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By April 1997, we had finished all the refurbishment and declared Appeal 95 closed. Due to popular demand however, it was decided to undertake
another borough-wide broadcast, and in June 1997, Birch Radio hit the airwaves again on 106.6 FM.
Whilst all this activity was going on, our summer roadshows were still undertaken, a site on the world wide web was provided through Zen Internet, and broadcasts
were continued to patients and staff in both Birch Hill and the Infirmary.
A re-launch of the service took place in February 1998, with new programme formats, and music content.
Unfortunately, our bid for a permanent licence to
broadcast across Rochdale failed in September 1998.
A grant from the National Lottery Charities Board was received in April 1999 to purchase further computer hardware and the Myriad automation software. This allowed
24 hour broadcasting to commence during Autumn 1999.
As a consequence of the digital playout facilities, Birch Radio has now disposed of a the vinyl in the record library, leaving only compact discs and minidiscs as
well as the music stored on the computers.
On 16 December 1999 Birch Radio celebrated its 21st anniversary. To mark the occasion, we held our fourth and best received RSL. This again included roadshows,
football commentaries, celebrity interviews and a month-long competition, the prize for which was over £600 of holiday vouchers. At the end of the broadcast, a Party Night was held for all the competition winners,
and their friends at a local nightclub.
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