Powell began as a weekend presenter on the station, presenting a Sunday show from 10 am to 1 pm, before a move to Saturdays in October 1978, again from 10 am to 1 pm.[
In 1980 he took over the weekday afternoon show running from 3:30 to 5:30 pm, before taking over the weekday teatime slot in 1981 from 5 to 7 pm. The show went out from 4:30 to 7 pm in 1982.
His best remembered features are 5 45s at 5.45, where Powell played five new singles, and the Record Race, in which listeners had to identify songs purely from their intros. Every Tuesday he ran through the new singles chart which had been revealed by the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) earlier at lunchtime on BBC Radio 1 presented by Gary Davies - the first chance many young listeners got to hear the new Top 40. He also featured the album chart on Wednesday evenings.
