The Original 1970 Studio
Radio Enfield's first studio was located in what was known as the Centre Switch room, basically a large storeroom in the main part of Chase Farm Hospital (opposite an X-Ray room).
The studio was built at one end of the room whilst the other end comprised various sized switches and controls for the street lighting around the hospital. The hospital's main radio amplifier was also installed in this room that had only a couple of windows high above the entrance door, and immediately above the room were the hospital's hot water tanks.
| The radio amplifier was an old valve set, very dusty and tuned to BBC Radios 2 and 4, which the patients heard during the day. At that time, there were very few television sets around the wards, so most patients listened in to the radio for a good part of the day. |
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Radio Enfield's equipment, comprising a mixer desk, two turntables, two tape decks, microphone and 'jingle' machine, was installed at the door end of the room. The 'jingle' machine was a reel-to-reel tape recorder onto which a tape of jingles interspersed with stop foil was loaded so that, at the press of a button, a jingle would immediately play then the tape would pause ready for the next jingle to be started. (For non-techÂnical people, a 'jingle' is a pre-recorded station announcement along the lines of 'This is Radio Enfield', etc). The 'jingle' machine was then covered in thick carpet so that the stop/start mechanism noise was suppressed.
The equipment was plugged into the hospital's radio amplifiers and the programmes replaced BBC Radio 2 between 8 and 10pm. This was timed to start after visiting ended and end before the lights went out in the wards.
After a two hour programme, the room got very hot and stuffy and the street lighting controls would often go 'CLUNK!' whilst the microphone was turned on. Each presenter had to yell out 'MICROPHONE' before making an announcement as an instruction to everyone else in the room to be quiet!
There were a couple of advantages in this studio - requests would often be posted under the door during the programme by passing visitors and nursing staff plus the canteen was just a couple of doors away up the corridor enabling refreshments to be obtained whilst playing a long record!
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