The Superstation, with … lots of … static at all

A couple of weeks ago, The Super Station Orkney, became the latest Community Radio station to fall silent.

Radio Today reported the story giving some of the background information. Now this station was always an “unusual beast” as some of the comments on the foot of the Radio Today article testifies.

By way of background to this delve into my sound archives, let start with this summary of Superstation history from Roy Martin on Radio Today:

Superstation was founded in 2005 and launched three years later with an Ofcom community radio licence serving Orkney Islands and Caithness, taking its name from the original “Super Station” which operated from Manchester in the 80s/90s.

The first broadcasts came from the former Laser 558 ship MV Communicator, berthed at St Margaret’s Hope.

Dave Miller is the man behind the ‘Super station’, who when talking to colleague of mine the other day, described him as “a bit of a cheeky chappy”, others will know of him from stints on Manchester commercial radio as night time presenter “Dangerous Dave”. I think that we can also safely put in in the “radio anorak” category. This comes to light when I come to try and explain my choice of title for this post. Here’s one of the 1990s sweepers from the Superstation “Manchester”;

Download Superstation No Static Sweeper MP3

Next lets fast forward to the 21st century. A promotion piece of audio ahead of Superstation Orkney launch. Not got a lot of background to this audio, other than it appears to have been produced by an outfit “Creative Audio Production”, based on where it appears I downloaded the audio from in the first place.

Download Superstation Orkney Promo MP3

Listeners to the original “Manchester” station may recognise some of the jingles and sweepers used, cue montage of Superstation Manchester Jingles. Extremely dedicated ‘anoraks” may recognise this as it’s something I’ve shared before:

Download Superstation Manchester Jingles and Sweepers MP3

Finally a couple of clips that have had on my website for a long time, shamelessly repromoted on this page, a 1994 and 1993 off-air clip of “Superstation Manchester”.

Download Superstation 1994 MP3

Download Superstation 1993 MP3

R.I.P. The Super Station.