http://swu.fm/
https://twitter.com/SWUfm
https://www.facebook.com/swu.fm/
In May 2016 SWU will be celebrating Bristol music culture with an
exclusive radio station dedicated to the city’s Urban, Electronic &
Dance music.
Finally, a decent station in Bristol, if only temporarily.
Unfortunately, I don't think the FM has been set up to work at it's best. This may be an Ofcom ruling that the aerial should be located on a low building or it could just be a lack of decent transmitter site. It could also be lack of experience in setting up.
This signal isn't all that good outside central Bristol. The 10 Watt rig is putting out a stereo signal with RDS 'SWU FM' and the aerial (gold plated dipole from the looks of it) is located on top of Hamilton House in Stokes Croft /
Cheltenham Rd, so this is one reason for the poor signal. It's
surrounded by hills and taller buildings. The aerial is also only half way up the thick white flag pole it is on, and may do better with the boom fastened at the top of the pole. I had trouble hearing it on my mp3 player's radio once I started heading towards Whiteladies Rd from Park Street, not that far away! I can only just hear it on my SDR setup at home in North Bristol / South Gloucestershire, the signal gets pretty weak by the time you get to Horfield Sports Center (I was using the Tecsun PL310 on the top deck of a bus for this). That said, if you get onto the M32 at Frenchay and travel into Bristol you'll have decent reception on a car radio all the way in. I've not yet explored how well it does going in other directions.
I've been listening on the stream (link below) and I like the pirate sound of the station. No jingles that I've heard, no ads, just back to back shows.
A lot of Bristol legends are involved, Roni, Krust, Die, Jakes, etc...
6 comments:
Hi,
I am a FMDXer from Finland. We had a great Es opening to the South of England on Wednesday evening. (My logged catches: http://www.fmlist.org/fm_logmap.php?datum=2016-05-25&omid=271&band=ALL&target=ALL&rxin=ALL)
I have been listening to my recording from 87.7 MHz. There was the Swindow RSL Flame FM, but also another one, playing dance beat or something like that. Very few DJ speaks in between. I will compose those together and send for a chec. Do you happen to know anyone at the station?
BR, Otso
Salo, Finland
Wow! Considering the height of SWU's aerial (they are at the bottom of a hill and the building is not that tall) and they are only using 10W, that would be some impressive DX!
If you have the time / date of your recording and can upload the whole clip then I can try and identify the station.
I don't know anybody at the station personally, so it could be hard to get in contact, but I could try.
There may be other RSL's around and possibly pirates on 87.7, but it could well be SWU FM.
Hi,
The clip is here:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=257D406EC36F22D4!434967&authkey=!AOustQSZDucFV7s&ithint=file%2cmp3
The first bit has two RSLs, the female speaker being probably from Flame FM. The others are mostly underground music and some words from a DJ.
Hi Osy
Yes, that's SWU FM. The host is MC Joe Peng, a well known Bristol rapper :)
Wow, great to hear you recognised it! I found an email address for the station from the Offcom RSL page. However, If you figure out someone who's been organising it all, I would gladly forward the clip to them. It seems today has been their last day on the air.
By the way, is there a pirate station you receive regularly on 87.5 FM? One came strongly at the same time when I received SWU FM and Flame FM. By the way, Flame FM was very strong, with full RDS info for a while.
87.5 could've been Raw from London, or I think there is something on in Manchester on that freq at the moment. Try radionecks.co.uk for more information :)
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