River FM Antenna Upgrades – OFF AIR!
Date change due to weather!
River FM will be off air on Wednesday 9th Sept and Thursday 10th while our new antenna system is installed, We will still be streaming but no radio transmission will be available for the whole of that period.
Facebook News Updates
James O'Brien article regarding 92.9 RiverFM
This week I called in to community radio station in Lismore, River FM, which launched 50 years ago as 2NCR-FM. I sat down with one of the presenters, Gwilym, and recorded memories from the early days.
First granted its licence under the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education in 1976, 2NCR is one of Australia’s oldest regional community radio stations.
Operating today on 92.9 FM out of the historic Norco site in South Lismore, it has spent five decades serving as an essential voice for local news, diverse music, and community connection across the Northern Rivers.
As I spoke to Gwilym, I gave a shout out to a few people I know from those days including John Maloney and Jim McGuiness who are still with the station.
This is something I wrote based on the conversation.
A Local Kid from South Lismore: My Days with 2NCR FM
I wasn’t here at the very start of the station back in 1976. I came along a couple of years later as a twelve-year-old high school student attending Richmond River High. I had always wanted to work in radio, right from early childhood. I used to sit behind a radio at home and pretend to play radio announcers, so I always knew I wanted to do that as a career.
Our high school had a regular one-hour weekly program on air playing music and taking request calls, which was similar to what a lot of the local high schools did back then. I was pretty young at the time, but I was so enthusiastic that I volunteered straight away. I went along to the station and had an older couple, Karl Gottsche and his partner Rose, who really took me under their wing. They were just wonderful. They taught me how to operate the panel, how to pronounce words properly, and how to read on air. I’m incredibly grateful for the immense warmth they showed to a young kid from South Lismore.
2NCR was a trailblazing station at the time, operating on 92.5 FM back then before moving to 92.9 FM. A lot of local people listened, and a huge crowd of locals volunteered. In the days before we had a formal, paid station manager, there was a voluntary station coordinator who had to try to figure out the broadcast schedule. I remember going along to big quarterly station meetings where everyone would gather. You’d put your hand up in front of the room and say, “I’ve got an idea for a show. My show is going to be about X, Y, and Z. I’d like to do it on Fridays at five o’clock. Have we got room?” Then there would be a big, passionate discussion—”I’m not sure if it suits Friday at five, maybe Saturday at seven?”—creating a really interesting, dynamic community process.
Eventually, the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education started bringing in formal managers. I’m pretty sure the first official manager or station coordinator was David Law, who later went on to lecture at the university for a number of years. Other early managers included Ian Peter, Chris Cruise, and Brett Gleason. They would come in to manage the station on a day-to-day basis, taking phone calls at four in the morning as well as at midnight. It was a deeply dynamic community project, and local residents felt strongly and passionately about it.
The sheer range and diversity of programming back then was amazing to witness. We had diverse language programs—including a Dutch program, a German program, a French program, and a Greek program. The Greek program was hosted by Harry Crethar, who was there right back in those early days. Bonnie Paff hosted a dedicated program for senior citizens, and Pastor Frank Roberts Senior hosted a wonderful Aboriginal program.
The late Marge Graham (who died in the 2022 flood) did the popular Saturday breakfast show. I remember filling in for her a couple of times to play some country music. Marge was so excited when she released her very first single on vinyl—a 7-inch record called Love, Love, Love. I still have a copy of it somewhere at home; it was a beautiful piece of local history.
Then there was Jeff Smith, who worked at the local record store for many years and did a folk music program on Friday nights. Gary Martin, a teacher from Albert Park School, hosted a program called Words and Music, which blended poetry with music. Gary was a fantastic mentor to a young nine-year-old volunteer named Robbie Buck, who started out presenting classical music on Friday nights.
The station ran a show called Gay Waves, hosted by Mike Bray and Vera Bourne. I knew them well because I went to school with Vera’s daughter, and Mike owned a local restaurant in South Lismore on Union Street called Double Dutch. Gay Waves was a very controversial program at the time, pre-dating the legalisation of homosexuality in New South Wales. The local newspaper, The Northern Star, took a really harsh stance against the show. Jim Brigginshaw, the editor of the paper at the time, wrote some terrible editorials attacking it. I even remember being at Double Dutch one evening when a bomb threat was called in. Mike had to walk around the dining room saying, “Everyone, we need to go outside, we’ve had a threat.” That shows you the strength of feeling in the community back then.
While most presenters focused on music, others did solid, current affairs and talk programs. Phil Hurst was at 2NCR back then doing newsy, current affairs shows before moving on to a big career at the local ABC station. We also had presenters like Jim McGuinness who hosted a very popular Top 40 program, and after many years, is now back at the station with a Saturday night 80s request program.
