Musings About MHR Canada: Excerpt #10

In the early days of the 1980’s and into the 90’s, the members of the board of MHR Canada were, what the younger generation today might call, backward and old fashioned. (But who wasn’t that long ago in comparison with the electronics today?) We weren’t stupid in any sense of the term but most of us were still quite computer illiterate. All of our bookkeeping was done in a paper leger book and taxable receipts sent out as hand written documents by our first treasurer, Mr. Percy Gillespie. When I became treasurer, our beloved Mr. Gillespie brought over all the financial records in a shoebox; all wonderfully organized! Who needs computers anyway? (Oops, I do.)

In other areas, we were forward thinkers – in fact, in our own defense, you may be informed that we were the fathers of the Mars Hill Radio internet broadcasting connection. With limited equipment but surplus zeal, an elaborate system was devised to connect the WMHI signal to the world-wide web. How you ask? I’m glad you did… it was rudimentary but effective for the early 90’s. Our then board member, Brett Lockerbie, kept a radio in his basement tuned to the 94.7 signal for 24/7. This was then connected to a computer which captured the sound and relayed it by telephone to our web server where it was transferred to the internet. Hey, it worked! And you wanna know what? While it wasn’t a station in Toronto as per the Wyllie’s dream, streaming on the net did get the Christian broadcasting of WMR not only into Toronto but into the world!

When government requirements demanded more information about the album and artist being played in the music segments of MHN programming, it became more than we could handle. Thankfully, the Syracuse office, with their expertise and available equipment, took up the baton and has carried the internet connection since around 2009. And they’re doing a better job of it than we ever could. Thank you, Syracuse!

Submitted by Hank Blok
Secretary-treasurer, Mars Hill Radio Canada