Re: Gabriola Radio Station
Letter to the Editor of The Sounder
Tuesday, January 3 2012
Do we need music in our lives, as we need air food and water? Well, no, I suppose we don’t. Do we nonetheless want music? Of course we do. Similarly, while we may not absolutely require a Gabriola community radio station in order to exist, a great many of us see it as a very valuable addition to our island way of life.
A local community radio station is quite different from an off-island campus radio station which exists primarily to serve a mostly youthful audience of students. Our station will address— and be participated in by— all age groups and will greatly help coordinate and disseminate all the many creative activities of our island. How the station will ultimately evolve is entirely up to those Gabriolans who become involved.
Technically, establishing the station involves installing a very low power 60 watt transmitter which will be located in a high elevation treed area largely screened from view. Standing in front of a microwave oven, or even making a cell phone call, would expose you to vastly more electromagnetic radiation than this tower ever could.
Fire, ambulance, and police services will be able to use the station’s tower to improve their coverage. In the interests of public safety, they will also be able to maintain communications even during power outages.
After long campaigning, the federal government has granted us the exclusive use of an assigned frequency. Now it’s up to us to get the station up and running for all Gabriolans!
For more information on your very own community radio station, please visit CKGI.ca
(con’t from letter)
Community radio is an asset to the community it serves.
Many residents recognize this is an opportunity for the community to be more independent and resilient.
Our proposal includes a secure facility with durable equipment, We want to keep repairs cost and down time to a minimum. Yes the $350,000 represents a low operating cost facility. CKGI could build less expensively, but that would increase operating and maintenance costs. $60,000 represents a operating budget from 10 years ago currently we are reviewing a proposed budget that would be in the $100,000 dollar range. This includes three part time staff persons (Station Manager, Program director and bookkeeper as admin) the rest of the 101 hours per week will be fulfilled by volunteers with some network programming.
Very few agree that 60 watts fm represents any possibility of harmful emissions. In fact the CRTC, Industry Canada, Health Canada , World Health Organization and that vast majority of informed scientists know it is safe. Plus FM has been around for decades, this is not a new technology.
Even with the world wide web, stations from all over the world do not broadcast our local content, tell our stories. We are not repeating anything, our programming week will be station produced. Further the CBC is mandated to broadcast to Canada they cannot cover our stories.
As to expensive; radio is by far the least expensive media for a community to operate. Consider the local papers’ print bill, one of the largest operating costs for a paper, that money leaves our community every week. TV is the most expensive and technically most difficult to operate. Suited to the big cement.
Resident community members have stated they would prefer no advertising or on air fund drives for it’s station. This represents a CBC like service. We propose to offer that level of service and require a CBC like funding model to capitulate. Costs to the rate payers would be in the order of a case of beer per year.
The real advantage FM radio has, is that in an emergency evacuation, radio is the only practical method to communicate to a fleeing public, real time information on hazards. Ie “South Road is on fire go North Road now.”
CKGI is supported by the Gabriola Fire Trustees, in fact, they are the largest single financial supporter to date. Our support base includes the community at large, for sure, with a vast majority from supporting events like Live At The Haven.
As to the issue of partnering with a cell service provider on a Gabriola tower the CKGI board of director implemented a two year moratorium on that decision which is fast coming up for renewal. In that time no evidence of increase in danger to the environment or possible harm from a cell tower has been presented. This seems to be a case of a very few persons being mislead for unknown reasons. That facts seem to be clear. Providing cell service under Canadian safety code 6 is safe. Further it still seems cell service adds a complication to the process by the introduction of a commercial enterprise. CKGI board of director meetings are held the first Wednesday – monthly.
Maintenance and safe operation of any tower site in Canada is highly regulated and the responsibility of the operator. Our goal is to establish a service capable of operating during an emergency or extended power outage.
As to the issue of going to Nanaimo to talk to Gabriola it seems a hardy few have the commitment to undertake the journey, but we don’t see that number of programmers growing at all. Further, there is no need, we have approval from the CRTC for the use of 98.7 fm.
Thank You.
