URY Wiki - User contributions [en-gb]

Timeline

2020-06-20T20:48:00Z

This is the general '''URY timeline''', arranged by decade.

== 60s ==

* ''1960: The UK's first student radio station is founded as Crush Radio (but it doesn't legally broadcast for a while)''.
* '''1967''': URY is founded as the UK's first ''legal'' independent broadcasting radio station, as Radio York under a test licence from the BBC.
* '''1969''': Radio York is refounded as University Radio York and opened with a guest broadcast by John Peel.

== 70s ==

* '''1976''': URY hosted the National Association of Students broadcasters 5th Annual College, Goodricke College, Saturday 31st of January to Sunday 1st of February.

== 80s ==

== 90s ==
*'''1998''' URY celebrates its 30th birthday by a Restricted Service Licence (RSL), broadcasting on FM for four weeks to the city of York as well as campus.

*'''1999''' URY moves from an induction loop system on campus to the current Low Power AM (LPAM) transmitter, enabling a stronger signal on campus and more listeners. URY's frequency changes from 999kHz to the current 1350kHz.

*'''1999''' To celebrate the turn of the millenium URY compiles the "Ultimate Student Chart" with "Bohemian Rhapsody" named the No.1 song. The station also organised its first gig featuring local and national bands called "Spark".

== 00s ==

* '''2005''': URY wins the SRA Award for Best Student Station.

*'''2008''': URY celebrates its 40th birthday with a 2 week FM broadcast in May.

== 10s ==

* '''2011''': URY joins the UK Radioplayer service as one of the first stations to do so.
* '''2012''': URY moves to a larger webcaster licence. At the same time, Tom Whitehouse ends his long tenure as Honorary President and is replaced.
* '''2013''': URY wins 7 Student Radio Awards out of 9 nominations.
* '''2014''': URY wins Best Journalistic Programming at the Student Radio Awards with its coverage or river safety.

[[Category:URY History]]

Website History

2020-06-20T20:43:21Z

Here's a potted '''history''' of the URY '''website''', courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

== c.1999-Oct 2003 ==

[[File:ws1.png]]

The earliest version of the website available on the Web Archive was definitely a product of its time, with the bright orange branding of that era prominent throughout and a very 90s GIF-based sidebar on the left.

It even had a guestbook, with some rather ''interesting'' contents.

At one point in 2000, [[Gavin Atkinson]] updated the site.

This design was created by [[Leo Warner]], and doesn't really work too well in 1080p.

=== Webcasting ===

At the start of Web Archive captures of the URY website, URY were still broadcasting only on 999kHz and did not yet simulcast on the Internet; however, by 2003, URY had leapt forward into the Internet Age by hosting a worldwide live stream... using ''RealPlayer''. Oh well...

== Oct 2003-Summer? 2006 ==

[[File:ws2.png]]

A radically new website design was launched in time for Autumn term 2003, featuring for the first time what seemed to be sensible web design (for it was a new millennium and the days of gaudy sidebars and orange on grey were far behind the URY computing team, in all their wisdom).

The guestbook and RealPlayer streams were still there, though.

This website ''does'' work quite well in 1080p, considering.

The then Head of Production, Simon Taghioff, was instrumental in this overhaul.

== 2006-2010 ==

[[File:ws3.png]]

A minor update of the previous website, with even more orange... and no guestbook in sight! RealPlayer by now had been joined by MP3 and Ogg Vorbis streams as URY's streaming technology marched on.

What the ''hell'' is that font on the advertising banner?

This design was jiggled around a bit over its four years of service, but remained mostly the same.

== 2010-2011 ==

[[File:URYsite09.png]]

In what was probably the most short-lived (and expensive!) of website designs, URY got [http://www.freelancegraphicdesigner.co.uk/ury-web-design.html a professional graphics designer] in to completely redesign the website in conjunction with URY's comprehensive rebranding.

The result was a lovely set of graphics (lovely being subjective on whether or not you like Impact as a font), but the code for the website wasn't as lovely. According to legend, the site was programmed in under a week to meet harsh deadlines and was therefore effectively hacked together. Despite all this, it worked for a year and as of writing the code is still there in heavily modified form.

Sources indicate that a DaveX was responsible for the coding.

