Just noticed on the CRTC website that Dufferin/Evanov is applying to the CRTC to add an FM rebroadcaster for their AM station 530 CHLO. They are proposing use the frequency of their former station CIRR-FM Toronto (103.9), with the transmitter located at their present site near Ashgrove, ON.

The coverage area of the new FM would be very small, however. Apparently they will use a highly directional antenna aimed generally east, with a maximum ERP of only 210 watts. According to the map they provided, the 3 mV (primary) coverage would not even reach Brampton. The 0.5 mV (secondary) coverage would include Brampton and most of Mississauga, but that's about it.

Just got back from there myself. I haven't been inside any radio stations in recent years, so it was nice to see. Back in 1969 or 70 (I was 10 or 11 years old at the time) I had a tour of the building, and thought it was the coolest thing ever. That tour influenced me to eventually take up broadcast engineering as a career.

This time I was hoping that I might recognize anything from the last tour but, alas, with the TV part gone the building has changed around quite a bit.

I did meet up with a couple of fellow SOWNYers. Nice to put faces to the names!

If Bell ends up having to abandon the 1010 transmitter site, the simplest solution might be to move programming over to 1050. Either share with TSN (e.g. news-talk during the day and sports-talk at night) or lose the sports altogether. Neither station has any significant ratings.

Let me just point out that all North American television runs at 29.97 frames per second. The UK is 25 frames per second and, yes, for 24 fps source material (like movies) they will simply speed it up slightly to 25 fps. My guess is that Heated Rivalry was originally shot at 24 fps and offered to the UK in that format.

In North America, any UK show (25 fps) or movie (24 fps) is frame-rate-converted to 29.97 fps. The speed is not changed.

Whenever I tune in to the news via Global OTA, it shows "Headlines from Donn Mills". Obviously there's a lack of due care and attention by whoever updates that data at Global. I find Canadian broadcasters (except CBC) put very little effort into these program descriptions. CHCH OTA has been showing nothing but "DTV Program" for the past several days.

My first major concert was there in 1977: Genesis, with Max Webster and Brand X as the openers. It was awesome, and still ranks as one of the best concerts I ever attended.

Interestingly, I was listening to Kim Mitchell one day when he was doing afternoon drive on Q107. He talked about that night and said he and his bandmates were blown away by the experience as well.

Wow. Everything old is new again. My first full-time engineering gig was at 89X (actually CHUM Group Windsor which also included CKLW, CKWW, and The River) back in the 90's. It was neat to work there. It was the heyday of 89X and the music was right in my wheelhouse. Between the four stations, the staff numbered around 50, and about half were American (most of whom commuted daily from Detroit). Famous musicians and bands occasionally stopped in for live performances. Good times.

RadioAaron wrote:

You've got tourist-ear.

That's a great term. Over the years I'd noticed that whenever I moved to a new location, the local stations always sounded fantastic, at first. But after 2 or 3 weeks the magic would wear off and the stations became just as ordinary as at my previous location.

Not that Campaign Desk doesn't have valid points, but I think that you need to listen to a station for at least 3 weeks before making any points about what they are doing right or wrong.
 

My first on-air radio gig was at CKOT back in the '80s. The commercial mix was about 75% local, 25% national. We did a lot of local remotes. The AM station had religious programming for a hour a day, but was Top 40 music and farm reports the rest of the day. (And off air at sunset!) The FM station was easy listening, but the announcers chose their own music with no real restrictions. It was also a very "traditional" workplace: no jeans, 6-day work week, federal minimum wage.

At the time I thought the station and the town were quite backward for a boy who had grown up in the big city of Hamilton, and I didn't stay long.

Today, in a radio world awash with automated generic music formats programmed from some distant conglomerate headquarters, going "local" will, I think, be the key to success. A station with local announcers and local commercials can offer something that no generic station, nor music streaming service, can provide--a connection to where you live. 1980's CKOT could probably do quite well in today's world.

The down side, of course, is that a local radio station is very expensive to operate. All those announcers, production people, commercial writers, etc. have to be paid! So the question is, while a local station will likely have a good audience, will it be viable financially? I hope so.

Best of luck with your new acquisitions, Jon!

Chuckling ... as an engineer I've been on the receiving end of occasional blowups! I never took it personally and worked as hard as I could to resolve the issue. People in this business are highly self-motivated and want to do the best they can, and frustrations can boil over on occasion. But it's also the people that make it such a fun place to work.

I'm guessing that some or all of the religious/ethnic programming currently on their Oakville AM stations will end up on the new FM stations. The AM transmitter site is on Dundas St. near the border between Oakville and Mississauga, a prime urban development area. I imagine they will be shutting down the AMs and selling the land to finance the purchase of the FMs.

Like rats fighting over the last chunk of pizza while the ship continues to sink. (Sorry about the laboured metaphor!) Linear channels just get more and more expensive and offer less and less decent programming. The world continues to move to streaming, where you can choose what you want to watch, and when. All of the channels they're fighting over will be gone in a couple of years, I predict.

newsguy1 wrote:

I'm alarmed at the enormous skreeds all of you are writing on this thread.
No offence but it's a colossal waste of effort.
Trump is only going to be around for four years, and might even die or become incompetent before that.
Any idea how long a process it would be for Canada and the US to merge?
That process could take decades of the most complicated legal and economic wrangling the world has ever known.
 

You're right, Canada will never become the 51st state. However, Trump may well force, through economic sanctions, Canada to make changes that benefit the U.S. In the broadcast realm, he may demand the Online News Act be repealed, or an end to restrictions on foreign ownership of Canadian media and telecom companies. That's a real concern.
 

I noticed that the Conservatives chose to release a video instead of holding a press conference. That's clever, as news programs are forced to air the video as is, and reporters are denied the opportunity to ask Pollieve any difficult questions. An excellent way to control the message through the media.

Fitz wrote:

Here is some audio of CKOT from 1991. The same tape also has a show called the Beat of the Band from CFCA and a country station from London called BX 93 both of which are from 1980. Cant remember when or how I obtained the tape.

CKOT 1991

 
Long time lurker, first time poster!

That clip was interesting to hear. I worked there for a short time about 4 years before that clip was made. I recognized the voices, though I've long forgotten the names.

We had a young high school student working the evening shift (AM side) part time. His name was Mike Epple--yes, that one. I used to annouce "Coming up next, the Big Epple!" when my shift was ending.