About
QUAY FM broadcasts full time on 107.1 FM from the island of Alderney. Licensed by Ofcom, we serve the community of the Crown Dependency of Alderney and its territorial waters. The island of Alderney (one of the constituent parts of the Bailiwick of Guernsey) is located in the English Channel approximately 10 nautical miles off the French coast, near Cape de La Hague.
We first came on the air in 2000 under a restricted service licence (RSL) from a temporary studio atop Central Garage in Victoria Street, broadcasting just for the Summer Holiday period and at Christmas time. We are now very pleased to have a full unrestricted licence granted to us in 2015. We are based in permanent premises at Braye Harbour.
Alderney Broadcasting Company Limited trading as Quay FM is a non-profit organisation (which has charitable status), incorporated in Alderney as a company limited by guarantee. It is staffed and supported almost entirely by unpaid volunteers.
History
QUAY-FM was set up by a number of volunteers as a Restricted Service Licence (RSL) during August 2000. Our frequency was 87.7 FM and the first studios were above Central Garage in Victoria St.
Volunteers in those early days included Johnny Fielder, Colin Mason, John Russell, Tim Butler, Rea Gregg, Steve Collins, Nigel Roberts, Angela Mason (now Bingham), Lee Flewitt, Venetia Neal (now Ford), Mark Mapp, Rachel O Toole, Mark O Toole and many others!
QUAY-FM reappeared annually for the next couple of years, and its reappearance every August was eagerly looked for by locals and holidaymakers alike.
The studio was somewhat peripatetic in the early days. We came on the air one year from a former shop at the corner of the Val and Ollivier Sreet, another at Los Faroles (Brickfields), yet another from above the electricity showrooms in Venelles des Gaudions. Eventually a permanent home was set up in a large garden shed, at the bottom of Colin Mason’s garden in the Allee es Fees area, whence we broadcast for the next six or seven years. We even featured in the prestigious “Shed Blog!”
Building on the success of the Summer programming, QUAY-FM began to come on the air at Christmas as well, and even one year came to life as “Snow FM” when heavy snowstorms affected the Island.
QUAY FM 87.7 went off the air for the last time in Summer 2012. We returned as a permanent year round Community Radio station, on 12th February 2015 on 107.1 FM.