History
St Luke’s Sound – The Station’s History
St. Luke’s Sound is a self-funding radio station, run by volunteers and serves the patients and staff of St. Luke’s Hospital, Bradford as well as the wider public.
Live hospital radio broadcasts first began at St. Luke’s on February 14th 1979. Founding member Philip Barfield presented the first programme at 13.30 that day. The station was then called Radio 573, named after our telephone extension number. Records (no digital radio then) were loaned to the station by Woods music shop in Bradford and then returned after the show!
Today, St. Luke’s Sound has a team of volunteer presenters and technical staff, who between them cover almost 50 hours of live broadcasting each week. New presenters are always welcome. Please have a look at our volunteering page for details on how to join our team.
2018 was an important year for St. Luke’s Sound as our programmes started streaming on the internet in September of that year. This on-line service is in addition to our existing internal broadcasts to public areas of the hospital.
