Volunteers and staff at community radio station Bay FM 99.9 are celebrating a return to regular programming after power outages cut services leading up to and during ex-Cyclone Alfred.
The station’s largely volunteer tech team managed to get the station back on air via streaming Sunday morning after the service was cut owing to power and internet outages in Byron Bay early Friday morning.
FM broadcasting also resumed Sunday after a separate power outage at the station’s transmission tower, also in the Byron Shire.
The two outages happened within hours of an emergency alert to seek shelter issued for Byron Bay, downgraded two hours later to advice to stay indoors.
The ‘seek shelter’ alert warned of wind gusts capable of knocking down trees and power poles and blowing off roofs.
Bay FM President Nell Schofield says it isn’t the last time an extreme weather event is going to hit the station and the tech team is already plotting a way forward.
‘We are so stoked to be back on air,’ Ms Schofield said on Monday.
‘We were dead for days but we’ve risen from the cyclone to bring listeners all the latest from around our region and beyond, just like we’ve been doing for the past 35 years,’ she said.
Bay FM’s president said the community broadcasting resurrection after approximately 48 hours of static ‘silence’ was all due to the dedication of the station’s ‘incredible tech team’.
The dedicated tech trio of Matt Day, Jarrod Johnson-Clarke and Robert Jazwinski ‘went out in the maelstrom’ to repair the station’s systems and get servers up and running again, Ms Schofield said.
Essential Energy workers were responsible for restoring power to both the station premises and the transmission tower.
NB: Writer Mia Armitage is also a Bay FM board member and news reporter
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