The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » AM640 & The Sounds Of Silence

RadioActive · June 26, 2017 5:35 pm

Talk about great moments in bad timing. Next to your AM drive, there can't be a worse time to have technical difficulties. But that's what happened Monday afternoon, when AM 640 went off the air just after 5 PM. They remained with regular programming on their web feed (ironically the Topics Worthy of Discussion apparently didn't include what happened to their signal) but as of this posting (now around 5:30) they've been silent for more than half an hour.

They at least felt it was a good idea to mention it on their Twitter feed:

"AM640 is currently experiencing an issue with our on-air signal. In the meantime, please consider listening online: http://www.640toronto.com "

The carrier is there on the frequency, but for whatever reason, the link to the studio is gone. It's not rare for a technical snafu to hit a radio station, but it's very odd to have it last this long in the middle of the all important afternoon drive.

cGrant · June 26, 2017 5:40 pm

The question is: will anyone notice? Maybe Corus can do themselves a favour and not bother fixing the STL.

RadioActive · June 26, 2017 5:47 pm

Charlie wrote:
Listening to my pocket radio while walking the Lab this afternoon, I was listening to 640 when it went silent. 20 minutes later, I checked back, and still nothing. Hate to admit it, but the first thing I thought was "Would they actually pull the plug on this low-rated station mid-show?" Apparently not, for which I am glad.

Oddly, I noticed it while out walking my border collie. So it looks like it can truthfully be said that AM640 is going to the dogs!

RadioActive · June 26, 2017 5:56 pm

He's too smart to listen to AM 640. He leaves that to me!

ig · June 26, 2017 6:10 pm

When CKO abruptly left the airwaves one of the guys in the newsroom quipped 'at least the Titanic went down playing music.."

RadioActive · June 26, 2017 6:16 pm

ig wrote:
When CKO abruptly left the airwaves one of the guys in the newsroom quipped 'at least the Titanic went down playing music.."

Ah yes, CKO. The station that was beaten to the announcement of their own demise, when the old CKEY broke the story before they did!

ig · June 26, 2017 6:58 pm

RadioActive wrote:
ig wrote:
When CKO abruptly left the airwaves one of the guys in the newsroom quipped 'at least the Titanic went down playing music.."
Ah yes, CKO. The station that was beaten to the announcement of their own demise, when the old CKEY broke the story before they did!

Wonder which unHappy staffer could have let that news leak.

RadioActive · June 26, 2017 7:08 pm

I'm sure there was no shortage of suspects!

I had a lot of friends who worked at CKO and I remember trying to get them on the phone when the news was released. (This was long before the cell phone era.) I'll never forget dialing the switchboard's main number and just listening to it ring and ring and ring, with no answer, while empty carrier remained on at 991 FM.

It was a very eerie feeling.

RadioActive · June 26, 2017 8:01 pm

Finally back on, around 8 PM. That's a three hour outage, a very long and loud silence.

ig · June 26, 2017 9:30 pm

RadioActive wrote:
Finally back on, around 8 PM. That's a three hour outage, a very long and loud silence.

Our thoughts are with the poor traffic people tomorrow morning . If ever there was a day to call in sick .

splunge · June 26, 2017 9:42 pm

maybe the sound of silence will increase 640s ratings? Try anything once.

ig · June 26, 2017 9:46 pm

splunge wrote:
maybe the sound of silence will increase 640s ratings? Try anything once.

Cue Eric Swan.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naXMPbd2pJ4

jon · June 27, 2017 12:49 am

Too bad about the carrier. Corus-owned iNews880 in Edmonton went off the air for over an hour ending just before 6pm one afternoon a few months back, not long after the long-time Chief Engineer retired. No carrier, so got to hear WWL-870 in New Orleans for the first time since I moved here in 1975, plus a bunch of other stations that are normally impossible.

DeepTracks · June 27, 2017 6:32 am

ig wrote:
splunge wrote:
maybe the sound of silence will increase 640s ratings? Try anything once.
Cue Eric Swan.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naXMPbd2pJ4

Ah yes...fond memories

mace · June 27, 2017 10:22 am

When ever a local station is silenced by "technical difficulties" the dxer in me thinks " Excellent Smithers" What distant stations can I pick up? One morning last year, CFRB was silent after 5AM. No Early Edition or John Moore. I got to listen to WINS until I got to work at 5:45. They were still silent. WINS had a good signal but not as strong as WCBS. In 1977, when I was living in Hamilton, CFTR was silent for a few hours in the middle of the night. I picked up WPTR in Raleigh which I expected. However, when I turned my radio in the opposite direction I got a "listenable but not strong" signal from KNBR in San Francisco. KNBR responded to my letter with a nice reception confirmation on heavy legal bond paper and glossy coloured maps of their daytime and nighttime coverage areas.

ig · June 27, 2017 10:29 am

Hey when the pattern change used to be manual, and I was on the board, apparently there were some mornings when WINS had more listeners than us .

Admitting to nothing

ig.

mace wrote:
When ever a local station is silenced by "technical difficulties" the dxer in me thinks " Excellent Smithers" What distant stations can I pick up? One morning last year, CFRB was silent after 5AM. No Early Edition or John Moore. I got to listen to WINS until I got to work at 5:45. They were still silent. WINS had a good signal but not as strong as WCBS. In 1977, when I was living in Hamilton, CFTR was silent for a few hours in the middle of the night. I picked up WPTR in Raleigh which I expected. However, when I turned my radio in the opposite direction I got a "listenable but not strong" signal from KNBR in San Francisco. KNBR responded to my letter with a nice reception confirmation on heavy legal bond paper and glossy coloured maps of their daytime and nighttime coverage areas.

June 27, 2017 12:31 pm

They could have gone off the air on the infamous day known as "9/11" and stayed off 'til right up to this very second and I never would have noticed. The Marcel Marceau 'version' works well...perhaps pounding Paul and Artie to the curb.

RadioActive · June 27, 2017 12:58 pm

jon wrote:
Too bad about the carrier. Corus-owned iNews880 in Edmonton went off the air for over an hour ending just before 6pm one afternoon a few months back, not long after the long-time Chief Engineer retired. No carrier, so got to hear WWL-870 in New Orleans for the first time since I moved here in 1975, plus a bunch of other stations that are normally impossible.

While I agree with you about the continuous carrier being unfortunate (if you're going to be off the air, you might as well save on the hydro!) I should point out that it happened between 5 PM and 8 PM (sounds like a line for Jack Bauer on "24") so it was well before darkness when any other radio stations would have come in.

Most likely it might have boosted the chance of hearing CFCO at 630 better but that's about it.

Having said that, I recall the time when there WAS no 640 in Toronto and one very early morning hearing KFI in Los Angeles through tons of static. It only happened once, but I still remember it to this day. (I also got KCBS in Frisco when the old CBC 740 used to sign off, but that, too, only happened once.)

Now there's so much noise in the city it's almost impossible to even get the local stations clearly anymore.

June 27, 2017 1:16 pm

Charlie wrote:
Speaking of Peter Shurman, too bad he's not back filling in for Tasha again today

You can never go wrong with Dial-a-Deal on 560 CFOS

NW · June 27, 2017 7:07 pm

Yes. CFCO was much easier to hear with 640 on open carrier. Perhaps after sunset it might have been possible to hear some "exotic" like WHLO-Akron through the carrier. And Nashville on 650 would have been much better without the splatter.