Paddington's
Hospital Radio

A few lines on the technical side of Parkside Hospital Radio
Our studio is connected by private wire to the radio room at St. Mary's Hospital. We supply the programme feed for Channel 6 on the PatientLine system (and channel 2 on the patients bedside radio system which PatientLine replaces). The analogue audio is then amplified and distributed around the hospital through two sets of amplifiers - one in the old hospital buildings and the other in the Queen Mother Wing which houses mainly surgical and children's wards. With the Patientline installation in 2004, we will also supply our programme feed through to the Patientline equipment room and they will provide a free-call telephone line back to us so that patients can simply dial *800 from their bed and talk to us in the studio.
	On the roof of the Queen Mother Wing is a link transmitter beaming the programmes to St, Charles' and the Western Eye Hospital, These locations are fitted with a link receiver to pick up the broadcasts which are on a specially allocated frequency outside the wavelengths available on domestic radio sets.
Our current studio was originally fitted out in 1989 and comprises
Alice 3000 16 channel stereo mixing console with one presenter and two guest microphone positions P Squared Myriad automated computer playout system Two Denon compact disc players Two Sony mini disc players Two turntables BBC telephone balance unit Tascam DAT recorder/player Akai cassette recorder/player

We bought a computer based audio playout system in 2002 with funds which came to us from the Imperial College School of Medicine's Rag Week 2002.  We have been adding the music to the computer system which consists of a Windows 2000™ server with a four channel output studio terminal and currently one other terminal in the record library. Our intention is to move towards 24 hour programming once there is enough music in the system to provide a balanced programme which reflects the kind of music that our patients actually ask for during their stay with us in hospital. We have an additional studio machine that is to be used for system maintenance and providing the 24 hour sustaining service.

Fitting the computer into the studio meant we had to move a few things around and get rid of a third turntable which hadn't been used for years anyway.  This gives more room for people at the guest microphone positions to keep all their papers and request forms together.  All our jingles and promotions are on the computer system along with the most popular music requests and a lot more music!.

Some of our audio distribution equipment and rack came from the original studios of the UK's first Independent Local Radio station LBC at Gough Square in the City of London (for which we have the circuit diagrams and wiring layouts).

Our programmes are broadcast on channel 2 around the hospitals while the old hard-wired radio system remains. When we are not there BBC Radio 2 is received instead. On the Patientline system we are on channel 6 and provide a 24 hour service.