== 2011-2012 ==

[[File:ws2011.png]]

The current website was largely the result of a rehashing of the design from last year by the combined efforts of [[Darren Webb]] and [[Rob Stonehouse]] on design and [[Matt Windsor]] on programming (which mainly involved tidying up the previous round of code and implementing the design changes in HTML5 and CSS).

This website won a YUM award in 2011.

There's still no guestbook.

== 2012-2013 ==
[[File:ws2012.png]]

In October 2012, the website was completely replaced with a shinier, newer, completely re-written site based on Django (a Python web framework). Despite the shiny new design, we immediately regretted this decision. The site was put live before it was ready - features were missing and never were fully implemented on this generation, and large amounts of it relied on a completely new database schema, so all of the Members' Internal website tools broke with the replacement. It suffered in service for less than a year before it was retired on August 2013.

== 2013-Present ==
''For a picture, load up [http://ury.org.uk ury.org.uk]!''

Sticking with the Python, Matt Windsor again went on an endeavour for a better website. With an entirely new codebase in Pyramid (another Python web framework) and SQLAlchemy, and a few shinifications to the actual design itself, this site went into production in August 2013, at the same time as our upgrade to Apache 2.4 and the replacement of Members' Internal with MyURY. Over the remainder of the Summer Holidays, MyURY was expanded to ensure it had capabilities to actually maintain this website, and so shiny Banner and Podcast systems were available and the site once again looked pretty.

There's still no guest book, but there is a sign up form on the Get Involved page.

Sustainer

2020-06-20T20:40:36Z

URY is not usually a 24-hour radio station, so it has a '''sustainer''' whose job is to play something during downtime to make sure URY never broadcasts dead air.

This page is a tribute to the various sustainer systems/services that URY has had over the years.

== Sustainer Technology Through The Ages ==

=== 19??-19?? Other radio stations ===

Before URY had its own sustainer, it broadcast a feed from other radio stations. The [[80s Technical Manual]] makes reference to Viking FM being the radio station in this role in 1988.

It is currently not known to this wiki what URY did back in its foundation years (BBC feed? Dead air? Caroline!?), as commercial independent radio wasn't exactly around back then.

The earliest schedules available from archives of the URY website shed no light on this, sadly.

=== 19??-1998 Student Radio Network ===

Reference is made between Summer 1997 and Summer 1998 of URY relying on the Student Radio Network for out-of-hours broadcasting. The wiki team currently don't know much about the SRN, but it was likely similar to the Student Broadcast Network URY later used.

=== 1998-2004 Student Broadcast Network ===

[http://web.archive.org/web/19991116112903/http://ury.york.ac.uk/schedule/t-sbn.htm In the late 90s and early 00s] the sustainer service came from the ''Student Broadcast Network'' who broadcast news, music and programming on a national basis for student radio.

<blockquote>
While we're not broadcasting our own programmes, we relay the Student Broadcast Network. Broadcasting live via satellite, SBN is a service exclusively for student radio stations in the UK. During the day it provides stations with a non-stop mix of student orientated music with news on the hour every hour. Throughout the night there's a line-up of student programmes, combining live shows from their studios in London and programmes provided by student radio stations around the country.
</blockquote>

In addition to using SBN to cover blank space in the schedule overnight, URY also used to take SBN "compulsory programming" in exchange for circa £6k per year of additional funding. Compulsory programming included SBN Breakfast from 08:00 to 09:00 every weekday; and typically a 1 hour specialist music show sometime between 21:00 and 00:00 every weekday. Compulsory shows can often be seen on URY's printed schedules in a different colour, to indicate that they are SBN rather than URY shows. URY was also required to take news and adverts from SBN at the top of every hour.

SBN's business model was advertising-based. All compulsory shows were sponsored by paying advertisers, who were name-checked repeatedly throughout. Around 30 seconds of adverts would also typically follow the news at the top of each hour (the variability in the number and length of adverts after each news bulletin was handled by SBN playing 3 DTMF tones after the last advert - this would tell the presenter to drop the SBN fader and start their show). SBN would then pass a share of their advertising income on to their subscriber stations.

Compulsory show slots were often used to deliver face-to-face training to aspiring presenters in Studio 1, as it was rare for S1 to be available otherwise.

SBN went into administration in summer 2004. SBN owed URY £6k for the 2003/04 academic year, which was never paid, leaving a black hole in URY's budget and requiring significant changes to YUSU's 2004/05 societies budget to absorb. This was one of the events that drove the creation of York University Media (YUM), to give the media societies greater collective bargaining power with YUSU.

