Power surge

Quivers. (Bruce BottomleyPhoto)

B.A. Johnston. (Bruce BottomleyPhoto)

Windom Earle. (Bruce BottomleyPhoto)

National campus radio sensation B.A. Johnston, a one-man bandfrom Hamilton, Ont., started the set. Quivers, a new band made upof local musicians from bands the Gideons and Cold Warps, followedand Halifax stalwarts Windom Earle finished the show.

"We're always up to something here," Erica Butler, CKDU stationmanager says. Much of what she's been doing for the last few monthshas been paperwork for the CRTC. Normally, CKDU broadcasts a 3200watts signal that easily reaches the entire Halifax RegionalMunicipality. Since February, however, they've been stuckbroadcasting at a weak signal. They had to find a new home fortheir broadcast antenna when Dalhousie Facilities began taking downthe East Tower of the the Central Services Building on campus. Thattower held the CKDU antenna for 25 years. 

Unfortunately, says Pat MacIsaac Project Manager at Dalhousie'sFacilities Management, holding up the CKDU antenna was all that theEast Tower has ever done. The Central Services Building was togenerate twice the amount of it currently does. They never reachedthat capacity, so the East Tower was never used. Now, with theuniversity's shift from bunker oil to natural gas as fuel, thetower became officially redundant. Work on the building isscheduled to be completed in June.

With the loss of the tower, CKDU applied to the CRTC to move itsantenna. Federal broadcasting regulations forced them to use a lowsignal until their new site was approved. The CRTC recently gavethe go-ahead and the station's antenna is now on Geiser's Hillwhere the CBC and other Halifax radio stations broadcast.

After a few months of paperwork, is was time to celebrate. "Wewere wondering how to kick the season into gear. Springtime makesyou want to do more things," Butler says. CKDU hosted severalcommunity events last summer—a concert in Needham Park, amusic cruise on the tall ship Silva—but they haven't done aconcert in the station itself for several years.

Coordinating the show was pretty easy. Located up in a corneroffice on the fourth floor of the Student Union Building, therearen't many neighbours to clear permission or get noise complaintsfrom. "Plus, it brings people up here. We look for foot trafficinto the station more than most radio stations because we'revolunteer driven," says Ms. Butler. "Who knows if one of those shy17-year-old girls out there will come into the station next week tojoin up?"