Jeff Colbourne
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jul 27/98) - While HF and CB radios seem like an open medium to express opinions, offer advice, provide information and link communities in a time of need, users should be cautioned.

Industry Canada is listening, ensuring the airways are kept free of interference.

"There is some abuse of the radios. There are a couple of communities that have one or two individuals who get on the air and swear, " said Rolf Ziemann, inspector of telecommunications with Industry Canada's Yellowknife office.

Industry Canada, which regulates and monitors CB and HF radio traffic, devotes few resources to dealing with offenders who abuse the airways, but officials do take abuse seriously.

"Rather than going in there and trying to gather evidence, which would cost us an enormous amount of money, we've put it back into the hands of the people who are complaining and say, 'Let's try a couple of different solutions,'" said Ziemann.

Community justice can do a better job, he added. A clergyman, RCMP officer or family member could just as easy go to the offenders's home when he's sober, and say that if he goes on the radio again and swears, his mike will be removed.

"We haven't had a profane and obscene language charge in the NWT. Up here we will do everything else first before prosecuting," said Ziemann, a certified electronic technician graduate from Aurora College in 1971.

"Unlike a murder or a drug charge, this is something where prosecution is the last resort."

But that could change Abusers could one day find themselves facing something similar to a parking ticket. And if someone is using a radio without a licence there would be no warning and a fine would be given.

Ziemann said it's essential that all frequencies are kept clear of interference because of their importance to the 1,000 or so licensed hunters and trappers in the NWT.

"It's their lifeline," he said.

"Every year we have people that are lost. And more often than not if they have a working radio they are found or they don't even get lost in the first place. They just call somebody and say, 'My ski-doo ran out of gas, come and get me.' If they don't have a radio then they're found a week later frozen."

Historical look at radios

CB radios are not regulated as much as they were at one time. A licence is no longer required to have a CB radio but users are still not allowed to swear or interference with other transmissions.

HF is growing in popularity because of its practicality and versatility. It also has an longer range than CBs.

Operators need a licence and frequency approval authorized by Industry Canada. A licence costs $46 a year. The Yellowknife Industry Canada office was instrumental nationally in having fees for HF reduced. It used to be as much as $146.

When HFs first came about, frequencies were given out in the North by language group.

In recent years, after frequencies became crowded, various hunters and trappers organizations complained to Industry Canada that they couldn't tolerate the noise.

Right now there are six or seven different channels in the NWT, one for each geographic area, plus some communities have other channels assigned them. There is also a NWT-wide frequency, 5032.4 or 5031 kilohertz (kHz).

"That seems to have worked. Some areas got a little bit crowded. On Baffin Island there's a couple of communities that have specific channels," said Ziemann.

On Baffin Island some people are also complaining that they are hearing Greenland stations. Ziemann said it's because some hunters and trappers in Greenland are using radios imported from Canada.