Lake Laberge resident Pete Beattie doesn't want to lose the CBC Radio One 570 AM frequency.

For almost 30 years, the service has provided him with a link to matters of public interest and concern, even while attending to his remote traplines in the Dawson City and Mayo areas, he said in an interview Tuesday.

Beattie and others are circulating a petition to save the AM service which they expect to deliver to the House of Commons on Friday. They are also planning a second petition to be delivered to the Yukon legislature this fall.

Beattie said even though CBC will be replacing the 570 service with a new FM signal, the FM service will not come close to the number of rural Yukoners who now receive the AM signal.

"There is going to be quite a few people affected by not having that AM service anymore."

CBC Whitehorse is switching to an FM signal after the City of Whitehorse insisted it move its radio tower and associated infrastructure off of the Porter Creek lower bench, the site of the new Whistlebend subdivision.

The city flatly rejected CBC's offer to downsize its footprint on the lower bench from 19 hectares to three hectares.

City hall insisted there was no option but for the broadcaster to move and make way for the subdivision. Whistlebend is expected to serve the city's urban needs for the next 20 years, with initial occupancy scheduled for 2012.

The CBC has said it cannot financially justify relocating the AM service, particularly when FM infrastructure already exists on Grey Mountain to supply the corporation's Radio Two service, infrastructure than can also be used to broadcast the current 570 AM service.

The fact of the matter, Beattie said, is that FM signals are not nearly as strong as AM signals, and do not cover anywhere near the same area.

He chuckles when he recalled how, on his Mayo trapline, the Voice of God channel out of Fairbanks, which is pushed along by a 50,000-watt AM signal, comes in as clear as a bell.

So does the 5,000-watt 570 signal out of Whitehorse, he said.

AM signals, Beattie explained, are stronger because of how they are generated.

He said at the site of the lower bench, for instance, there are a couple of acres of cable buried underground to help boost the AM signal.

Residents of rural communities, he acknowledged, will be able to pick up the new FM feed, but will lose it quickly on their way out of town.

Beattie said he's heard the Yukon's Emergency Measure Organization is also expressing concern over the loss of the AM service and its ability to reach into the hinterland. EMO officials, however, were unavailable for comment today.

The petition to the House of Commons asks "that Parliament permanently maintain AM transmission from Whitehorse, Yukon (one of Canada's 13 capital cities) so that every rural Yukoner will be able to tune into CBC."

Beattie said he'll be affected by the switch to FM at his home on Shallow Bay, at the south end of Lake Laberge.

He suspects there are a lot of Yukoners who are not yet aware of the impending loss of their radio service out of Whitehorse - even though the CBC began broadcasting formal notifications late last month.

As someone who doesn't pay a lot of attention to subdivision planning by the City of Whitehorse, Beattie didn't know the CBC is getting evicted from the Porter Creeak lower bench until recently, and that CBC is planning to discontinue AM service as a result.

There is likely a significant number of listeners out there who still don't know, he said.

John Agnew, CBC's managing director for the North, said the corporation recognized there would be implications if the switch was made. It wanted to keep the facility on the lower bench, though the city wouldn't agree, he emphasized today from his head office in Yellowknife.

He said it's not financially feasible to relocate the AM infrastructure, with its requirement for a large area of underground cable and such.

Agnew pointed out the existing CRTC broadcasting licence requires the Whitehorse station to provide a signal strong enough to reach residents within a 20-kilometres radius of the broadcast tower.

The fact that the signal goes well beyond the licence requirement currently is essentially a fringe benefit, but not a requirement, he said.

Agnew said the FM signal will meet the existing licence requirements.

The CRTC is currently considering the CBC request for the switch to FM, budgeted at $750,000, though it appears to be pretty straightforward and the corporation isn't anticipating anything major coming from the decision, he said.

Agnew noted there was no public hearing into the application.

CBC Whitehorse is planning to kick off its new 570 FM service in August, while maintaining the AM service, he pointed out. The AM service,

Agnew explained, will go off the air in October.

He said through the simultaneous broadcasting in August, the CBC will obtain a much better idea of who will and won't lose the service. If the signal can be boosted further with adjustments that are financially reasonable, it will be, he said.

"We have to work within financial parameters here."

As for the loss of emergency broadcast service, Agnew said he's not sure what kind of communications plan EMO officials have currently for Yukoners who do not get radio reception, so he's not sure what they have in mind for after the switch.

In Nunavut, he pointed out, there is a lot of communication by shortwave radio.