LAST month Whitstable and Herne Bay had its own temporary radio station as Red Sands Radio beamed news of the Oyster Festival along the coast for the third year running. But not everything was plain sailing as programme director Rob LeRoi explains...

JUST hours after Lord Mayor Cllr Harry Cragg launched Red Sands Radio the station lost output from two channels of its mixing desk.

Engineers dived in with screwdrivers at the ready.

It must have looked horrific to anyone who was watching as wires were quickly re-routed but the repair worked.

That's what I love so much about working on live radio. Anything can happen - and it often does.

Modern equipment is very reliable but sometimes even it suffers an unexpected fault.

Red Sands Radio came about almost by accident.

It was first set up on the old Second World War Mauntsell sea forts on the Red Sands off the coast of Whitstable and Herne Bay to commemorate the closure of the pop pirates in 1967.

The Labour government's marine Broadcasting Bill made it an offence for anyone in Britain to work on or supply goods, including food, diesel and records, to the stations.

I began my radio career on the forts. It was fortuitous that former colleague and senior engineer on Radio City, fellow Whitstable man Tony Pine, was happy to participate along with a host of professional presenter friends who gave their time freely.

This year was different. Working on the fort had been a massive challenge. We encountered the same difficulties we experienced in the 60s but the fort had deteriorated considerably since then.

With just two or three aboard at any given time we needed to keep the radio station on-air, run our own news service, maintain the generators, keep a radio watch, feed ourselves and keep clean. It was a challenge in itself.

This time the pressures were maintaining the large local content with so few staff. I worked 12-hour days to run what I believe was the first 'proper' local community radio station for the coastal towns.

It is a great shame Ofcom, the broadcasting governing body, has such a tight rein on radio.

When royalty fees to the musicians are included it cost us more than £3,500 to broadcast over 28 days.

Luckily we gained support from sponsors and local advertisers but I still had to make up the deficit from my own pocket.

Musically Red Sands Radio was very different top other stations. We didn't rotate the same 200 songs.

I programmed the music sensitively and ensure we really did play the best of yesterday and today.

At weekends we added another dimension to our sound with 60's Sunday, 70's Magic, 80's Power and Red Sands Country.

Breaking fresh ground, we conducted dozens of interviews in our Live Lunch slot, mostly outside on the patio of the cafe on Whitstable Harbour's South Quay next to our studios.

Interviewees were photographed and appeared a few minutes later on our website. Within the month it had registered 500,000 hits with people from 30 countries regularly listening on-line.

Many have told me they would like Red Sands Radio to stay on-air permanently.

Where does it go from here? I really don't know but one thing is certain - it will come down to funding.

* Would you like Red Sands Radio to continue? Email editor.times@krnmedia.co.uk or leave your comments below...