UFV-based community radio station CIVL-FM has been approved to extend its broadcasting range into Chilliwack through a second transmitter.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications (CRTC) approval will make CIVL the first Canadian campus-based radio station to broadcast on multiple frequencies in multiple municipalities. The station will broadcast as 101.7 FM in Abbotsford, Mission, and parts of Langley and Maple Ridge, and as 92.3 FM in Chilliwack.
The main cost of the project will be building the structure required to mount the broadcasting hardware, as there is no structure high enough at the specific location CIVL was approved to use in Chilliwack.
The project will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but station manager Aaron Levy said CIVL has planned for this.
“CIVL has been saving for this since before we moved into the Student Union Building, so we are pleased to be in the position to be able to take on this massive project. The fact that we’ve built this capacity is why we finally submitted our CRTC application last year,” Levy said.
The initiative started six years ago through the 2013 fundraising drive that raised $2,000, though Levy said that broadcasting into Chilliwack was something CIVL had planned to do since its inception in 2003. The funds were used to start researching possible locations for the transmitter and usable frequencies.
“It’s been a surreal project to work on over the last decade — the idea that campus radio, a niche endeavour by design, can grow and build to the point of expanding our signal to include brand new communities after a decade,” Levy said.
In the original 2006 broadcasting application, CIVL applied to broadcast to both Abbotsford and Chilliwack but had to change their technical parameters due to interference issues, resulting in their coverage not reaching Chilliwack.
A third of the students and members that pay the subscription fee live, work, or attend school in Chilliwack. CIVL already creates content that is relevant to Chilliwack, but Levy said that engagement from the community as they broadcast to the area will help to expand the content offered.
“Generally, like has happened in Abbotsford and Mission, we expect that the more we do to promote ourselves and the more time we spend broadcasting in Chilliwack, the community will show us who is ready to get involved and produce new content that relates directly towards the Eastern Valley,” Levy said. “That will just be a natural part of expanding our range — catching more volunteers from that neighbourhood who want to get more involved both with us and on behalf of and in reaching out to their community.”
There is no firm date for when the Chilliwack transmitter will be up and running, but it will be before May 2021.
Image: David Myles/The Cascade
