For its day, this was reported to be not an unusual demand, considering the only alternatives at the time were the BBC Home or Light programmes - or pirate radio, from boats anchored in the North Sea.
There was a close affiliation between the station, the amateur radio society and the Union Technical Organisation (UTO) who did stage lighting and provided disco services on campus.
An article in the university magazine Wyvern in October 2001 written by one of the creators of URE notes that "Sound deadening, was originally provided by egg boxes glued to the wall.
The studios were swapped in 1980 with the arrival of a Magnetic Tapes Ltd 12 channel desk (called "old faithful" by the engineers, due to its longevity), which was ordered specifically from the factory for the purpose, with quad Chilton PPM BBC style meters.
Copyright was a major issue, and so URE, along with several other stations at Sussex, York, Loughborough, Brunel, Surrey, and Swansea formed the National Association of Student Broadcasting.
Here the university again put in considerable resources to the station, and built 4 dedicated studios for URE in LTB6, on the balcony overlooking the largest lecture theatre block.
An Amateur Radio KW "Vanguard"[1] transmitter was modified by John Rabson to operate at 998 kHz, using a crystal-controlled exciter made by Robin Gape to replace the original Geloso VFO.
Because of a stringent Post Office requirement to limit field strength at the campus boundary to 100 microvolts per metre, and the presence of a strong signal on an adjacent channel, the transmitter could not be simply coupled to a single, central antenna.
A scheme was devised to use individual "infinitesimal" passive loop antennae in each residential tower, fed by coaxial cable and carefully phased in pairs to cancel the external field.
The coaxial cable had to be carefully laid out to produce the required accuracy of phasing, and splitting transformers were used to reduce power loss.
Test equipment to confirm its correct operation, including portable field-strength meters and their calibration gear, was improvised.
This new system worked very well until 1990, when a blown fuse in a power amp under the causeway resulted in Tawney and William Morris being off air for 9 months.
Considerable ingenuity by engineers in reaching the fuse - in the sub-basement and abandoned boiler rooms under Tawney - eventually resulted in a fix.
The opportunity was taken in 1990 to add induction loops to the Wolfson Court hall of residence, which had previously only received some radiation from Keynes.
The newly installed 999 kHz induction loop network was however much weaker than the original transmitter - 1 watt as opposed to the original 50 watts - and this allowed stations like Radio Tirana (from Albania) and Deutsche Welle (from Grigoriopol) a pretty much perfect interference pattern that silenced the station unless received close to an induction loop (located on each third floor of the towers).
The dispute was only resolved when URE agreed to relinquish its office, in return for the Union to agree to abide by acknowledging URE's autonomy and a management structure decided by internal voting by the stations members, who were deemed to be "anyone enrolled in the university, its staff, or anyone they deemed a fit member of the radio station".
This constitution worked by having a committee of a Station Manager and Programme Controller on equal footing, plus a head of News, Engineering, Publicity, Treasurer, Secretary, and Record Librarian.
All had a vote in committee decisions, and the union was relegated to a position at which the station would put in its request for a budget at the end of the year, and maintain its own finances.
In 1988 in a formal referendum URE members voted to accept advertising for the first time, but turned down any suggestion to playlist the station.
The new constitution reinvigorated the station and dramatically changed the output: it was the start of a long period of steady growth that lasted nearly two decades.
While in 1986 the station didn't broadcast in Freshers week, by 1987 the importance of welcoming new students (and indirectly, encouraging them to listen to URE) was recognised, and in 1987 the programme controller (on air 10 am[2]noon) and Station Manager (on air 4 pm – 6 pm) managed a week of broadcasting, with specialist programming in the evening.
URE adopted a new extension in 1988, of 2267, which exists to this day, however that gave rise to the infamous "PITS" switch, or "Phone Internal Telephone System".
This, on the Magnetic Tapes desk until it was replaced, gave the presenter output plus music through the speakers in the studio, without a cutout if the microphone was on air.
A criticism of this period was that there was always a drive to encourage new presenters to sign up - and maintain the music output, to keep the station on air all the time, at an expense of complex talk programmes.
URE possessed this - and relayed Capital overnight, and for early breakfast until 8 am: this considerably drove its listenership, although it took a knock in 1990 when URE's main competition, BBC Radio 1, started broadcasting in FM - previously BBC Radio 1 had been at 1053 & 1089 kHz AM, and for some students switching from FM to AM and back was too complicated, as other Medium Wave stations later also found.
The Square Four coffee bar shut in 1989, and became tutorial rooms, but reopened as SXPress in 2000, however no attempt has been made to put speakers back here, despite the permanent landline.
In 1998 the station started Freely Radiating on 1404 kHz using LPAM, an AM frequency in a tightly defined area restricted by the terms of the licence to the university campus.
It gave virtual 24-hour output: these acted as a good advert for the student union, and also broadcast the Sabbatical election hustings, encouraging thousands to vote.
URE broadcast in FM from 30 Sep – 27 Oct 1997 (during which it also maintained a split service daytime 1404 AM output, and had separate jingles for 999 kHz AM.
SBN paid stations for taking syndicated advertising and sponsored shows, which enabled them to buy transmitting and studio equipment.