[radio nut]

the best station to come out of the midlands pre gwr takeover celibrates 30 years old in april,anyone any memories of this station?

[richie wild]

i used to be able to pick it up weakly on am and i loved the pete wagstaff breakfast show, he was very funny and i used to amuse friends at school with his musings.

[Newsbuff]

I have so many memories of the good days I could go on for a long time. Gordon Astley, Pat and Pete, Peter Craig (RIP), Pete Clements, the great music and jingles of the 70's and early 80s and for me one of the best ever DJs on radio in the West Midlands, Tony Paul.
I remember the American Countdown show he used to simulcast with New York station K104.
Great memories and I really hope there are some programmes on air to mark the birthday - well one can hope !

[radio nut]

i have several airchecks of beacon 303 in cluding full opening 4 hours

[Les Wires]

Great memories, Mike Baker, KKJ, George Fergusson etc.

For me the great thing about Beacon was that you were able to listen to pop music between 7pm-10pm, all the other locals had phone-ins and even Radio 1 has specialized shows in the evening.

Excellent signal in those days on 303m, can remember listening to it on a car radio in Weston-super-Mare.

Those were the days when there was a difference, less stations around but much much more choice.

Yes it was a great station. A couple of my friends presented on there and had a whale of a time.

Pete Wagstaff went on to be the boss at Telford FM, and presented on the station for a while with some of the old Beacon lot, it seems to have changed a lot now though, so I'm not sure if he's still there.

They had a string of catchy jingles, that still haunt me when I think of them now

[Newsbuff]

The Mark and Jo breakfast show sometimes play some of the old jingles, which were great.
Yes Pete Wagstaff is still at Telford FM but I imagine in the current climate would never be able to express himself as much, particularly as he did with Pat Foley (RIP).

[radio nut]

Ah Yes,pat And Pete Essenshal Saturday Listening,rember The Prank Phone Calls?

Originally Posted by Dave Bacon

Pete Wagstaff went on to be the boss at Telford FM, and presented on the station for a while with some of the old Beacon lot, it seems to have changed a lot now though, so I'm not sure if he's still there.

Yes Pete Wagstaff is still at Telford FM.I work for the newspaper owned by the same company that own Telford FM and I often bump into Pete Wagstaff during the day.The studio is on the floor above where I work.
Beacon Radio 303 was an excellent station,I don't know why G-Cap still call the station Beacon Radio as it is now nothing like it used to be.

[Newsbuff]

No all the creativity, characters and fun has gone unfortunately in my opinion.

[radio nut]

totally agree,and i bet the will not celibrate their birthday?

[Newsbuff]

Good news, just had an e-mail from Mark Jeeves.
"Hi Paul,
Yes, we have some big plans for the anniversary.We're going through old tapes right now.
Many thanks for the e-mail."

So listen up! - Tt might show the newer listeners how good the station once was!

[radio nut]

tryed e-mailing mark jeeves,kept coming back

[nigelnw]

Beacon was way ahead of its time. Fantastic station, and in those early days made BRMB sound so bad !

[Newsbuff]

Yes although BRMB improved I think with the likes of John Slater and Phil Riley, Nick Meanwell and Brendan Kearney, Stephen Rhodes who may not all necessarily have been there at the start.
I thought they were both great stations then to be honest and were the main reason I fell in love with radio.

[Ed Nell]

Thanks for all your posts about Beacon Radio's 30th birthday. We're all very excited at the station about celebrating the birthday and have plans to do big things to celebrate throughout this year so keep an ear out.

We're also planning to play old clips from shows and presenters during the week of the birthday. If you have anything of broadcastable quality please could you send them to....

"The Station Producer, Beacon Radio, 267 Tettenhall Road, Wolverhampton, WV6 0DE"

as we'd love to play them out.

[radio nut]

on april 12th how about a special show looking back?

[Newsbuff]

Credit to G-Cap for marking the occasion.

[Analoguesat]

In the mid 80's beacon paid for a handful of buses to play their output to the passengers. One of them turned up on the Cannock - Wolverhampton run fairly regularly. ISTR that after several occasions when the radio had been tuned to Radio 1 instead, the units were pre tuned then blanked off!

[Dick Rogers]

Happy Birthday Beacon Radio 303.

I agree with all the above posts. It was a superb station for its first ten years or so. There was great creative radio, particularly from Pat and Pete on Saturday afternoons. I would love to hear some of those shows again. Some of the most spontaneously funny stuff I've ever heard on the radio. Always enjoyed KKJs Saturday night disco shows as well.

It was a distinctive sounding ILR which demonstrated how it could and should be done. Never seemed to notice the needletime restrictions with this station either.

It was radio for a particular time-frame, but boy was it good.

[Newsbuff]

Totally agree. Great memories, great radio.

[AsianAgent99]

There was a great show for Hereward radio's 25th birthday last year, i'm sure beacon will do the same.

[redcar1]

Originally Posted by Ed Nell

as we'd love to play them out.

Why is everything played out these days? In the past when Beacon and many other ILRs were great, things would simply have been played . Is it perhaps as I suspect due to the modern obsession with computerised playout systems rather than using good old fashioned CD's (yes they must be that now!) and vinyl?

[AsianAgent99]

Err?Wot! Shut up! It's a turn of phrase sweetheart. Played out on the radio station. Makes perfect sense honey.

[ALAN306]

Originally Posted by radio nut

Ah Yes,pat And Pete Essenshal Saturday Listening,rember The Prank Phone Calls?

I was one of the anoraks that played other stations jingles down the phone to them. I'm not proud of it .... I've grown up a lot since but the way they both dealt with the likes of me as well as the other fantasic things they got up to, made the show unmissable.

Beacon in the mid 80's was the pinnacle of commercial radio that will never be surpassed unfortunately. I only wish i had more recordings of those fantastic days