Yes the Rossland Radio Co-op is trying their darndest to get high with a little help from some friends, including city hall—get their antenna high, that is. Two weeks ago, City Council heard a presentation from station director Mary Cancilla as well as City Staff’s recommendation during their discussion. A decision was made, and while the result was not as good as the Radio Co-op had hoped for, it also wasn’t bad.

Staff recommended that council deny the station’s request for a donation of in-kind labour and equipment to help move the tower (currently on 2nd Avenue at K2 Contracting’s home base) down to the station’s home on Columbia Avenue. Ultimately, however, a supportive push from Councilor Kathy Moore impelled council to refer the issue back to staff and then back to the Co-op for more information on options.

One primary issue why council declined to help move the antenna centreed on the appropriateness of a 17 meter tower on Columbia Avenue and how that might affect neighbours.

“If you notice the picture of theheight of the antenna, it is very, very high. One of the problems is that it may be disruptive to the neighbourhood,” commented Mayor Granstrom.

City Staff shared similar concerns, cautioning council about the aesthetics of moving the tower close to the Miners’ Hall, a significant heritage site near the downtown core. The City’s Manager of Infrastructure and Facilities has also identified the building as being one that it is no longer fiscally responsible for the city to maintain.

Indeed, the City may wish to dispose of the building as noted in CAO Victor Kumar’s report to council: “Staff has concerns about moving the tower to 1807 Columbia Avenue in respect to the condition,” and “(Moving the tower) signifies long term use of the location and building which may not be the future direction and most productive use of this City property.”

Councillor Laurie Charlton added, “First of all, I agree with the recommendation from staff to deny the move to the Rotary Health Building because we don’t know how long the city is going to hang onto the property and how long the Co-op is going to be in there. “

In closing however, Charlton put forward several options for the Co-op to consider, suggesting that perhaps the City place the tower somewhere on a piece of city-owned land that would offer good coverage and to install a repeater at the station to re-broadcast the signal to the tower. In that scenario, should the Co-op move, the tower would not have to be removed and relocated again.

Such a move will require more thought as it’s pricier than simply moving the tower they have already been granted to the new location.

“We’re happy with the decision,” said Cancilla. “Obviously it’s not as great as we would have liked, but council has definitely been supportive of us and all of their concerns are valid. That’s why we have a council to look and think about all the potential options. We do need to talk to the neighbours and look into other potential options so we accept all of their comments. For now we’ll table the motion and go back and do some more research before coming back with a more detailed plan and options.

The impetus behind the proposed move of the tower is the Co-op’s desire to complete the new, more powerful, five year license agreement they have received from the CRTC. That five year deal allows the station to increase their current 5 watt signal to a 20 watt signal.

To crank up the power all they have to do is dial up the transmitter they’ve already got on site, which can go up to 20 watts. But without a better antenna, they wouldn’t be heard by many more people.

“If we crank up the wattage without the new elevation, simply sending a stronger signal into the adjacent rock face or houses don’t provide a big gain,” added Cancilla.

The Co-op has a lease on their space in the Rotary building that runs through February 2013.

With slow summer days currently keeping the station’s programming production to a minimum, the other big call out for support is for more people interested in playing music or hosting their own shows. At its core co-op radio is about volunteers working to provide the opportunity for people to broadcast whatever they so choose in a non-profit environment. Without a core grassroots group of programmers interested in utilizing the co-op, the volunteers leading it may be faced with asking themselves if the effort is still worth it.

“The fact is that we would like to see more programmers and community support for the station. Getting out and playing an hour of music once a week is pretty fun. If you love music, it’s a great way to stay current with new releases and music nowadays. It doesn’t have to be just music either; it could be talk, spoken word, whatever. That’s key though, if we don’t see an increase in volunteer programmers than I’m not sure how much longer we can keep it going. We need people to be interested and want to do radio shows. If nobody is going to come out and do programming, we’ll have to consider shutting it down.”

For now the station remains available online while the group works on increasing their reach.