Happy New Year-January 2011 Blog...

Hullo There!
Hope you had a really good Christmas and Boxing Day-I had a quiet Christmas Day with family and on Boxing Day I broadcast a number of programmes from my home studio.
Come New Year's Day I shall be back in the home studio from 10am-3.30pm presenting another story in three parts over the day and in-between a seletion of Radio Poplar programmes from our early days-some 20 years ago!
Radio Days will be back in January-listen out forn details,along with a new series and re-generated Time Lord in Doctor Who.This series will run for 17 weeks up until April,when it will take a break until 2012.
Finally,let me on behalf of the Team at Radio Poplar wish you all a Very Happy 2011!
T.T.F.N.
Stephen.

Season's Greetings-The December Blog.

HI THERE and welcome to my December Blog.
Still no news of clearing copyright of one or two audio productions,so it looks as if PLAN B will go into action and I'll be sorting out some of my British classic comedy programmes this season.Keep listening out for details.
The good news is that on Boxing Day,starting at 9.30am I'll be presenting Book 1 of the adventure 'INTO THE LAND OF THE UNICORNS'. This is from FULL CAST AUDIO and will be broadcast in-between some of our own archive music programme-see our website pages for full details.
The day's broadcasting ends at the usual time of 4.30pm and I would like to thank author Bruce Coville for his permission to broadcast the 'Unicorns' story.
At the moment I am planning to braodcast on New Year's Day-Saturday this time around,probably between 10am-2pm.Keep listening out for details.
Finally,let me wish you all a Very Happy Christmas and 2011.

T.T.F.N.
Stephen.

Image by permission of Full Cast Audio.com

November's Blog

HULLO THERE!
Welcome to the Radio Poplar November Blog......
At the moment I am still having some 'difficulty'on two fronts-firstly attempting to contact the right people regarding a few adventure stories due out over the Christmas holiday season and secondly 'fishing' for new listeners.Me being me,I don't give up that easily and will continue until I complete the task,or in this case 'Trial by Fire'! Keep tuned-in folks for further developments!
On a positive note I now have a small selection of vintage(pre-1960)British radio shows on vynyl.
These are on 'standby' just in case I'm unable to present the above said 'adventures' both on CD and steee-ree-oh cass-ette!
My next Blog will be the Christmas one with a nice picture,so until then my friends-keep tuning in.
T.T.F.N.
Stephen.

October's Blog.......

Hullo There!
I must admit that I have been quite busy on the e-mailing front this last few weeks in that I have been'fishing' for new listeners.I must have sent 'eons' of emails to health trusts,carehome groups and other health organisations all over the U.K.
The results so far have been 'patchy',with only a small number of replies asking how to 'listen-in',of which I furnished them with the all the tech bits.It's early days yet,but hopefully by the turn of the year we should have quite a few folks 'listening-in' to our programmes.
Talking of programmes- I'm still having difficulty in clearing the copyright of some of the broadcasts I have lined-up over the Christmas holidays-talk about 'brick walls'! If all else fails,I have plenty of other 'goodies' in the sound archive to put out.
Watch this space.........

September in the Rain!

Welcome to the September blog.
This last Bank Holiday Monday I managed to broadcast a couple of hours from the home studio and all-in-all it seemed to go down well,that is until the computer decided to 'freeze' on me!Apart from that small 'glitch' I was rather chuffed with myself-and why not?
The first programme dated back to the August Bank Holiday of 1981 and was originally recorded up at Radio SKEBA on the old cassette.This brought back memories of the days all my broadcast recordings were done this way-long before the advent of the CD-R. In fact most of my sound archive here at home is made up of cassette recordings and I guess one day I'm going to have to find the time to start putting them onto CD,if only to preserve the memory.
When I listen(and hopefully re-broadcast)to them,I'm only glad I had the foresight to record the broadcasts at the time.
I guess in about 500 years time some historian will find them in a box somewhere and figure out a way to play them-no chance without a CD-R machine,or for that matter,the ones I never had the time to transfer- a cassette deck..

Don't touch that Dial!!

