I seem to enjoy finding new ways to cause myself sheer panic before I go on air...last week was no exception! Pontardawe Festival were very enthusiastic about my plans to do a live broadcast so far from home (it's at least a ten-minute walk), but it wasn't until Sunday that I received a final go-ahead. I probably should have given up on the idea and presented my show from home, but seeing as I'd committed myself by completely dismantling my sound equipment, I took the gamble and headed to the Festival portakabin which would be my surrogate studio for the night!
It seemed like the only problems on my end were an old CD player which wouldn't work, and a music collection that refused to reveal itself until about five minutes into the show...apart from that, everything was going brilliantly! My Toys'R'Us laptop (apart from the whole music collection thing) seemed to be happily converting my audio and transmitting it across the internet, or at least that's how it seemed to me. Tim informed me this was not the case, and he was losing me every so often. I couldn't believe it! With my old PC, my on-air 'disappearances' corresponded to errors popping up on my screen...but this wasn't happening! Tim thought the internet connection was the problem, but I was sceptical as I was using a cabled connection...well, again, so I thought...it turns out that the cable only went as far as a wireless (Wi-Fi) stick, mounted on a mast on top of the portakabin, which was quite merrily blowing around in everything Wales could throw at it (I'm sure the rain didn't help either!)
Apparently someone from the committee had sent me a warning that the connection could be intermittent, but I only got the message after I finished broadcasting...oops...many thanks to: Tim for being a trooper and reconnecting me umpteen times; Emyr and David from the Festival committee for letting me give it a go, and for providing a sizeable stack of CDs; everyone who contributed on air (Mattie, Hywel, Huw, Jim and Sylvie) and of course to everyone who stayed tuned and (hopefully) enjoyed what they heard!
Lesson learned! No more messing about, or at least if I do try something like that again, it'll be tested and planned well in advance...