Concert Broadcast Team

An outside broadcast (OB) of a music concert starts long before the day of the broadcast. Firsty, suitable concerts are selected - usually about two each month - and then permission is sought from the venue managers at Thornden Concert Hall, Turner Sims and Southampton Guildhall - from where we currently have our own private ISDN connections.

Written permission from the concert managers, producers and performers is also obtained by Alan Lambourn, our Station Director, before we are finally permitted to relay the concerts live, to the hospital patients.

Jim and Jan Dale then organise the team and arrange to meet about three or four hours before the concert is due to start and then under Jim's guidance they install the 'mics' and lay out the cables both safely and discreetly long before the audience arrives.

At the command centre, in earphones, sits Jim at the sound mixer with Jan at the desk control unit, with the commentator(s) cued in waiting with their microphone(s) at the ready.

Studios are checked and the regular scheduled programmes are then set aside whilst the live OB is broadcast directly to the listeners bedside.

After the concert, the cables are recoiled, the microphones and kit are put away and the many various packing cases wend their way back into Jim's to be stored safely away until the next gig.

Thermos flasks are opened and a coffee and chat shared al-fresco, satisfied with another job well done. That is not all however, as part of the 'deal' is that Jim later provides an edited CD recording which is presented to the concert promoters and then made available to their fans.