UKC Radio

Budding electronics students decided to test this out in Eliot College by connecting the loudspeaker output of a HiFi amplifier between the mains earth and the central heating radiator system.

This involved soldering two wires across the volume control – the other ends being connected to the radiator and table lamp with small crocodile clips.

[3] The stations combined forces under the name Audio Rutherford and overcame safety issues raised by the University Surveyor which had threatened closure.

This spurred on attempts to obtain a broadcasting licence to operate an inductive loop medium wave transmission system.

When UKC Radio was granted a licence the chance was taken to build a full studios complex on the lowest floor of Eliot College.

UKC Radio carried an overnight sustaining service from 1984, using LBC (which was taken off air via a huge aerial on the roof of Eliot).

The studios were swapped over in a summer long operation in 1995, and a considerably revamped thanks in part to a donation of some redundant equipment from Winchester Hospital Radio.

For most of its history, UKC Radio was available on 300m Medium Wave (officially 998 kHz AM, though it apparently used a 1 MHz crystal as these were far cheaper) via induction loops which were on the top of the college buildings - meaning you could only hear the station in limited parts of the campus.

However, UKC Radio was heard unofficially throughout the city at least once during Rag Week in the early 1970s when a T-aerial appeared overnight slung between two corners of the cross-shaped Eliot College.

The station moved frequency to 1350AM in 2000, with a transmission mast sited to the west of the new student union building, between The Venue and behind the old bus stops.