Your Station - Studio Tour
Here’s where our cyberspace assisted tour of IW Radio begins. The car park… This is our home on the glamorous Dodnor Industrial Estate, where we’ve been based since we began broadcasting in 1990.
The estate was created in 1989 and we were one of the first companies to set up here. You can't miss us with our two huge satellite dishes!
Watch out for our cars with distinctive livery around the Island at Isle of Wight Radio events.
Studio A The inner sanctum. It all happens here! From the Big Fun Breakfast to the Phone-In to John Hannam Meets - this is where all of IW Radio’s shows are broadcast from. Most of the songs that you here on air come from our computerised playout system, Enco Dad. We still keep two CD players and a turntable in the studio for those rarities from the IW Radio record library though.
We don’t use tape! All of our recording and editing happens in the digital domain now – that’s where the two computer monitors come in.
From the headphones to telephones to microphones, you can see everything a presenter needs in this reasonably tidy shot of the studio (believe us, it doesn’t normally look like this – especially at weekends…) In the top right of the picture you can glimpse the window of Studio C, where the IW Radio news bulletins come from.
Studio B Another studio and another selection of computer screens! Studio B is mainly used for production. Some of our commercials are made here, and almost all of our on-air promos and trails are recorded in this studio.
We sometimes use this studio for pre-recording interviews and other elements of our live shows. It’s also a permanent standby on-air studio in the event of a failure in studio A. We haven’t been forced to use it on air yet….
Studio C This is where all of IW Radio’s news bulletins come from. Smaller than the other studios but just as practical, this is one of the busiest parts of the building. Again, all our recording and editing is done digitally – often with just minutes left before a bulletin!
Newsroom This is where the news that you hear is written, and where all our bulletins are compiled.
Our newsteam have established a strong working relationship with the Island’s leading figures, meaning that we are always first with day’s big interviews and stories.
We pride ourselves on the strength of our local news output, and our three journalists endeavour to bring you the Island’s breaking news first.
Whether it’s an election night special, the fixed-link debate or news on the IW Festival, we’ll tell you everything you need to know.
In conjunction with our local news coverage, our national and international news stories come from Independent Radio News in London.
Engineering This heavily air-conditioned room is the nerve centre of Isle Of Wight Radio. All the studios are linked to the banks of equipment here. It’s also where our satellite links appear, and where we can link-up with almost anyone anywhere using ISDN technology.
All our Outside Broadcast circuits go through this room, and you can often find engineers deep in thought here…..
This is also where our output is processed and distributed. It’s digitally encoded and then sent via a microwave link to our main transmitter at Chillerton Down. It is then relayed to transmitters in Ryde, Ventor and Cowes.
