While student radio stations in Cork, Limerick and Galway have plenty to celebrate, the mood in Dublin student radio circles is not quite as rosy. Dublin Weekend Radio, the community station at DCU which has given many students their first on-air experience, will cease broadcasting on May 31st. Staff at the station, who are employed by FAS, will continue working until July 3rd, on the preparation of a report on the station's activities.

Dublin Weekend Radio broadcasts a lively mix of current affairs, arts reviews, documentaries and specialist music for four hours every weekend morning. The station was largely manned by students of the undergraduate and postgraduate courses in communications and journalism.

Last year, faced with the prospect of their community-of-interest licence coming to an end, students at DCU got together with students from DIT and Maynooth to discuss applying to the IRTC jointly for a special interest licence. The project, which had provisional titles of Level 3 Radio and Dublin Campus Radio, was similar in concept to Limerick's Wired FM, an innovative partnership between the UL, Mary Immaculate College of Education and Limerick IT, with broadcasting facilities in all three institutions.

However, the project fell through at the last minute when one of the colleges decided it couldn't commit itself to the level of financial support required to run a special interest station.

Tom Sarbozzi, a researcher/producer with Dublin Weekend Radio, says the people working at the station were very disappointed at first, but are now preparing to move on to pastures new.

"Some people will move on to other community stations. Others will do postgraduate courses. Some have realised that radio's not for them. The experience they've gained here has stood to everyone involved with the station in trying to find something new."