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= Radio Wey = Radio Wey is a hospital radio station based at St Peters Hospital in Chertsey, England. It provides entertainment to the patients and staff of Ashford and St Peters Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The station broadcasts via Hospicom at St Peters Hospital and bedside units at Ashford Hospital, as well as on the internet to the local community of North West Surrey and Middlesex.

The station is run as a charity by volunteers (registered charity number 275620). Today Radio Wey has over 60 members who work together to present a range of live programmes each week. They also carry out all the roles necessary to run the station such as administration, maintenance of the equipment, and raising the funds. As Radio Wey has no income or grant aid, it needs to raise all money it needs to run the Station. This comes from member’s subscriptions, donations and fund raising activities

History
The origins of Hospital Radio Wey go back to the mid-1960s when two friends, Alan Timbrell and John Best spent some of their leisure time visiting patients in Weybridge Hospital and finding out what kind of music they liked. The patients’ choices of music were then recorded onto a tape recorder in Alan’s home. They then returned to the hospital with the tape recorder and played the music to the patients in the wards.

Once acceptance was gained, the hospital offered a room for the production of programmes. At that time there was no ready-made equipment for a home studio, therefore it was necessary to construct equipment from kits produced for radio DIY enthusiasts.

A basic studio with an interviewer’s desk and record storage was constructed which made it possible to broadcast live programmes to the wards over the patient headphone system, which were initially Bakelite headphones, later to be replaced with the plastic tube Stethoscope system. The first live broadcast was on October the 5th 1967. The schedule at that time consisted of 13 hours of programmes a week, presented by three broadcasters.

The studio at Weybridge Hospital was then linked to other hospitals using (as it was then) GPO telephone lines, and eventually broadcasts were made to Weybridge, Walton, St Peter’s, Ellesmere and Ashford hospitals. There was also a link to Stompond Lane football ground, which enabled live 2nd half commentary on Walton and Hersham FC’s home games. The first commentary was broadcast on 11 October 1970. At a later date the Hospital Radio Wey network was extended to Woking Victoria hospital.