Hawkesbury Radio began in 1978 with a test broadcast, gaining its full licence in 1982, one of the first local community radio licences granted. The station broadcast out of a tiny condemned building, which housed the studio and transmitter on Fitzgerald Street Windsor for many years, before moving to its current site in 1992 in an adjacent building. Hawkesbury Radio originally broadcast on 89.7 MHz, but moved to the frequency of 89.9 MHz in December 1999.[2] In November 2022, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) denied Hawkesbury Radio the licence & they switched over to internet-only broadcasting.
In August 2017, the ACMA decided not to renew Hawkesbury Radio's full-time community broadcaster licence following many years of non-compliance with licence conditions including maintaining/ensuring community participation.[3]
Hawkesbury Radio uses an AOR mix during the daytime hours. Outside of these hours, there are specialist programs such as bluegrass, country and western music. The station also has sports programs [4] on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.[5]
For 20 years it has broadcast various live events from calling Penrith PanthersNRL Matches from 1997-2009[6] and the club's reserve grade matches, to covering Windsor Wolves Ron Massey Cup Matches. Plus finals matches in NSWRL Competitions.
From 2016, the station has become the community radio partner of the Western Sydney Wanderers, with all A-League games covered on radio and all home games of the W-League and Youth League games online. The station also broadcasts the National Premier Leagues NSW competition each week in divisions 1, 2 & 3.[7]
In addition the station became the first in Australia to broadcast a World Rugby Sevens Series event in broadcasting all three days of the 2017 Sydney Sevens,[8] and the station also broadcasts at least one game a week in the Shute Shield Sydney club rugby competition[9] after broadcasting Penrith Emus games from 2001-2003.[10]
