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Why Toronto Radio Listings Once Didn't Include Just Toronto
Found this on an old Toronto Star radio listing from July 1931, back when the medium was still very young. In addition to publishing the schedule for what local stations existed back then, they also put out the distant stations most listeners were expected to be able to get here. Those were the days when DXing offered fewer choices, but I suspect also a lot less interference.
I thought it was interesting to see what they included in their roster of distant stations. Some odd anomalies here. They have CFRB sharing a frequency with a CN radio station. WKBW is at 1490. WHAM in Rochester is located at 1150 on the dial while CKOC is at 1010.
Farther away, WBBM Chicago is said to be at 770 AM, (with future WABC found at 860) while what would be the Big 89, WLS in future years, is printed as being at 870.
Everything is also upside down in Detroit, where WJR is at 750, WWJ occupies 920 on the dial and WXYZ was at 1240.
Not sure how many of these were actually their real positions or misprints, because things moved around a lot on early radio over the years. But what a different looking dial than DXers know today, which is what makes it so amazing to see now. 
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Re: Why Toronto Radio Listings Once Didn't Include Just Toronto
Also worth noting that the only Toronto station that existed back then and is still around today is CFRB. The rest have either changed dial positions and call letters or more likely ceased to exist at all. Understandable, I suppose, because it was 93 years ago!
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Thread Starter- Hansa
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Re: Why Toronto Radio Listings Once Didn't Include Just Toronto
CPRY and CNRX were phantom stations of the CNR and CPR radio networks. They would lease time on CKGW (which later became CBL) and CFRB. CKCL was bought by Jack Kent Cooke who changed the call letters to CKEY. CKNC went on to become CJBC.
Last edited by Hansa (May 28, 2024 12:10 am)
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Re: Why Toronto Radio Listings Once Didn't Include Just Toronto
Fascinating to know. And I believe CFCA belonged to the Toronto Star, which briefly flirted with radio but ultimately decided to get out of the business. I often wonder if they ever regretted that when the medium was at its peak.
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Thread Starter- Hansa
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Re: Why Toronto Radio Listings Once Didn't Include Just Toronto
CFCA was Toronto's first radio station and was owned by the Toronto Daily Star but Joe Atkinson thought there was no future in private radio and that the federal government was going to follow the UK's example and cancel all private radio licenses in favour of a publicly owned monopoly, so he refused to invest any money in improving or updating CFCA's equipment or boosting it beyond 100 Watts - and just closed down the station in 1933.
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Re: Why Toronto Radio Listings Once Didn't Include Just Toronto
March 29, 1941 aka "Moving Day" was the day that the North American Radio Broadcasting Agreement took effect. It was negotiated between The U.S. Canada and Mexico. Not only did radio stations move to the frequencies we are familiar with today, the AM band was extended from 1500 to 1600. In addition. this was the year that frequency's were divided into clear channel, regional and local categories. The Clears would have complete dominance on their frequencys at night until May 1980, when the FCC voted to limit their skywave protection to 750 miles from the transmitter site.