I agree with Carolyn, any person or business can make a mistake so phoning the radio station would have been the sensible and quickest thing to do.
I thought this was a RIDICULOUS story. This Chris Brennan was it, who was talking about "if something happened" bla bla and "prosecuting may happen". Well, NOTHING DID HAPPEN and he needs to take a common sense & decency pill!! This small group of people trying to do a good thing for locals and then people in suits come along and try and squash them with PC bull. This is another example of NZ going madly over the BL**DY top about nothing.If something HAD happened and it was done on purpose or it was my family that needed help, then yes, I'd be very annoyed, and maybe THEN support a large fine.BUT NOTHING HAPPENED!! and I'm sure just the thought of a 30k fine has taught them a lesson. Maybe the man who actually fitted the transmitter is to blame?? Ridiculous
Why did they let this continue for four hours when all they had to do was pick up the phone and contact the radio station the minute they sensed a problem! Duh!!!! Not the radio's fault as this was not malicious intent.
The point is their transmitter was causing interference to emergency service communications. If an emergency response to my family members was delayed because of this broadcaster I would be more than annoyed. By all means let the small voluntary broadcast stations have their piece of spectrum, but they need to employ basic engineering practice to make sure their transmissions don't interfere with other services, especially emergency services.
Imagine you required urgent police protection or support, and the message copuld not get through due to the police comms being interferred with.I agree with the MED, send what ever message they want. As a station license holder, it is their responsibility to ensure their transmissions stay within the parameters of their operating license and do not interfere with any other radio service at all. That is the reason for a license. They may not get the maximum fine of $30,000, but it shows the MED/RSM is out and about and ready to prosecute violators.GO Chris Brennan!!YES MED does promote small business, but the small business has guidelines to operate within, which must be regulated.
I am very disgusted with the view MED has about the prosecution of a small time radio station in Christchurch. Admittedly it has caused some disruption to police communications but surely there is opportunity to cut the Not-For-Profit volunteer radio station with a 5 km range a break. For the spokesman to be saying that this is a deterrent for other operator’s just sounds like using this case as a way of making some point to other stations but the impact of prosecution for the station is closure. I have to think that if this was another station with access to high powered legal council then MED would only be giving them a warning. It is a pity that a small enterprise providing a service to its customers cannot afford to have a problem without our government falling on them from a great height. But wait isn’t MED here to promote small enterprise.