CKHQ-FM, Kanesatake’s community radio station, has struggled to keep itself going since it was founded in 1988. But with the help of some broadcasting experts, it has presented a relaunch plan to the CRTC, through two applications published on Monday.
The first is a transfer of ownership, from CKHQ United Voices Radio, owned by resident James Nelson, to Mohawk Multi Media, a non-profit corporation whose membership is open to all community members.
The second is a technical change: The new station would maintain its frequency of 101.7 MHz, but with an effective radiated power of 51 watts, and a height above average terrain of 57 metres. The station’s transmitter would be located at the Riverside Elders Home at 518 Rang Ste-Philomène, along the river about two kilometres southwest of the old location. The studio would also be located at a new building to be constructed on land next to the elders home.
The station has budgeted $500,000 in capital costs for studio and transmitter.
Comparison map of CKHQ-FM’s approved signal (red and brown) and its proposed signal (blue and green)
The increased power would mean a better signal within the community, and more people being able to listen in adjacent ones like Oka, Hudson, and maybe parts of Vaudreuil.
But the most significant change would be on the regulatory level. Stations at 50 watts or below are considered low-power unprotected stations, which means another station can apply for a licence for that frequency or an adjacent one and bump it off that frequency. In most areas that wouldn’t be an issue, but being so close to Montreal (and not that far from Ottawa), there are no other frequencies available it can realistically move to, so such a situation would force it off the air.
That almost happened in 2018 when a group proposed a Christian music station in Lachute on 101.7 FM. The application was denied, because the commission found the quality of the application lacking. But nothing prevented anyone else from trying again.
By going to 51 watts, CKHQ-FM would move from low-power unprotected status to Class A1, which means any proposed new stations would have to protect it from interference.
Projected interference zones for CKHQ-FM.
Though in theory the new signal would extend to much of Vaudreuil and St-Placide, practically it still won’t go too far beyond Oka and the community of Hudson across the river, because of interference from other stations, most significantly CIBL-FM, the Montreal community station on the same frequency at 101.5 MHz.
History
After years of inactivity, CKHQ-FM showed promise when it applied for and received a new licence from the CRTC in 2014. When I visited the station shortly thereafter, its eager staff had cleaned up the rat droppings of the old studio building and gotten it back on the air.
But a flood in July 2017 destroyed most of the transmitting equipment, knocking the station off the air again.
Sylvain Gaspé, an engineer who grew up in Kanesatake and got his start at that radio station, began leading the efforts to bring it back, under the branding of Reviving Kanesatake Radio. In the spring of 2019, a temporary station was set up to offer flood information to the community, and on April 2, 2020, Gaspé brought the station back on the air.
The new entity is separate from the old one, but has the full support of both the current owner and the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake. Because transfers of ownership require CRTC approval first, the station is technically still owned and managed by Nelson’s United Voices corporation, but Gaspé’s Mohawk Multi Media has been mandated to actually do the work. Officially, a transfer of assets has taken place, but because the equipment was destroyed the actual value of those assets is $0.
The new non-profit’s voting membership is open to Kanesatake members with certificate of Indian status, residents of Kanesatake, and “honorary members accepted by the majority of members.” It has five members of the board, including Gaspé and three residents of Kanesatake. All five are Mohawk.
Programming
Don’t expect this station to have much in the way of full-time staff or professional-sounding programming. This will remain a small community station largely run by volunteers. But the application to the CRTC includes some programming commitments, including:
- 5 hours a week of news
- 58 hours a week of pop, rock and dance music
- 38 hours a week of country music
- 17 hours a week of Indigenous music
- 15% of songs broadcast performed or composed by Indigenous artists
- 7 hours a week coming from Kahnawake’s K103
- 30.5 hours a week in Mohawk, including “incorporating the Mohawk language within the simplest tasks of radio broadcasts, such as the time, weather and station identifications.”
- 1 hour a week in French
Note that these are projected averages and not necessarily minimums. What actual requirements are to be set will be up to the CRTC, consistent with the Native Broadcasting Policy, for which a review is currently underway.
