Ceud Mile Failte - A Chairdean

Hello and Welcome to Dunoon Community Radio’s Website

Who is Dunoon Community Radio?

The Community Radio working group was set up in 2005 to represent the community with a bid to secure the Ofcom broadcasting licence required for public broadcasting and to secure the start up funding. Ofcom define the rules on Community Radio broadcasting and how it should be financed both in start up and future running cost. To comply with these rules, Dunoon Community Radio secured grants from Argyll & the Islands Enterprise HIE and CED funds for 60% of our start up cost (£10,200) and a cash grant of £ 5000 from the Lottery Awards for All.

A Community radio Broadcasting Licence is granted after the applicants have proven to Ofcom through their application that the proposals made will benefit the target community, broaden the available choice, have relevant objectives for the delivery of social change and are beneficial especially to minority groups within the community who may not be represented by other available radio broadcast .

At the beginning of January 2007, after two years of planning, sounding out the local community and recruiting volunteers, the Dunoon community radio group submitted an application to Ofcom for a Community Radio Broadcasting Licence and was delighted to be informed in July 2007 that their application had been accepted and a licence awarded.

Having satisfied Ofcom on specified “characteristics of service”, Ofcom made special note of Dunoon Radio meeting the required criteria for the needs of the young and older people in the community and to broaden the availability of choice locally particularly in respect to the delivery of its output in the Gaelic language.

Dunoon Community Radio is managed, operated and maintained by people from the community, some participating in the radio activities as individuals, others from groups or associations, local schools etc. We will be dedicated to the promotion of matters of local interest and concern, promoting local activities and events and the promotion of the Gaelic language and culture.

It is hoped that broadcast programmes will encourage listener participation and will cover a wide variety of music, leisure pursuits, local history and culture, language and social issues and that all sections of the community will be able to find something of interest.

During the two years preparation for the radio licence volunteers gained experience in all types of radio activities and we had our first opportunity to broadcast live during the Royal National Mod held in Dunoon October 2006 as part of radio coverage of the prestigious event.

This coverage broadcast on FM in the Dunoon area was also made available to Community Radio Stations throughout Scotland and the internet. Broadcasting from a local primary school, Dunoon Community Radio also had the responsibility of recording competitors of the Mod then editing the recordings ready for broadcast. This was achieved by converting a large classroom into a make-shift recording studio.

Dunoon Community Radio broadcast a live morning programme each day of the Mod and used this opportunity as an introduction to the good folk of Dunoon and to give the listeners an idea of the type of broadcasting they could expect in the future.

Some items to be broadcast were pre-recorded to give radio volunteers experience, some recordings were just speech related such as readings, one to one interviews and group discussions.