This month's ODXA Perspectives (on DX Partyline) is a bit of a departure. It's a quick profile of what may be Canada's smallest radio station. I had a chance to visit CJAI in August. It's one of Canada's newest community radio stations, serving Amherst Island…a short ferry ride from Bath, Ontario (just west of Kingston).
The station broadcasts at 93.7FM, currently with 5 watts. They have a "developmental" licence, and plan to upgrade to a regular community licence and about 200 watts down the road. Former ODXA'er and retired broadcaster Peter Truman has a program there and the station manager is a former colleague from Global, Terry Culbert.
I interviewed Terry and Tom Richmond, president of Amherst Island Broadcasting. One of the unique things about the station is that it's located, literally, in a barn. Looks can be deceiving, as they actually have the old dairy shed portion of the barn fixed up quite nicely to accommodate the station (the antenna is on the silo!)You can check out that station at http://www.amherstisland.on.ca/AIR They now stream on-line.
As with many community stations, it isn't overly polished, but is an excellent example of grass-roots community-access radio! According to the Media programs column in the latest Listening In…DX Partyline can be heard at these UTC times:
Sat 0730 via HCJB 11750
Sat 1430 via HCJB 15390
Sun 0215 via WWCR 5070
Sun 1430 via WRMI 7385
Tue 0930 via WWCR 9985
Also on-line at http://www.hcjb.org/mass_media/dx_partyline/dx_partyline.html
(Source: Greg Schatzmann/ODXA)