The CRTC has scheduled a hearing for March 30 to hear these applications. Because no oral presentations are expected, the hearing will be in name only and only to satisfy a legal requirement to hold one. Comments on either application (which are not dependent on each other — the commission could approve one but not the other) are being accepted until Feb. 25, 2020 at 8pm ET/5pm PT, and can be filed here (Application 2020-0751-7 is for the transfer of ownership, Application 2020-0420-9 is for the power increase and transmitter change).
Note that all information submitted, including contact information, becomes part of the public record.
Thank you for covering news and explications of even little sparrows’ media
Noteworthy to mention Mike Mathieu as one of the broadcasting experts who made this whole process possible. It all began when he advised me of the Lachute application on the same frequency in March 2018. It was the spark that re-lit the flame to get this station back on-the-air and to protect it from further encroachment. Niá:wen (thanks) Mike!
Well worth protecting and reinforcing.
It is an appealing station with music worth listening to and a pleasantly down-to-earth tone.
Given all the other garbage on the air, this is a relief to the ears.
I’m not sure about all this. I understand the community wanting another little local station targeting the Mohawk community, but to my count, there are currently 3 stations serving the community around the Island of Montreal area. Though not all manage to cover the same area due to the limits of their broadcast patterns.
CKKI-FM 89.9
CKRK-FM 103.7
CKHQ-FM 101.7
Now this is all real nice, and well, but are any of these stations in financial good footing?
Not that I’m suggesting the CRTC stick its nose into financial matters. But rather the owners / backers of these stations to assess if this type of micro stations works in order to serve the Mohawk community. Or perhaps this really represents the kind of division, and a be in charge of your own thing that may exist with the Mohawk community.
Now, I’m not knocking it, if you notice, even within other ethnicities, you’ll see that same type of attitude. No such thing as monolithic. Example CKDG-FM 105.1 does a lot of greek language programming. Yet, you’ll see other greek groups go to other stations to offer greek language programming on CHRN-AM 1610, CFMB-AM 1280, and CINQ-FM 102.3. Probably because they don’t see eye to eye within their own community. Or is it more than just community? Other ethnicities do the same Arab, Spanish, Italian, etc etc. But, these groups go to stations with a higher coverage pattern to cover a larger area. These three Mohawk centric stations cover smaller areas, and thus forces 3 stations.
What I’m trying to suggest is perhaps one stations with a higher power output to cover the area, with HD Radio in order to rent out the HD2 – HD4 positions to the other owners / backers. And even rent out space to none Mohawk community, to help with their bottom line.
I say this because having three stations in a weak financial footing doesn’t really help anybody.
I know this might all seem impossible. One. a FM frequency would need to be located that would cover a larger area. But, I’m sure the CRTC would ask none protected stations to move, and maybe be able to open up a 2-3 kw station. But, it would also require a better business plan from the owners, and the backers of these station to get such a plan going. There may be no will power to do such a thing. Because, people don’t see eye to eye, and you can’t force them to see eye to eye. There are many points of view within any ethnicity.
For me, CHHQ-FM seems more of a HD Radio sub-channel. No transmitter required, simply feed your signal to a station with HD Radio with space to rent out, with probably a better coverage area. To bad there isn’t another station in the area which is running with HD Radio to offer up rental space.
That is true, but they are hardly redundant. K103 and CKHQ serve different communities, Kahnawake and Kanesatake respectively, and their signals are not designed to reach the other territory. As for CKKI, it’s a private music station based in Kahnawake, not a community station.
This is a result of the CRTC’s Ethnic Broadcasting Policy, which generally requires ethnic radio stations to serve several ethnic groups. That makes sense in smaller markets with just one or two such stations, but in Montreal and Toronto, it may be worth considering whether allowing some single-language stations makes more sense, particularly on AM.
FM stations used to (and some still do) rent out analog subchannels (SCMO) to ethnic broadcasters, but the popularity of that is limited because of the need for special receivers. There’s a similar issue with HD Radio. There just isn’t enough penetration of receivers to make this worthwhile. It would make more sense to push people to online streaming than HD Radio at this point.
An awful lot of us listen only while driving. That seems crucial to me.
Seems like an overly large investment into a declining medium. I would think they would get a much better return by investing in actual community new media projects.
I would actually think they might get good signal up and down the water, as their antenna will be very, very close to the edge of the water. That will give them a nice clear line of sight. They will lose much more from interference than anything else, 50 watts of FM actually can go pretty far.