CHPD-FM

On January 16, the Aylmer and Area Inter-Mennonite Community Council was granted a licence for a low-power FM German-language radio station. It would provide four hours of programming per day (7:00 to 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.), of particular interest to members of the local German-speaking Mennonite community. Programming would consist of news, weather, ethnic and cultural music, and health care information.

CHPD signed on the air on September 2 and was known as “De Brigj” (The Bridge). The call letters stood for Canada horcht Plaut Dietsch (Plaut Dietsch is the Low German language that the station broadcasts in). CHPD broadcast with 50 watts at 107.7 MHz. Studios and offices were located in the MCC Aylmer Resource Centre, 16 Talbot Street East.

On May 18, CHPD was given approval to change frequency from 107.7 MHz to 105.9 MHz and to increase effective radiated power from 50 watts to 250 watts. Antenna height would be reduced slightly from 44.6 metres to 41.8 meteres. The antenna would remain at the existing site at the southwest corner of Talbot Trail and Springfield Road, Summers Corners.

The move to 105.9 MHz took place later in the year. 

On June 30, the CRTC renewed the broadcasting licence for the ethnic commercial radio programming undertaking CHPD-FM Aylmer from 1 July 2010 to 31 August 2013. This short-term licence renewal will enable the Commission to review the licensee’s compliance with the Radio Regulations, 1986 at an earlier date. The Commission denied the licensee’s request to amend CHPD-FM’s condition of licence relating to the language of broadcast so that it may broadcast in languages other than German. In Broadcasting Notice of Consultation 2009-786, the Commission noted that the licensee may have failed to comply with section 9(2) of the Radio Regulations, 1986, which relates to the provision of annual returns, for the 2004 and 2006 through 2008 broadcast years.