Thirty three years after the trailblazing station launched from Deeside Leisure Centre, it is returning to its Queensferry base.<\/p>\n
The man who was there for the launch in March 1980 \u2013 Roy Norry – will again be a key part of the team which plans to make the station a vital community asset.<\/p>\n
Radio Deeside will launch on-line on Good Friday, March 29, but before that there will be an important drop-in day, on March 16, to formally establish a Radio Deeside management team and, in the afternoon, to welcome any volunteers who want to get involved in their own community radio.<\/p>\n
Prospects for Radio Deeside seemed bleak after broadcast regulator Ofcom said there were no FM frequencies spare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey tried directing us towards DAB but that was much too expensive,\u201d said Roy, of Hamilton Road, Connah\u2019s Quay, who has been involved in local broadcasting all his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen out of the blue they wrote to us and said we could apply for AM frequency. AM of course is where the original Radio Deeside started and it was fine then. They are planning a big push to revive the AM network.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a certain resistance against DAB and FM frequencies have disappeared so it has left something of a hole for local broadcasting. In the meantime our engineer Martin Ellett came up with the idea of Deeside Leisure Centre where we had started originally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wrote to the centre manager Geoff Shields and he was very keen and we had good support from Alyn and Deeside AM Carl Sargeant, other civic dignitaries and community leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the first things we have to do on our drop-in day on March 16 is to establish our group formally, elect a chairman and treasurer and secretary, and make a formal application to Flintshire.\u201d<\/p>\n
But all being well Radio Deeside will be based in a huge mobile office which is very securely based at the rear of the leisure centre in Queensferry.<\/p>\n