OAR FM Dunedin: A New Home, Built for Volunteers

Overview

For more than two decades Otago Access Radio broadcast from Dunedin Community House on Moray Place. In late 2022, with Dunedin Community House relocating, the station learned it would have to leave.

OAR turned the move into an opportunity. Rather than shift old equipment into a new building, the station ran a community fundraising campaign, supported by NZ On Air, Otago Community Trust and other local trusts and donors, to build fully digital studios at the new Community House in Evan Parry House on Princes Street. Southern Broadcast was asked to lead the technical build and installation.

The challenge

OAR is unlike a commercial station. More than 190 volunteers, aged from 9 to over 90, make programmes in the studios, many of them with no broadcast background. The new studios had to be:

• Simple to use. Volunteers need to walk in, sit down and be on air or recording with confidence, with minimal training.
• Flexible. The station wanted to record interviews in person, over Zoom or by phone, produce podcasts, and move easily between live and pre-recorded work.
• Manageable remotely. A small staff needed to be able to support the studios and make adjustments without always being on site.
• Delivered to a deadline. The move out of Moray Place fixed the timetable, so the new studios had to be ready to go to air as soon as the station moved in.

Our solution

As Wheatstone’s New Zealand partner, Southern Broadcast built OAR’s new studios around Wheatstone’s WheatNet-IP audio-over-IP system, with a Wheatstone IP-12 digital console in each of the two new studios: the main on-air studio, and Studio 2 for production, pre-recording and podcasts.

It is the same proven package we use across all of our standard access radio station builds: Wheatstone M4IP-USB microphone processing for a consistent, broadcast-quality sound from every presenter, Electro-Voice RE320 microphones, and a Wheatstone Aura8-IP multi-channel audio processing Blade in the technical area. Standardising on one package keeps costs down, makes training simple, and means our support team always knows exactly what it is working with.

Designed for volunteers. The IP-12 keeps things familiar: one fader per source, clearly labelled on the console’s display, with microphones, phone and Zoom, turntables, CD players and the playout system all where presenters expect them. Behind that simple surface, every source and destination is available across the network, so sources can be shared between the on-air studio and Studio 2 whenever they are needed.

Networked and supportable. Because audio and control run over IP, the system can be monitored and adjusted remotely, letting the station’s team, and Southern Broadcast, look after the studios without always being in the building.

A clean move. The equipment racks were rebuilt at Princes Street, with the FM and AM transmission feeds brought across from Moray Place, and the new studios were fitted out, tested and handed over in the days leading up to the switch.

The result

OAR FM went to air from its new home on 16 October 2023, after a year-long project for the station. The move also brought OAR under one roof with 18 other community agencies at the new Community House, and volunteers were trained on the new studios as they came back on air.

Southern Broadcast continues to support OAR FM, helping the station get the most out of its new system as its programming grows.

A relationship that goes back to 2011

Southern Broadcast’s work with OAR started well before the move. In 2011, from our then-Christchurch base and in the middle of the Canterbury earthquakes, we launched the station on 105.4 FM alongside its 1575 AM service. The following year OAR asked us back to upgrade the Moray Place on-air studio with a new Radio Systems Millenium console, which served the station for more than a decade. When OAR went fully digital in 2023, the Millenium was passed on to another South Island station, where it has found a second home.

Key facts

• Two new digital studios, a main on-air studio and a production studio, at Evan Parry House, 43 Princes Street, Dunedin
• Wheatstone WheatNet-IP audio-over-IP, with a Wheatstone IP-12 console in each studio
• Wheatstone M4IP-USB microphone processing, Electro-Voice RE320 microphones and a Wheatstone Aura8-IP processing Blade
• Built for live broadcasting, pre-recording over Zoom and phone, and podcast production
• Remote monitoring and support
• On air from the new studios 16 October 2023
• Working with OAR since launching the station on FM in 2011, with ongoing support today

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Southern Broadcast Ltd is Wheatstone’s New Zealand partner and a broadcast engineering company providing studio, RF and transmission design, installation and support to broadcasters across New Zealand and the Pacific.

Moving or rebuilding your studios? Talk to Southern Broadcast about design, supply, integration and commissioning.