Amateur Radio and 146.910 MHz

I'll say right off the bat that I have never actually involved myself in the hobby I'm about to write about. But anything radio-related will spark my interest...

Back in the early 1990s, I bought a fancy little radio scanner. It was supposed to pick up fire, police and so on. One of the more interesting frequencies I found was 146.910 MHz. It seems I stumbled upon a ham radio repeater - I guess that's what you might call it. I know there are other repeaters in the area, but I got most of my enjoyment listening to this one.

What I found was a bunch of people chatting away at all hours of the day and night about just about any imaginable topic. It was clear that many of them knew each other, and some would meet once and a while at so-called DX club meetings.

Amazingly, it was by listening to them around 1995 or so that I first discovered the existence of something called the Internet. Technologically savvy as they were and are, they were quick to jump on that bandwagon.

You do have to complete a course to be able to jump on those airwaves. Some of the communication takes place from moving vehicles, but a lot of it seems to come from people's homes. They've got this amazing radio equipment and antennas that not only get them on the air, but allow them to pick up all kinds of far away frequencies. And that seems to be a big part of the attraction.

I've mentioned before that when disaster strikes, radio once again becomes an essential way to communicate. And if the big stations get knocked off the air, ham radio becomes an important tool for emergency communication.

You may be interested to hear an example of what you may hear on some of these sorts of frequencies. If you don't have access to a receiver, there are some web sites that stream them. One of them can be found at dxzone.com.

For years there has been a weekly "gathering" on the frequency on Sunday evenings for an exchange of radio news. I know that Sheldon Harvey used to handle that. He's the guy who administers the Radio in Montreal  Yahoo group and co-hosts the International Radio Report on CKUT. I don't listen to my scanner as much as I used to, but I still pick up the occasional conversation on 146.910 MHz. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I have only been a listener and my knowledge ends with what I have heard others say...

All-Traffic Radio in Montreal

Transport Quebec is set to launch it’s own radio station. It’s going to keep motorists informed of Montreal area traffic. They intend to broadcast on 910 AM. It will cost over $2 million dollars to launch the station. About a dozen antennas will be put up across the region.

No word on whether the information will be broadcast live or whether it will be a recorded loop. We also don't know if the station will be bilingual. There is supposed to be some kind of an announcement made soon.

There are supposed to be similar services in other parts of the world. It seems that in Europe the services tend to be live, while in the States, they are usually recorded. I happened to hear one of the stations while heading down to New York City a few years ago. It played a loop informing drivers of traffic problems. I don’t know how often it was updated, but it seemed to be pretty accurate as to what was going on at the time.

We already hear a loop around Trudeau Airport. I don’t know if they ever update that with timely news or just play general information. I’ve only heard it a few times when in the vicinity. That one is bilingual. If the new traffic station isn’t, it won’t do much to help tourists… I’m also wondering whether there will be commercial breaks and sponsors… I’m pretty sure there are commercially-run all-traffic stations operating in Canada right now. It makes sense, actually… Do you think commercial radio stations will be thrilled with the idea or an all-traffic station run by the government? Probably not. Perhaps they will use it to gather traffic info for themselves.

Remember the classic scene from WKRP, where Les Nessman pounds his chest to make it sound like he’s reporting from a helicopter?

Radio Centre-Ville Radiothon - September 10-12

I'd like to inform everyone who values the importance of community-run radio in Montreal about a special event that is taking place September 10-12 on Radio Centre-Ville. We will be holding a radiothon to fund the station's operations. You will hear lot of special programming over the three days dedicated to the fundraiser in many languages. As always, you can hear English-language programming from 10:30 PM on Friday until 4 PM on Saturday.  If you are a regular listener and enjoy our programs, please help us out. You can do so online by clicking HERE.

Thanks!

NOT FOR AIR - The Flintstones

I just find this so funny...

Is the News Depressing?

I try to look at the bright side when preparing my weekly news review, but the news just seems to be terribly bleak most of the time. I guess it's true what they say about no news sometimes being good news. There is just so much negativity and fear and pessimism...

It may seem hard to believe, but bad things have been happening for all of human history. I keep looking back at the week in history and see nothing but wars, floods, earthquakes and plane crashes - just to name a few sad occurrences. We are led to believe by some people in the media that the world has never been worse than it is today, and we are doomed.

We in the "West" who consume all the hype, are pretty well off compared to those who came before us. There were no "good old days" - that is a myth. The only difference now is that the things that were once hidden or never spoken of are out in the open. We seem to have determined after many struggles, what is no longer morally or collectively acceptable behaviour.