John Maloney who was a child at the time is also still at the station, and a couple of years ago he gave me a tour of the new facilities.
Another regular feature was our outside broadcasts, especially from the annual Lismore Show. My clearest memory of the show broadcasts was the year our mobile unit was parked way too close to the Dagwood dog stand. Whenever someone opened a microphone to speak, all you could hear in the background was a loud vendor yelling, “Hot, tasty Dagwood dogs!”
Over the decades, the station moved facilities multiple times. It started out at Channel 8, moved downstairs into its own ground-floor studios, shifted to the Northern Rivers College library, relocated out to Southern Cross University, and eventually settled in South Lismore in a building that used to be part of the massive Norco factory complex.
2NCR was an incredible launchpad for media careers. ABC announcer, Robbie Buck started at the station, aged nine, Craig Campbell went from Lismore High to a TV reporting career before founding the production company behind Rove McManus, as examples.
I stayed on at the station through high school and kept coming back on weekends to volunteer while studying at university in Brisbane. After graduating, a fellow 2NCR presenter named Bev Ferris, who used to host the Saturday night dinner music show, encouraged me to take a job at a community station out in Bourke. She said, “Go, you won’t regret it,” and she was right. That job led directly to my ABC career starting in late 1989.
When I look at community radio today, the stations that really stand out are the ones that sound local, authentic, and real. As I look toward retiring in the next couple of years, I reckon I’ll come back and volunteer at 2NCR again—coming full circle right back where it all started. See less This See less
The inner journey conversation this week is with LukeRiver FM 92.9. Between 2 and 4pm Mondays. The show is OUR STORIES 2ncr.org.au/stream to live stream. And of course I always play divine music just for you.
My rave today is about human behaviour. I will start by saying our world is a Quagmire of Dysfunction. Each and everyone of us has a part in this as we carried on these traditions of not so good human behaviours. To get to the heart of the matter we must consider it was born out of our upbringing. Our parents and their parents all had the same types of dysfunctional blue print imprinted all over them. When we were little we were powerless, and out of our survival mechanisms we did things out of fear or lack of Love. We were often just seeking approval. As we became adults, because of behaviours that were embedded in the cells of our bodies, we carried on those traditions and bad behaviours.
This did not help, nor create emotional intelligence, which is missing in our world, and which is also required for caring solutions for each of us. Unpacking our past and seeing what happened there may just require us, as individuals, to tell our story, to see the pain of our own separation and disconnection from others. We all have a part to play in our collective evolution and its not always easy but its like there is a calling for major correction in our trajectory for mother earth. We have a habit of looking outward to politicians or others and thinking they will save us. At the heart of all wars is unconscious human behaviour, fear etc, and in war is sanctioned murder. We take up arms and kill each other without any feeling for what we have done, the ultimate illusion of separation. If we blame everyone else for our predicament or loveless situation we have become a powerless victim. We can embrace our fears and take risks with those close to us in order to have deeper, more caring relationships. Please engage with this. ourinnerstories.com.au/home/
Antenna Installation completed!
Thanks to the crew who put in a big day Thursday to beat the weather gremlins.
See pic of new Antenna- ours is the one on the left.
We are back on air.
Cable upgrade still pending till we get the full Transmission power.
Should be in a couple of weeks.
* On River FM 92.9 Mondays between 2and 4 Our STORIES Live Streaming 2ncr.org.au/stream Oh and then there is sublime Music
This weeks Inner Journey Conversation is with Cindy
******Consider my Rant********
Our journey this time is to wake up from the sleepy slumber of unconsciousness. Why do I bang on about our emotional inner selves? Its all just hypothesis, so don't take my word for it, just check it out for yourself, you have to find your own truth.
The true feminine that is in all of us is lucid, empathetic and knowing of what is important and what needs to be said, and she hangs on in the ether waiting to be the light that will free us. It might get messy before it gets better, because the conditioning and suppression that we hold onto is also painful, and sometimes difficult to let go of. It does take surrender. Most of us carry some back load of stuff we took on in order to Survive. That Survival mechanism doesn’t really serve us.The culture that keeps us trapped not in who we are, but in the materialistic land of the living dead, and railing against the pollies, is really a waste of time, until they also get this, and one day they might join us and meet their liberation! And so its a call for change and I hope the conversations I have are a small ripple towards the freedom that we all need.A quote from AD Williams - "Imagine what seven billion humans could accomplish if we all loved and respected each other”. My Website ourinnerstories.com.au/
On River FM 92.9 Mondays between 2and 4 Our Stories. Live Streaming 2ncr.org.au/stream Oh and then there is sublime Music
This weeks Inner Journey Conversation with Paulina one from the Archives
To raise consciousness, to be aware of what drives us forward. To explore those moments of revelation in your life, that at the time seemed extremely painful, but in hindsight showed you other more freeing and feeling possibilities of living and healing - did you get healed? Are you conscious? Do you know what drives your every move?
