The future looks bright for a community radio station which covers Petersfield and parts of East Hampshire as they have a new DAB signal.

Shine Radio listeners can tune into the station more easily in the car and kitchen following the culmination of a three-year project led by its team, technical specialists and local community collaborators.

“It means you can tune into Shine within our transmission area on any DAB radio that carries the official digital radio tick mark,” said a spokesperson for the station.

“Our live radio coverage extends up and down the A3 from Butser to Hindhead. There’s a good signal in Petersfield and its surrounding villages, and also in and around Liphook and Bramshott.”

The station launched during lockdown is hopeful of extending and strengthening its signal around the likes of Alton, Selborne, Liss, Greatham, Hawkley and Bordon subject to regulatory approval and funding.

“Around 4,000 lovely listeners tune into Shine Radio through our online platforms every month but we’ve always known we could do better,” said Claire Vennis, director at the volunteer-run community radio station.

“The number one request from listeners has been how to listen more easily in the kitchen and the car.

“Now we can deliver that through our new DAB digital radio signal.”

She added: “We hope DAB means even more people get the Shine Radio habit and make local listening part of their daily routine.”

Shine were assisted by small-scale DAB pioneer Ash Elford, who introduced DAB to the Portsmouth area, and their friends at the Alton-based community service Wey Valley Radio.

Readyformed Solutions and Earshot looked after the technical and business operations with further thanks to Alan Beech at Commtronix, the regulatory team at Ofcom, EHDC, local sponsors and advertisers and Churcher’s College for their support from the start.