Sadly we weren’t successful in getting a licence for the small-scale community radio DAB trial.

Rather than a single licence, we had to apply for a multiplex – a way of transmitting several DAB services at once. Part of the application was a commitment for us to broadcast other radio stations.

All of the 10 winning applicants for the trial were in much larger urban areas and were therefore able to promote up to 6 services each.

The ten successful services were in North London, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Norwich, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Aldershot/Woking (which carries three BFBS stations as well as local services).

We understand why Ofcom have chosen these sites – it’s to allow as many stations as possible to form part of the trial.

Our commitment was to carry two services – ours and a specialist community music station from Southend, Ship Full Of Bombs.

One of the great things about Brentwood is that we’re in a beautiful part of the UK – but that also means we’re not in a major population centre and we just don’t have that many other interested radio stations around here that we could have teamed up with to win a place on the trial!

Good luck to the stations lucky enough to win a place on the trial (even “The Steve Penk Wind-Up Channel”, which we’re sure will be a roaring success) and hopefully it goes so well for you all that Ofcom has no choice but to roll out DAB to the whole community radio sector in the UK, regardless of the number of stations each multiplex can carry.

Paul