The worst message of all is to think that if we somehow turned back the clock and started living like we did 100 years ago, that we would be happier or better off. There is no doubt that the industrial revolution has caused a lot of harm, but without it we would be living in horrible conditions and dying in our 30s. There is a reason a good portion of the world wants to develop into what we’ve got - so that they can escape poverty and misery. The ways and means are an entirely different story. The point is, we are really fortunate to be living in North America in the year 2010 instead of 1810 or even 1910. It is also an example of extreme human arrogance to believe that our collective time on this Earth is meant to be infinite. And I’m not even speaking about religious prophecies...

Another factor that contributes to hysteria is the instant access to misery. Like I mentioned before, history books are filled with natural disasters and tragedy. I'm not talking about interpretive history, but even then we probably weren't as good at collecting accurate facts as we are now. With technology being what it is today, when something happens anywhere in the world, you will likely see it within minutes. Once upon a time, you might not see the images for weeks or even at all. Images are the most powerful communicator, after all.

Or maybe I should just keep looking for a bright side. There may be something to those old Y2K bunkers filled with swine flu vaccine...

Joan of Arc Lives...

I have to admit that I can't remember the last time I went to the theatre, and so I'm not going to pass myself off as an expert... But I'm always ready to try new things - to a point... Last week, I was fortunate enough to be given a chance to attend a theatre premiere in Montreal. I was in the opening night audience for The Second Coming of Joan of Arc at the Freestanding Room in Montreal. The FSR is quite an intimate venue, to put it mildly. If you've never experienced theatre from that kind of proximity, you will certainly find it a new kind of experience.

What impressed me most about this play was that it was a one woman monologue. That meant the actress had to recite about an hour and a half's worth of monologue. With this play, it was also done with practically no distractions whatsoever. The way Caitie Parsons pulled it off flawlessly just made me appreciate even more the incredible poise and ability it takes to pull that off. The fact that she's going to perform the same play in french is all the more amazing.

On television or in film, you never have to remember 90 minutes in a row worth of lines. Even if you did, unless it were being done live (unlikely), you always have a safety net. In live theatre, you have no safety net, and if you are out there alone, you have nobody to play off of who might be able to "save" your mistakes.

For what it's worth, live radio is a bit like that. You make a mistake and you just wish you could turn the clock back 30 seconds and try again. Unfortunately, it's too late. Of course, there are no 90 minute memorized monologues in live radio! I'm hard-pressed to think of anything more challenging than performing that kind of show in front of a live audience. Those with true talent make anything look easy!

I won’t be reviewing the play itself, but I will say that I found the performance to be very intense. When I took film classes at McGill, they thought us that when watching a film, you will almost certainly subconsciously suspend reality, if not only for a split second. For that time, you will believe what you are seeing is real. I know I felt that way subconsciously while watching this performance.

By the way, you can still catch the play in french later this week. I understand the play will then be going on tour.

Expos on the Radio in 1994

When MLB went on strike 16 years ago last week, it left a terrible void for flagship stations. Nowhere could it have been more painful than it was here in Montreal. The Expos were always the underdogs, and they always seemed to fall short. In 1994, for a few months they were the talk of the town, and on top of the baseball world.

On August 12th 1994, CIQC lost something that was sure to be a huge ad revenue generator through September - and probably beyond. Everyone wants to be associated with a winner, and no doubt advertisers would have been willing to pay top dollar for a spot on an Expo broadcast down the stretch in 1994. It's quite amazing considering how less than a decade later, the Expos' value to advertisers would be set at zero. Even on television, ratings were tremendous by the time the strike hit, and there were plans for the first pay-per-view Expos games to be shown in September. It must be added that they never revived the idea of pay-per-view ever again.

So what happened to the Expos' broadcasters when the strike hit? Well, first of all, they were sent down to cover the AAA Ottawa Lynx (now also long departed) franchise for a while. I believe they did the same thing in 1981 with Denver. Only that time, the strike did have an end to it. Sure it's a little intriguing to follow the farm club for a while, but that soon gets old.

After they stopped covering AAA, they did an odd thing. And I can't remember if this came before or after the season was wiped out... Maybe someone else remembers this better than I do... Members of the Expos english broadcast team joined the Jays' voices for a computer simulated World Series. I’m pretty sure the Expos were facing the 1993 Jays. They even added sound effects. It was more than a bit peculiar. Kind of like when they used to recreate ball games a long long time ago, I suppose. The only thing is that these games were never actually played. And in case you were wondering, the Expos won.

Here's another great memory: The NHL locked out it's players prior to the start of the 1994-95 season. In this town, all major sports just ground to a stop for what seemed like an eternity.

Anyway, for those who doubt the greatness of the 1994 Montreal Expos team, just take a look at their roster and at their stats when the strike began. In Montreal's long sports history, never before or since have the words "what could have been" ringed truer...