markow202 wrote:

navaidstech wrote:

markow202 wrote:

Oh ok.  Being AM I wonder if its a new single tower or something else.  I remember the airport 1280AM CFYZ back in the day used a "umbrella" type antenna atop a maintenance building of theirs.  
 

It's a fibreglass whip with a Valcosphere on top. It is located in a trucking yard, on the east side of the Husky gas station (Courtney/Kennedy). You really can't miss it as you're driving on Courtneypark.
In the picture above, you have to go past the gate on the right (good luck, it is motorized with security staff on site), then make a left and go all the way to the end. The transmitter shack and the antenna are located about 100 feet behind a safety fence. The fence is there to protect people from getting too close to the antenna. It is also an area where they buried the ground plane to increase antenna's efficiency so obviously they don't want anyone driving on top of it.

Very cool! I'll have a look again when in the area. Upon a google search of this info it appears to be a proprietary system made by a company called Valcom for AM antennas.   Do you work for them? 

You are correct! The antenna is made by Valcom out of Guelph and the transmitter is made by Nautel which is a very well known maker of LF and BCB transmitters. They're located in Nova Scotia and Maine.
I don't work for either of the two companies but know their products very well since they have been extensively used in my line of work (ground based air navigation beacons, amongst many others).
 

Here is the CKNT antenna as seen from Courtneypark. Took this pic on the way from work this afternoon.

markow202 wrote:

navaidstech wrote:

Here is the CKNT antenna as seen from Courtneypark. Took this pic on the way from work this afternoon.

Cool looks like a flagpole! 

Pretty inconspicuous, eh?

navaidstech wrote:

Here is the CKNT antenna as seen from Courtneypark. Took this pic on the way from work this afternoon.

How expensive would that antenna and mast be to install and operate over the year?  It must be able to effectively cover a small town, no?  If you had one in say Newmarket, then I'm sure Bradford, Oak Ridges and Aurora would be reachable, no?
 

Last edited by Jody Thornton (June 25, 2018 7:32 pm)

Chuck99 wrote:

You can see why that site was used for the tower and transmitter installation.  It appears to be a Hydro One corridor, so enough land was available.

This would have been a perfect location for it. We used to have a Non Directional Beacon where that square property is. It has been decommissioned probably around 15 years ago and the property has been sitting vacant ever since. Fully serviced (hydro) and I'm willing to bet the old antenna counterpoise is still buried in the ground.

Last edited by navaidstech (June 25, 2018 10:29 pm)

For a station that spent seven years before finally just making it to air with a signal, this doesn't comes as a surprise. Despite the fact that a rep told me their target date to start regular programming was July 1st, I've been tuning 960 in and out all day and they're still in testing mode. 

It never really made much sense for a news/talk outfit to begin on a Sunday, let alone Canada Day, when there's not a lot to talk about and few would be listening anyway. (Although if they wanted to be clever, they could have done "Birth of a nation, birth of a station." But they didn't.)

I have no idea when they're actually going to end their tests and start with whatever passes for regular programming. But after admitting to me they haven't even hired many staff members as of two weeks ago, it's not a surprise that the longest-to-get-to-air station in history didn't start when it planned to.

As to when the magic date actually is, I have to wonder if even they know.   

All they said is that they would "on the air" by July 1.  Not necessarily live.    Hell, they could be "testing" for years.

For what it's worth, I was driving home from Guelph at about 3 a.m. Sunday Morning and thought I'd check the signal out along the 401.  Could pick it up fine in Milton when the thought crossed my mind.  What really surprised me is what they were playing...

YouTube videos!  Brightside YouTube logic puzzle videos complete with the "click here to subscribe" at the end.   There was a blurb talking about CKNT testing between each one.  Now, they are in a testing phase and it would make sense to broadcast some spoken word content if they are primarily going to air spoken word content, but it just seemed odd.

And, I'm sorry.  Without their own domain or website and using a gmail address, it's hard to  think of this as a professional enterprise.
 

First, I'll presume they need a certain amount of time to test the signal before they can honour their programming commitments. Say by Labour Day or early fall. That's entirely reasonable IMO.

But, just for the sake of asking the question - if the aforementioned testing should go on and on, say beyond mid-fall, would the CRTC haul them on the carpet for non-compliance? If so, at what point might the CRTC begin to get antsy?
 

Saul wrote:

...if the aforementioned testing should go on and on

Well this sort of thing has been happening in Montreal with TTP on 600 & 940. They say they are lauching soon but.....
 

Last night around 11pm in-car could barely receive their signal when I tried in Etobicoke (Eglinton/427 area) - other signals were mashing in - it was also a very good DX signal kind of night as my OTA tv was picking up CTV London and City-31 Woodstock medium signal quality in Etobicoke.

navaidstech wrote:

Well....just found on-air testing expires on July 9th. 
After that date, we will be doing some testing with the station engineers to make sure it doesn't impact any of our stuff at the airport (kinda moot now). Expect tones, tunes and what not... will keep you posted.
 

Well the last thing we would want to hear is some airplane issues or furthur delays in flights due to this lovely station lol

navaidstech wrote:

it wasn't until close to the 407/404 interchange when I could actually hear CKNT.

Is there an area where the station SHOULD be reaching, but does not? 

 

Last edited by Radiowiz (July 7, 2018 4:54 pm)

fybush wrote:

Out here on the other side of the lake, I was out for a drive along the Lake Ontario shoreline west of Rochester over the weekend and punched up 960 to see if I could hear it. The answer was not only "yes," but "surprisingly well, actually." Signal started to be audible out around Hamlin Beach State Park, once I was clear of the adjacent-channel hash from WROC 950 (the old WBBF) in Rochester itself, and it remained good out to the end of the Lake Ontario State Parkway midway across Orleans County. If I'd kept heading west, I expect CKNT would have started to disappear under the HD sidebands from Buffalo's WDCZ 970 once I entered that station's narrow directional beam.

What time was that at?

Blame, or attribute, the noise you hear to likely be PWM circuitry driving your car's LEDs.

A decent explanation can be read here  https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/164078/why-is-pwm-used-to-control-leds-even-when-theyre-only-used-on-or-off  

All of this high rate  "switching" I have to believe causes harmonics reaching up into the AM band.

 

When I asked the woman who answers that phone number given on air if they had a full staff - this was on June 19th - she admitted they hadn't hired everybody and were still looking at resumes.

I got the impression they had almost no staff and when I asked her how they could possibly sign on by Canada Day (which she told me was the target date) she insisted they would be ready. 

Meanwhile, the testing continues. And continues. And continues. They're testing all right - our patience!