We are emotional beings. When we were children those parts of us were put on hold, even though we were so alive and our emotions at least moved freely. Then we had years of suppression, and those parts of us were often put on hold to our detriment. When I am emotional, there is a letting go which is really freeing, my heart is more open, my connection to fellow humanity is more empathetic etc. That is why I think in order to create more solid community we need to start from the inside of us as individuals. Did you look inside to all of you? did you get healed? ourinnerstories.com.au/home/
On River FM 92.9 Monday 2pm to 4pm OUR STORIES Live streaming 2ncr.org.au/stream. The Inner Journey Conversation this week is with Michael. Of course there is great diversity in music, listen up, participate.
At the moment I’m reading a book called ‘The Inner Self’ by Hugh Mackay. It is about the ways we hide from the truth about ourselves and the psychological freedom we enjoy when we finally face that most searching question of all - Who Am I Really?
As you can see its very pertinent to the Inner Journey Conversation. I have talked about the masks we put on and they are extremely creative and subtle, and there are habitual behaviours also. They all do one thing, they keep us from the essence of who we are.
At our essence we are all knowing and shining diamonds of love, we a can at any time tear down the masks usually i think it only comes with deep crises which brings with it a desire for change and coming through that there is the love. We may ask why would we do that? There is so much learned behaviour which is familiar and addictive. Take just one way of hiding - we might just create dramas and it becomes a normal ongoing routine and we think inescapable or maybe we just don’t want to escape. Can you see this is really just self sabotage writ large. I haven’t read a self help book for years and I am wary of the ‘paint by numbers’ approach, but this has got me questioning my own behaviours and that has to be a good thing. My website ourinnerstories.com.au/home/
On River FM 92.9 Monday 2pm to 4pm Our Stories Live streaming 2ncr.org.au/stream The Inner Journey Conversation this week is with Me interviewed by Katka . Of course there is great diversity in music, listen up, participate.
My rave today is about male domination of mother earth, and male aggression and misogyny. This is embedded in our culture, and whenever you scratch the surface there are these behaviours that arise, often aggressively. The perpetrators of these behaviours don’t really know (sometimes) that they are doing misogyny because it is so embodied in their being. Personally I think it is up to us males to challenge that whenever it manifests. Unchallenged it can ultimately lead to more women being murdered, more domestic violence. Recently I talked about an incident where people were being aggressive toward a woman friend of mine. I spoke about that and there was this pushback to maintain this old patriarchal paradigm, no matter what. This was so disappointing. The language, everything was used to uphold that inequality and aggression, and I am certainly having trouble getting over that. That is why I have to speak about it, people doing behaviour like this in our culture is very painful.
My father was certainly misogynistic, and to a degree I followed in his footsteps. Until I recognised how enslaved I was to this whole way of being. That was a long time ago but it was about my own healing process that went on for some years. So we must expose these behaviours, however subtle, anyway we can. If an individual is being aggressive and controlling with language, lets ask them simply - What is your agenda right now?
The putting down of women has been going on for millennia, but mens own liberation is tied to being a big part of this kind of change, and for a better world in general, but I think in order to uphold old ways of misogyny, men will twist the story or go off on tangents of what is the core issue here. Please keep comments respectful. Please consider . This is by-- Thìch Nhât Hanh
If we are at war with our parents, our family, our society, or our church; there is probably a war going on inside us also, so the most basic work for peace is to return to ourselves and create harmony among the elements within us - our feelings, our perceptions, and our mental states. That is why the practice of meditation, looking deeply, is so important.” See less
ourinnerstories.com.au/home/
On RiverFM 92.9 Mondays between 2 and 4 pm OUR STORIES
Conversation with Jane E Miller From The Archive. Live streaming 2ncr.org.au/streaming and great music. With this show comes deeper community Engagement
The Ripple Effect - We have this opportunity in this life to go beyond what we have taken on through conditioning, dogma etc. and move from collective unconscious to an expanded conscious collective of unified common unity. Doing a inner journey or listening to others may create awareness of other ways of becoming more free and more receptive. Whatever we do within this type of self inquiry is good for humanity as a whole. To step up into this unknown space is the new revolution and there is really a beautiful opportunity to transition to new ways of being. If we as individuals evolve our collective has effect on the whole world and we all want a more cooperative world for better Planetary outcomes. We can change our perception of the world and with that our perception of those around us. Some might want to continue the internal wars, for me its not about be hooked into this continual war. For me its just to feel the pain of that and move on. ourinnerstories.com.au/home/
