Back in the days no one was, I remember Friday evening scanning through the dial waiting for stations to come on, seeing the signal bars appearing when still on white noise and then the link comes on and they come alive. Long gone are those days over the past 10+ years or so...
Nowadays I don't think there's anything left that switches off during the week nights or just comes on weekends, is there??

I reckon it all do with how the rig is secured, i.e most on tower blocks are jacked down now so they probabaly think whats point of switching off these days that rig wont go anywhere and those on masts prob thinking fucking climbing to get the rig down and putting it back up again in a few days, I remember when we use to do just do weekends about 14 years ago, that was because at the time we was just dlocked and rigs easily go missing that way you aint just got ofcom and thieves going about with grinders even council get a grinder out, had that before. plus im assuming Ofcom are a tad more laid back that DTI it certainly seems that way these days

Yeah that's probably the nail on the head there. Long gone are the D-Locked to water tank days. Back in the mid 90s we sometimes even left them just sitting there in Surrey Lane Battersea not even locked to anything and got away with it.
I don't think anyone switches off any more.

It was mostly stations that were south of the river that had to switch off during the day because of com, all they had to do was travel within a 2 miles radius from the offices to go back with enough rigs to keep the boss happy. Long gone the days were you'd find stock piles of cut thru d locks on a block.

Yes I can think of one station that switches off and on, Venture FM. Its usually off in the daytime but switches on around 4pm or something

Ahh well that's good then, London daytime radio could do without all that rubbish!

teckniqs wrote:Ahh well that's good then, London daytime radio could do without all that rubbish!

As the dj on there says "Absolutely top of the tops!"

How on the ball are the rig thieves and OFCOM as of 2016? Would doing one-off single weekend broadcasts with the rig d-locked up to the water tank no longer be a safe thing to do?

infinityisnow wrote:How on the ball are the rig thieves and OFCOM as of 2016? Would doing one-off single weekend broadcasts with the rig d-locked up to the water tank no longer be a safe thing to do?

Nope.

I can see a point to Tec's answer because nothing is ever safe, but there is another side to it, I dont think a 1 off on a weekend would be that unsafe, you would have to be extremely unlucky for either to notice you within a weekend the only way they would be is if you happened to choose the wrong dial then you wont last past Friday night or Saturday morning, or the off chance thieves are out around the area of your tx site yet again you'd be well unlucky as they aint out every day, every night or every week as they use to be, especially ofcom being more complaint driven, the way I see that is, to be noticed you have be on for over a week which gets people in radio talking then word gets out. Gradually the longer your on air more chance of being taken off using that dlock.

Comprehensive response. Thanks v much.

Its terminal though the rig will get eaten soon just a matter of time when, depending who you are aswell, stations that are not to be messed with will only have ofcom to worry about if they tried going Old skool.

I was only talking about in London or close by.
There are lots stations who think they own frequencies and tower blocks, even if they haven't used them in years!
As soon as a new station pops up in London people will be making calls and sniffing around. There's a very good reason why it's jacked in these days. No matter what dial you chose or area you come from you are always going to upset someone out there, it's inevitable.

Make sure it's nicely secure, preferably up a harder to access block and get that rig jacked down with at least one or two metal plates covering the top. Failing that bolt a dirty great safe down to the floor.... Or lose it!

Dream only lasted 2 days on 92.8 before it got taken so good luck lasting a weekend on a D lock guys.

92.8 aint exactly a decent dial to be fair. I lasted 2 and half months on a dlock last year until council was on the case seeing our huge double up ripped it down and took the rig..cant access the roof any more. then again no 1 really fucks with us apart from the com or the councils

Yer maybe not but no where is these days??