Welcome to the August blog.
I thought I'd go for a 'headline-grabbing' title this time-well it seems to have 'grabbed' your attention!
Since my last blog I have made some headway in securing the 'rights',although at times I think the spelling should be 'rites' due to the hard graft of emailing=reward(you do the maths)quite a few audio publishers.At the moment I am busy re-emailing the said above so's I'll have plenty of time setting the programmes up.I hope by my next blog,everything will just about be in place-the thing is,I am still finding some great audio plays out there.
Apart from the 'spoken word' this Christmas,I am sorting out a whole bunch(is that the collective nown for one or more audio cassette)of taped broadcasts which first went out between 1988-1992,so they'll be some memories abound no doubt.Having been stored in the 'recommended' dry place and away from magnetic fields,they should be ok.The advantage of broadcasts recorded post 2006 is that they are on cd,so given that,they should be fine for at least another 1000 years-give or take a decade!
TTFN

THE JULY 2010 BLOG.

Welcome to the July Blog.......
At the moment I am busy sorting out one or two audio productions with a view to broadcasting them in the near future.
In the past,Radio Poplar has broadcast many radio programmes which were recorded between the 1930s-50s and these will continue to be a part of our output.Now with the real possibility of a wider listenership,I am looking at including more up-to-date productions,which as you can imagine come with all the 'trappings' of copyright.It's a long process,but worth the effort in the end as hopefully Radio Poplar will bring a new dimension to your listening pleasure.

Goodbye To Maudelayne

After some 13 weeks,Maudelayne comes to an end on the first Sunday in July.
It was quite an 'off the wall' adventure,but well scripted I thought.
For those who missed it-the series was set at an Ox-Bridge collage in the 1930s,where a 'rift'had enabled a fantasy world to enter reality.One of the cast members was Mark Kalita,who will be back with us the Sunday after as Doctor Who.

Talking of fantasy-this Christmas we are presenting Book 1 of 'Into the Land of The Unicorns'
For more details click onto our link at 'Fullcast Audio'.It is read by author Bruce Coville with cast and music.
There are 4 parts to this drama which I am planning to put out over Boxing Day.This will be the 'centrepiece' to our Christmas Box of goodies this year.

June Update on the Greenthorpe Studio.....

At the moment I am still having some problems with the home studio.
The earth 'buzz' from the turntable continues to be a problem and I need to sort it out in order to deliver a good signal while playing my records.Everything else seems to be working as it should,having finally managed to sort the output levels.
One other problem is that when I re-installed the 'Winamp' it also brought in a 'virus',which is being picked up by my anti-virus programme and enables me to put the thing into the vault.It may mean I have to un-install the Winamp and re-install it.One could go quite dizzy!
As for broadcasting from home,this will have to wait until I move the 'studio' out of the living room and upstairs,where I'll have more space to work in-probably in the autumn.

THE JUNE 2010 BLOG....

Hullo There!
For a change I thought I'd use this shade of green for the blog-all things being 'summery',that is.It makes a change from black and white,I guess.
I don't usually buy singles(that's a record for all those under 50),but I found a recording from 1978(when I were a boy dj) by Chris Blake,who sadly passed away five years ago at the age of 55.It's the theme song to the Weekend TV sit-com 'Mixed Blessings'Do you remember it?The song was written by Peter Davidson-Doctor Who number 5,who starred with Chris in another series'Love For Lydia',also starring Mel Martin.Chris also starred in Yorkshire Telly's(remember the 'Y' and the first bars from 'On Ilkla Moor Bar Tat'?)'That's My Boy' with Mollie Sugden and I think her husband William Moore-please correct me if I'm wrong!
The 'B',or 'free' side to this record is Chris singing 'Lost on a Wing',penned by John Gray.The label and number of the record is Weekend DJS10855-marketed br DJM Records- Dick James Records-
Dick James who recorded The Robin Hood song from the 1950s tv series starring Richard Greene.

LATEST NEWS ON DOCTOR WHO.

Welcome to my May 2010 Blog entry.

