Jeeze I hope things are coming along...

I've been taking Tamil language lessons the past 8 months and I've brushed up on my swimming too...

On a far more serious note I just found out last week that one of my old workmates at CHSC had passed...

I shared  the morning news run with Frank Fanstone when I first arrived at CHSC in 1974. Frank was a native of Niagara Falls and I knew he had been having health issues but I only recently heard of his passing.  He was 65. Too young...

R.I.P. Frank
 

Sorry to hear about Frank's passing. Worked with Frank as well. I did the all night show Midnight to six at CHSC. Frank would arrive around 5 AM to prepare for his morning news shift with Jim Marino. Gone to soon!

Last edited by peter.spyksma@rogers.com (February 8, 2017 8:59 am)

Chuck99 wrote:

With 2 perennial money losers on the FM band at 105.1 and 101.1 in Niagara Falls and Fort Erie, the idea of starting a new station on the AM band in the same region seems insane to me, unless your are looking for a big tax write-off.

The two FM's in Niagara might actually be scraping by, or one might be a tax write off while the other makes all the money, (each complimenting each other as to never be a threat to each other's revenue)
but it's very difficult to stand alone and only be one station with no income to declare.
Especially on AM.

I have not been to St. Catharines Ontario in a while.
Is there a good enough population count there listening to AM 740 for lack of a better (Canadian) choice?
Or are they already glued to the Grand FM?
That's the other thing...1220 had a chance to snatch up staff from the former CKOC but Grand beat them to it!
 


 

Last edited by Radiowiz (February 18, 2018 9:18 pm)

If you really want a genuine belly-laugh, when in the Cobourg-area (the nation's hospital shooting capital) tune to 89.7 from some bargain-basement amateur-hour nonsense. Especially, Wednesday mornings @ 10 for someone that even Cable 10 would say is not ready for prime time.  This individual thinks of himself as punny but, in actuality, comes across as a bingo-caller that has hot coals in his jockstrap.

RadioActive wrote:

I thought I read they planned to use at least some of the existing CHSC facilities. Shouldn't that have allowed them to get on air faster? Or are they actually starting from scratch?

A fair analogy would be how much longer it takes to re-build a long-abandoned historical building than it would to bulldoze and start over.  Not just from not being maintained, but mainly from having to meet today's building standards.  One big example is asbestos:  if you don't touch a building, you don't have to replace the asbestos.  But many types of changes to an existing building would require that all the asbestos be removed.

A few years ago, CKUA-AM in Edmonton was faced with several million to get their transmitter site up to new Industry Canada standards, so they surrendered the license before the deadline for upgrades, and lived with the loss of coverage in areas not covered by their simulcast FM transmitters.  Since we are talking about the same period of time, I suspect the CHSC transmitter site would not be allowed back on the air with the new Industry Canada rules likely mandatory by now.  Who knows what changes to the studios might have triggered the requirement to meet current building code?
 

The article talks about the station signing on in 1967.  Not long after, a friend from Buffalo drove around St. Catharines at night and said that, in the West half of the City, CHSC reception was good.  In the other half, WGAR Cleveland was dominant on 1220.

Ah, just checked Vane Jones log ("North American TV/Radio Station Guide") from 1968, and I see why:  CHSC only ran 500 watts at night in those days, and had to protect WNIA-1230 located in a Buffalo suburb.