CANADIAN RADIO NEWS – Jon Pearkins jon@pearkins.com
530 ON Brampton CHLO HD (hybrid/IBOC) transmissions have resumed according to several DXers in the area. The station previously suffered transmitter damage that saw them discontinue HD. CHLO is the only remaining station in Canada on 530; all others have either moved to FM or failed to renew their licenses. During the last major rebuilt of the transmitter site, nearly 20 years ago, owner Evanov explored all possible options to create a decent signal into all areas of Toronto. The international treaty governing broadcasting in most of North America was found to set a maximum of 1000 watts day and 250 watts night non-directional for stations on 530, to avoid interference with existing airport beacons just below
530. With no other restrictions stated, Evanov opted to build a very tall tower to adequately serve the majority of their ethnic audience who live in Toronto and its suburbs. The recent addition of HD was done in hopes of eliminating background noise in RFI-plagued areas of Toronto.
680 MB Winnipeg CJOB Owner Corus has two FM stations in Winnipeg, CFPG-FM and CJKR-FM. Corus just eliminated the announcers on CFPG-FM, promising a new format soon. Nonetheless it is widely
speculated that the move is part of the preparations for the station to become a simulcast of CJOB once a CRTC decision is made on Calgary AB Corus station CHQR’s surprise move to simulcast full-time on CFGQ-FM at the beginning of this year, without appropriate CRTC licensing in place. Corus is also expected to move to FM simulcasts of CHED Edmonton AB and CKNW New Westminster BC. As for the rest of the Corus AM stations, not all are planned for FM simulcasts but are more likely to be shut down as Bell did with most of its Western Canada AM stations. Of course, a few will remain as is when both the current AM and FM stations are financially viable.
1220 ON St Catharines CFAJ The live two host morning show did debut at 0600 September 25th, with their own Newsman providing News and Sports. The show was not aired the next morning but has since resumed, along with the Afternoon Drive program.
The station’s classic1220.ca web site has promised more hosted programming for the near future, including Rockin Rewind and The X-Zone, covering similar topics to Coast to Coast AM. It originally aired on competitor CKTB-610 and is promised to be, appropriately, just in time for Hallowe’en.
1330 SK Rosetown CJYM Full-time simulcasting of CFYM-1210 Kindersley SK was confirmed by checking the streaming web sites of both stations during their weekday Morning Show. Both stations were playing the same song at the same time.
Canadian Radio News (CRN) posts on https://radiowest.ca by Dan Sys provide much of the information for this column, with additional tips from https://sowny.net
IRCA DX Monitor Oct 7, published Oct 2 via WOR iog (2023-10-03 )