As a piece of URY History, there's a mini-disk containing 2 hours of pre-recorded SBN programming floating around the office that dates from circa 2000/2001.

=== 2004-???? Overnight Owen ===

''More information needed.''

"Overnight Owen", named after Owen Murphy (the then Station Manager), was introduced during the summer of 2004 to replace SBN (see above). Between SBN going into administration and Overnight Owen being deployed, URY was largely sustained using a Norah Jones album on repeat as an emergency measure to avoid dead air.

=== 2012-present INSIDIOUS TONES ===

The current jukebox system is provided by a LiquidSoap system affectionately named "If No Show, I Do An Instantly Organised Unending Show: Totally Outrageous Nonstop Entertainment System", or ''INSIDIOUS TONES'' for short (also known as just ''iTones'').

== Branding ==

Though currently known as the URY Jukebox, the sustainer service previously went by other names:

* Non-Stop Music
* URY Music Jukebox
* Overnight Owen

Sustainer

2020-06-20T20:34:18Z

URY is not usually a 24-hour radio station, so it has a '''sustainer''' whose job is to play something during downtime to make sure URY never broadcasts dead air.

This page is a tribute to the various sustainer systems/services that URY has had over the years.

== Sustainer Technology Through The Ages ==

=== 19??-19?? Other radio stations ===

Before URY had its own sustainer, it broadcast a feed from other radio stations. The [[80s Technical Manual]] makes reference to Viking FM being the radio station in this role in 1988.

It is currently not known to this wiki what URY did back in its foundation years (BBC feed? Dead air? Caroline!?), as commercial independent radio wasn't exactly around back then.

The earliest schedules available from archives of the URY website shed no light on this, sadly.

=== 19??-1998 Student Radio Network ===

Reference is made between Summer 1997 and Summer 1998 of URY relying on the Student Radio Network for out-of-hours broadcasting. The wiki team currently don't know much about the SRN, but it was likely similar to the Student Broadcast Network URY later used.

=== 1998-2004 Student Broadcast Network ===

[http://web.archive.org/web/19991116112903/http://ury.york.ac.uk/schedule/t-sbn.htm In the late 90s and early 00s] the sustainer service came from the ''Student Broadcast Network'' who broadcast news, music and programming on a national basis for student radio.

<blockquote>
While we're not broadcasting our own programmes, we relay the Student Broadcast Network. Broadcasting live via satellite, SBN is a service exclusively for student radio stations in the UK. During the day it provides stations with a non-stop mix of student orientated music with news on the hour every hour. Throughout the night there's a line-up of student programmes, combining live shows from their studios in London and programmes provided by student radio stations around the country.
</blockquote>

In addition to using SBN to cover blank space in the schedule overnight, URY also used to take SBN "compulsory programming" in exchange for circa £6k per year of additional funding. Compulsory programming included SBN Breakfast from 08:00 to 09:00 every weekday; and typically a 1 hour specialist music show sometime between 21:00 and 00:00 every weekday. Compulsory shows can often be seen on URY's printed schedules in a different colour, to indicate that they are SBN rather than URY shows. URY was also required to take news and adverts from SBN at the top of every hour.

SBN's business model was advertising-based. All compulsory shows were sponsored by paying advertisers, who were name-checked repeatedly throughout. 30 seconds of adverts would typically follow the news at the top of each hour, which again brought in advertising revenue. SBN would then pass a share of their advertising income on to subscriber stations.

Compulsory show slots were often used to deliver face-to-face training to aspiring presenters in Studio 1.

SBN went into administration in summer 2004. SBN owed URY £6k for the 2003/04 academic year, which was never paid, leaving a black hole in URY's budget and requiring significant changes to the YUSU societies budget to absorb. This was one of the events that drove the creation of York University Media (YUM), to give the media societies greater collective bargaining power with YUSU.

As a piece of URY History, there's a mini-disk containing 2 hours of pre-recorded SBN programming floating around the office that dates from circa 2000/2001.

=== 2004-???? Overnight Owen ===

''More information needed.''

"Overnight Owen", named after Owen Murphy (the then Station Manager), was introduced during the summer of 2004 to replace SBN (see above). Between SBN going into administration and Overnight Owen being deployed, URY was largely sustained using a Norah Jones album on repeat as an emergency measure to avoid dead air.

