and the proceedings were
opened by the Mayor of Alexandrina Council, Kym McHugh.
More recently we have acquired a caravan from the Rotary Club of
Goolwa, for which we are seeking funding to fit out as a mobile
studio. This will be used for providing entertainment at community
events and for conducting outside live broadcasts, as we have planned
to do from our very beginnings.
We have come a long way in a relatively short time with a lot of help
from our dedicated volunteers, local businesses and members of the
community. We offer special thanks to the following:
Rola Australia, Alexandrina Council, the South Australian Government,
Hallie's Electrical, Uplink Communications, Brenton Rowland, The
Marina Hindmarsh Island, Whitecloud, Chris Follas, the Rotary Club of
Goolwa, Hurst Plasterboard, the Southern Alexandrina Business
Association and the people of the Alexandrina area.
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