A Community Radio Station for Tillicum Burnside

I would love to get a radio station operating in this neighbourhood. The process of applying for a low power community radio station is not that difficult at all. I went though this process when I lived in Lillooet and was part of the group that started CHLS.

We managed to put CHLS on the air for little more than $1000. We had a retired broadcast engineer to donate his time to do the technical work for the application. We applied just as the rules changed and this new category was created and made the whole process very simple. I called around to numerous commercial stations and got two low power transmitters are donations. I donated the mikes, someone else the computer and we were on the air. We managed to win the 2001 NCRA Standard Radio Award for small station - the award was our major source of funding in that year. We could not afford to send anyone, so an old CFUC colleague of mine, Magnus Thyvold picked it up for us.

I have been meaning to go up to the Comox valley and meet with a small group there to tell them what it takes to start a new station, but life has been to busy and I have not gone up there. I would love to see each town and each neighbourhood to have its own station.

I think it would be interesting to develop a local station and base it out of one of the local high schools or some other community building. The Burnside Gorge Community Association has a lot of space these days, as does School District 61 in the old Mount Tolmie school.

I believe it would be of benefit to have a radio station that is focused on one area of the city. I think there could also be ones in other areas of the city. The reach of a low power station would only be a few kilometers, small enough to all several of them in the region to share one frequency.

What I need to make this work is some support from the local community. Ideally I should take this idea to the BGCA or the Tillicum Gorge Community Association.

If anyone reading this is interested in the idea, I would love to hear from you and sit down and and see what can be done.