Spirit turns 40 with old 6NW crew

Spirit Hedland turned 40 last week and the radio station celebrated with a reunion of the original team.

Original 6NW radio host Alan Clement along with Chris Olney and David Caudwell joined current announcer David Eckhart for the birthday celebrations earlier this month.

Moving to Hedland in 1987, Mr Clement said he had no idea what he was getting himself into when he took the job.

“I thought, OK, Port must mean water but I had no idea it was as far away as you could get from Melbourne,” he said.

“I suppose technology has been the biggest change at the radio since my time, but since listening again, it’s still just a local radio station talking about Hedland, which is what we did back then — they just do it better now,” he said.

Mr Clement said the biggest highlight looking back at his time in Hedland was the 6NW Easter Spectacular — a sporting event which started from a small fundraiser for Panthers Football Club that grew to a region-wide event.

“By the time we held the first one it had grown to more than 25 sports being held on the one weekend and four thousand people had come from all over the Pilbara to participate,” he said. “It was enormous, just this massive sporting event all put on by this little radio station.”

Keen to come back again for the big half-century celebrations in 2027, Mr Clements spent the weekend with his old colleagues, revisiting old hangouts and sharing old stories with Spirit’s Eckhart.