The good news is that there will be a third series of Doctor Who,starting in January next year.As with last year,I hope to broadcast a pre-season episode as a part of our Christmas programmes.
Apart from Doctor Who I have been busy putting together quite a few vintage recordings of plays from the 40s-50s USA radio era,which I hope to sort out into a future series for either 2011,or 2012.I hope to keep you up-to-date on this one.We have so many recordings in our sound archive that sometimes it's hard to decide what to prepair,plus sorting out more 'air-time' to actually broadcast them.At present I hope you are enjoying the Sunday afternoon 'spoken word' spot and are looking forward to the second series of Doctor Who which starts in July.
One more item- at the moment production of The Broadcaster Plus has been suspended.I am still looking at ways to put it on-line as well has publishing a 'hard' copy for those folks not on the web.

PROGRESS ON THE 'GREENTHORPE' STUDIO

Hi there and welcome to my April Blog!
First of all things seem to be going well with my home(Greenthorpe Towers) studio.I think the problem with the output sound levels has now been fixed-Who said "and about time too!" I just have to carry out a few more test broadcasts before I expose you to live,primetime radio-after all
I don't wish to frighten the horses!
One further development is that I have sussed out how to broadcast my archive of programmes on cassette(old 70s tech,but it works).I hope to broadcast one or two detective series from the 50s sometime in the near future.Listen out for details during my RADIO DAYS programme on SUNDAYS between 1.30-2.30pm-sorry for shouting there,but I do like to reach the viewers at the back.
I usually drop in a short broadcast at around 11pm when the autoplay closes down,but I'll keep you informed when the next 'test' is due to take place.
Happy Listening!

Remembering Radio SKEBA.

This last weekend some of our team paid a visit to Seacroft Hospital to collect some albums,still there in the studio since the radio service closed down two years ago and joined-up with members of Radio Allerton at their station.

It was quite strange going back there,after almost 30 years and finding some things were just the same now as they were then.It was also a little sad,seeing the place void of both broadcast equipment and the 'buz' of the usual dj 'banter'.

I started there in September 1978 in a small cabin,but in early 1979 we moved into what was a part of the old nurses's home.I stayed there until 1983-84,when I left to begin my own radio service-Radio Poplar!I guess the 'golden years' for me were between 1981-82,when with a radio station full of presenters and request collectors we would have a great laugh and share all the usual dj banter with our patients both at Seacroft and over York Road,Killingbeck Hospital.
But best of all,I took recordings of my Sunday morning programmes(1981-2)and plan to re-broadcast them on Poplar in the near future .

Special Programmes for Easter Day.

This Easter Day on Radio Poplar we shall be presenting parts 1 and 2 of this adventure between
1.30pm and 2.30pm.
Tom Crean-Sailor on Ice is the story of one of the sailors in the doomed Shackleton expedition to the South Pole.The series begins in 1901 on the Irish explorer's first Antarctic adventure shipping aboard the wooden ship DISCOVERY on her maiden voyage to the Southern Contenent.It is a full cast audio drama,based upon maritine author and poet DAVID HIRZEL'S research and featuring DAVID AULT,DAVID MAGIVER and STEPHEN K.FARNABY.All the charactures are based on actual people and the events are part of the historical record of Antarctic exploration.SAILOR ON ICE is brought to life by Post producer Sound Engineer MICHAEL HUDSON and is produced by IMAGINATION LANE AUDIO PRODUCTIONS.
ENJOY! image by permission.

News about Doctor Who.

At the moment series 1 of Doctor Who is almost halfway through and will run until the end of March.
We will have series 2 back on Radio Poplar in our Summer Season.As for a third series-there seems to be nothing in the pipeline from Brokensea Productions,but as soon as I get confirmation,I'll put it up on this blog.
As for Series 3,it may possibly be broadcast during Saturday afternoons-this is part of our plans to extend the weekend services in the new year.

Home Studio Progress.

At the moment I am working on setting up a studio from home,here at Greenthorpe.

So far I have managed to connect to the server,but it seems there is no sound output.
However,with some advice from the 'tech' folk,I hope to be putting out some test programmes
at around 11pm during some evenings in the near future-watch this blog!
Talking about the future,once I am up and 'running' both Doctor Who and Radio Days from

home,there may be the possibility of putting out a programme or two during Saturday afternoons.