For anyone reading my blog over at computer-geek.co.uk, i've joined the Hospital Radio team at Blackburn and finally re-united with my old turntablist buddy and partner in crime Dave P, naturally we're not banging-it-out club-style like we used to but officially we've moved forward a step, we're presenters. Dave has been a member of the organisation for 8 years now and chairman for 3 of those.

Ok, so it's voluntary work (does a lot of good work for chaaaarity) but that means we're all equals. I can see a lot of good that can be done here and a lot of fun to be had too. It's by no means an ammeteur operation, East Lancashire Health Trust (ELHT) have spent a lot of money over the years and moreso back in 1998 when the station moved to its current location at Royal Blackburn Hospital. 3-years ago, Dave started a crusade to get computerised and become a 24 hour station. With the help of the comittee, other donations (including Blackburn Rovers), the trust and several outside sources, funds were raised and one morning Dave drove to East Yorkshire to pick up their system from PSquared - yes, we're talking about "Myriad".

Why did I join? Simples! I'm at that point where i've learned so much and gained experience in audio, video and IT that it's time to give something back. Naturally i'll be doing my own show soon but i'll get asked to train new recruits on various aspects, build content, assist with outside broadcasts, help steer the station and modernise some of its other aspects (we recently got a coffee machine). There's also the fun side - you get to meet staff and patients and if you can make someone who's in the hospital feel better just for a few minutes playing their favourite song on the request show then i'm a happy bunny too.

We recently had a meeting with Hospedia who are our signal carrier (ooh, sounds posh) and they were generous enough to give us some listening figures - we didn't realise but in December, we were the 3rd most used channel service with nearly 11,000 listener hours - first overall for music making us officially the no.1 radio station at the hospital beating BBC Radio 2 by quite some hours.

ITV1 were first, however, this figure is slightly tainted by the fact that the bedside units automatically switch over to ITV1 at 8am every day.

NOT ANY MORE

The site manager at Blackburn, Rashid Ditta has teamed up with us to mutually promote each other's services and had the system changed so that we're now switched to automatically at 8am.

That means that if they keep the service that way, we'll be needing a breakfast show presenter.

Check out the official Hospital Radio (RHB) website at http://www.radiohospitalsblackburn.co.uk for more information about the station, presenters, shows and how to become part of the team.