skyvalleyradio wrote:The right decision was made to allow CHMZ & CIMM another chance to provide reliable radio on the west coast as they should.
I read through all four decisions. The commission's summary of McBride was substantially derogatory. The commission also hinged this on CCD and other music industry contributions. If I read it correctly, the purchase price was adjusted in a retroactive effort to bring the station into nearer (for lack of a better term) compliance. The fees were paid for two years of McBride's operation, but never after at any station. There's grumblings that Port Moody and Pemberton got screwed while Tofino/Ukee got what they want, but neither Port Moody nor Pemberton stepped up to cover CCD's either. So fair is fair, I guess. The Port Moody frequency is vacated and available. Pemberton will be fine. It was considered a while ago, but we long since moved on. Whistler/Pemberton is a musician/media talent rich place and perhaps one of the Whistler studios might go that direction.
skyvalleyradio wrote:Finally, the west coast communities will get a stable set of radio stations to serve both local residents & many visitors to the area.
It's already noticeable. Though not finalized, the air and social media seem uplifted. BTW, the tourist station is just about to begin the installation phase. CHLL 102.1 MHz @ 25 Watts. The new tower on Mt. Ozzard is almost completed. Once they've migrated the stuff from the old tower, they'll plant the stick on the legacy tower and feed a hard line to the rack. (How nice is that!?) Mobile signal test this week. Fingers crossed, launch April/early May.
And another BTW, the Island Trunk System has been live into Tofino with very good uptime IP link to Nanaimo. VE7RNA Mt Bretton was down for dead batteries a while, but is back up, but you can probably hit Nanaimo to on VE7DJI Mt Benson. I've been checking in recently on CVARS morning net and Wednesday evening Provincial Emergency Program Net. I (sort of) keep an ear to it.
And yet another, we really miss VAE Tofino Coast Guard Radio. Especially from a community support standpoint. There were a lot of good techs, traffic and safety positions who contributed a lot to amateur radio. The engineers have been good to us though, really terrific. We were fortunate to get in on that upgrade at the right time.
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