About Station X

The concept for Station X was conceived by Peter Tate (A.K.A. Papa Smurf) from an idea which was born out of pure frustration in the early 90's. There was a need to have a radio station that wasn't scared to play party tracks that were heard in night clubs. The Australian radio landscape was very rock oriented in the early 90's so it had to be done in a very subtle way. Early efforts in the 90's were conducted under the name 95.7 Hot Fm.

Station X came along in 1998 and enjoyed a short life as an aspirant Community Broadcaster on the FM dial prior to 2001. It was stopped due to not being given a fulltime community license.

Since the final days on FM the radio landscape has changed quite a lot in Australia. Today audiences numbers are very strongly fought over by the majors. Today there is more of an acceptance of commercial dance in mainstream pop music. We'd like to think we played a part in this.

Given the road laid in front of us in the early 90's twists and turns in the road lead us towards the Aspirant Community Broadcaster route. Even back then it was never the intention to be a large station. We all knew the headaches that come with running such a beast. The intention was to cover a small area in the local vicinity (at the time that was Nerang in the Gold Coast Hinterland). Whilst we could see the potential was there in the legislation others didn't and we were left with Community or Commercial as our options. Today the same rules are in play just the interpretations of the rules has been refined. Also the opportunities made available in the early days of the legislation have been taken up.

Today other things have improved in areas such as equipment, suppliers and availability. Making setting up a station easier on the pocket as well as simpler. It can be as simple as making a purchase via your credit card on the internet and then everything is shipped to your door. Taking advantage of the easier availability of equipment is the reason Station X is still able to run as a hobby.

Today whilst a lot of hobby stations use the internet for broadcasting Station X also has AM & SW radio outlets available to it. The info for these is elsewhere on this site.

In it's current status as a hobby station there is also a different music policy used today compared to the FM days. Today it's not intended to take on the majors in a head on battle for audience figures. Station X today plays a variety of music more suited to an older audience than it's FM days. Today Station X operates with no live shifts and all shows are pre-recorded for air play at a later time. We find this is better for programming consistency. Listeners can expect the same standard any time of the day when they tune in. Thanks to Shoutcast technology listeners are able to tune in from any where in the world and do regularly.

We hope you enjoy the X