A weekend north of the border

Last weekend was the Truckfest Scotland show in Edinburgh, and as usual I was part of the team of presenters on Truckfest FM, the show's own radio station.

On the whole it was great fun with decent weather for most of the weekend. It was hard work at times, but the evening's made up for it.

You might be wondering how radio presenting can be hard work. Well, it isn't really...but dragging the whole station around the country in a big van, setting it up for each show and then taking it down again a few days later certainly is.

There are five Truckfest shows throughout the year, and each one requires a surprisingly large amount of equipment, including a temporary broadcast aerial and large satellite dish for the news service. The Edinburgh show is probably my favourite, but the travel can be a pain.


Here's most of the Truckfest crew posing with visiting celebrity Ben Richards, from the British TV programmes 'Footballers Wives' and 'Holby City'

From the left: Vinny (me), Jonathan (JC), Ben, John (JB) and Malc




The other member of the team is Mikey...the baby of Truckfest FM. Here he is with Sally Boazman, aka 'Sally Traffic' from BBC Radio 2.

Sally is a great supporter of Truckfest and she always pays us a visit at the station. Mikey seems to be enjoying her company!



Here's Jonathan with a special guest from the BBC TV series 'Eastenders'. He may play gangster and all-round baddie Johnny Allen, but actor Billy Murray is a really a nice bloke.

Radio Waves

Recently I heard about another group of people who were opposing the building of a mobile phone tower near to a school. I accept that most people who raise objections like this do it for the best reasons, usually concerns over the health of their children, but unfortunately these concerns are often due to a lack of understanding.

Before I continue, let me say that although I am a qualified radio engineer, I don't work in the mobile phone industry. Don't dismiss what I say as being propaganda, it's not. It can all be substantiated by reading a good radio textbook.

The towers that cause so much concern are called base stations, also known as cell sites. They communicate with your mobile phone using radio signals, providing a link between your phone and the telephone exchanges.

One of the problems is the emotive language used by the media. Instead of referring to radio signals, they often speak about radiation. Whilst this is technically correct, its scares the hell out of people who only associate radiation with atom bombs and nuclear power stations. Radio signals are a form of electromagnetic waves. Although radio waves usually have to be generated artificially, other forms of electromagnetic waves occur naturally.....you know them as HEAT and LIGHT.

Suddenly, radio waves become less scary!

It is a fact that, like light, the further a radio wave travels the weaker it gets. It's called the inverse square law, which means if the distance doubles, the intensity reduces to a quarter.

Sticking with the light analogy, consider a lighthouse. We put a lamp high up a tower, then focus the light into a narrow beam. Why? To make the light travel the greatest distance of course!

We do exactly the same with radio transmitters, but instead of lenses we use aerials.

If you stand at the base of a lighthouse, are you bathed in light? No, of course not! There' s no point in wasting energy illuminating the ground beneath.

The same is true for radio transmitters.

Just for a minute, let's suppose that there might be a risk, however small, from exposure to RF energy from cellphones......

For the reasons I've explained above, a mobile phone user will receive a much higher concentration of radio waves (what engineers call field strength) from the phone held against his head, than he would from being near a base station tower.

Many of these protesters are quite happy to let their little ones have mobile phones. If that's OK, why do they consider the masts to be dangerous?

The fact is, having a base station on a school building is actually a good idea!

All mobile phones reduce their transmitter power as they get nearer to the base station. They do this to reduce the drain on the battery, so you can talk for longer. Having a base station on the roof of a school won't harm anybody nearby, but it would ensure that all the children's phones are operating at the lowest possible transmitter power.

And even though there is still no scientific evidence of risk, there's certainly no harm in reducing our children's exposure.

Radio Ga Ga

I've just had a great weekend in Somerset, doing two shows on an event-based radio station and having a few laughs and beers with the other guys in the team. The van we used to transport the equipment didn't have a CD player, so on the long journey home last night all I had to amuse me was the radio. After tuning round a little, I remembered why I dislike the way radio has gone in this country.

At the risk of biting the hand that (occasionally) feeds me, I have to say that I think the vast majority of UK commercial radio is totally boring and unimaginative.

It's not the presenter' s fault, as all too often they are not allowed to express their personalities or use their creative abilities. Stations run by the bigger radio companies are the worst, those with a 'one size fits all' approach that makes their many radio stations sound almost identical, as I found on my long journey home.

The sad fact is that commercial radio stations exist solely to make money for their shareholders.

Most stations run on extremely tight budgets, but this in itself doesn't make bad radio. The problem is big radio company bosses who dictate minimalist formats because these are the cheapest to implement, and make the most money with the least risk. The result, as I have said, is boring radio.

Any radio professionals reading this would probably point out that these formats that I hate so much are the result of much market research, and are proven to maximise listenership. They would be correct of course..but is it the only way?

I wouldn't want to see the return of the cheesy radio DJs we suffered in the 70s (and I'm not old enough to remember the pirates of the 60s), but instead of bland presenters who only speak every 20 minutes or so, I'd love to see the return of more personality radio. The nearest thing we have to this is BBC Radio 2, (which is probably why it has the UKs fastest growing listener figures) but in my experience few towns are lucky enough to have a local equivalent.

Anti 4x4 lobby

It seems that the anti 4x4 lobby seems to be stepping up its crusade against people like me. I've recently seen a number of newspaper articles pouring scorn on the drivers of so called SUVs (an American term meaning Sport Utility Vehicle), including one which proclaimed us to be 'public enemy number one'.

The anti 4x4 lobby is still quite small, but in my opinion they are getting more than their fair share of media attention. More worryingly, in their search for a good story, the press are successfully turning the concerns of mainly well meaning (although often ill-informed) people into an organised campaign of hate against anyone who drives a 4x4.
My main concern is that the government will soon pick up this anti 4x4 theme and use it against us in the name of the environment. We've already seen the beginnings of this in the form of increased road tax for cars with large engines, and the indications are that these increases will continue.

Ken Livingstone has declared his intention to increase the congestion charge for 4x4 drivers, even though the scheme was introduced solely to reduce congestion, and not on environmental grounds.

For the record my Range Rover is old, but it runs on LPG, which means with its small annual mileage I probably contribute less pollution to the environment than the average Ford Fiesta driver. Until quite recently LPG was considered a waste product which wasn't worth bringing ashore. Surplus quantities are still burned as waste, so if people like me don't use it, it will still get burned anyway.

My Honda Civic which I use for the bulk of my mileage is one of the cleanest cars on the road.

Many people like me enjoy off road activities in purpose designed centres, or need the superb towing capability of our vehicles for our caravans. And as long as I'm living in a democracy, and paying my road tax, I'll continue to do so.

So why am I doing this?

I'm not sure really!

I've read other people's blogs and sometimes thought about doing my own...but I always decided that there was nothing in my life that was really worth writing about.

Then I stumbled across a blog written by my old mate Dunc, one of my work colleagues and drinking buddies from the 80's. We got round to talking about the 'old days' from the decade that taste forgot....dodgy cars, loud music...and lots of beer.

Its given me something to write about, and everything that follows here is all his fault!