=== 2012-present INSIDIOUS TONES ===

The current jukebox system is provided by a LiquidSoap system affectionately named "If No Show, I Do An Instantly Organised Unending Show: Totally Outrageous Nonstop Entertainment System", or ''INSIDIOUS TONES'' for short (also known as just ''iTones'').

== Branding ==

Though currently known as the URY Jukebox, the sustainer service previously went by other names:

* Non-Stop Music
* URY Music Jukebox
* Overnight Owen

Sustainer

2020-06-20T20:33:29Z

7: Added detail to the SBN section.

URY is not usually a 24-hour radio station, so it has a '''sustainer''' whose job is to play something during downtime to make sure URY never broadcasts dead air.

This page is a tribute to the various sustainer systems/services that URY has had over the years.

== Sustainer Technology Through The Ages ==

=== 19??-19?? Other radio stations ===

Before URY had its own sustainer, it broadcast a feed from other radio stations. The [[80s Technical Manual]] makes reference to Viking FM being the radio station in this role in 1988.

It is currently not known to this wiki what URY did back in its foundation years (BBC feed? Dead air? Caroline!?), as commercial independent radio wasn't exactly around back then.

The earliest schedules available from archives of the URY website shed no light on this, sadly.

=== 19??-1998 Student Radio Network ===

Reference is made between Summer 1997 and Summer 1998 of URY relying on the Student Radio Network for out-of-hours broadcasting. The wiki team currently don't know much about the SRN, but it was likely similar to the Student Broadcast Network URY later used.

=== 1998-2004 Student Broadcast Network ===

[http://web.archive.org/web/19991116112903/http://ury.york.ac.uk/schedule/t-sbn.htm Back in the 90s] the sustainer service came from the ''Student Broadcast Network'' who broadcast news, music and programming on a national basis for student radio.

<blockquote>
While we're not broadcasting our own programmes, we relay the Student Broadcast Network. Broadcasting live via satellite, SBN is a service exclusively for student radio stations in the UK. During the day it provides stations with a non-stop mix of student orientated music with news on the hour every hour. Throughout the night there's a line-up of student programmes, combining live shows from their studios in London and programmes provided by student radio stations around the country.
</blockquote>

In addition to using SBN to cover blank space in the schedule overnight, URY also used to take SBN "compulsory programming" in exchange for circa £6k per year of additional funding. Compulsory programming included SBN Breakfast from 08:00 to 09:00 every weekday; and typically a 1 hour specialist music show sometime between 21:00 and 00:00 every weekday. Compulsory shows can often be seen on URY's printed schedules in a different colour, to indicate that they are SBN rather than URY shows. URY was also required to take news and adverts from SBN at the top of every hour.

SBN's business model was advertising-based. All compulsory shows were sponsored by paying advertisers, who were name-checked repeatedly throughout. 30 seconds of adverts would typically follow the news at the top of each hour, which again brought in advertising revenue. SBN would then pass a share of their advertising income on to subscriber stations.

Compulsory show slots were often used to deliver face-to-face training to aspiring presenters in Studio 1.

SBN went into administration in summer 2004. SBN owed URY £6k for the 2003/04 academic year, which was never paid, leaving a black hole in URY's budget and requiring significant changes to the YUSU societies budget to absorb. This was one of the events that drove the creation of York University Media (YUM), to give the media societies greater collective bargaining power with YUSU.

As a piece of URY History, there's a mini-disk containing 2 hours of pre-recorded SBN programming floating around the office that dates from circa 2000/2001.

=== 2004-???? Overnight Owen ===

''More information needed.''

"Overnight Owen", named after Owen Murphy (the then Station Manager), was introduced during the summer of 2004 to replace SBN (see above). Between SBN going into administration and Overnight Owen being deployed, URY was largely sustained using a Norah Jones album on repeat as an emergency measure to avoid dead air.

=== 2012-present INSIDIOUS TONES ===

The current jukebox system is provided by a LiquidSoap system affectionately named "If No Show, I Do An Instantly Organised Unending Show: Totally Outrageous Nonstop Entertainment System", or ''INSIDIOUS TONES'' for short (also known as just ''iTones'').

== Branding ==

Though currently known as the URY Jukebox, the sustainer service previously went by other names:

* Non-Stop Music
* URY Music Jukebox
* Overnight Owen