Re: AM 600 Montreal

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Kevin wrote:
>
> Posing a question that nobody has ever been able to answer for me. CIQC
>(CFCF) has been on the air since 1919 and might very well be the oldest
>commercial station in North America. Given that, how did they get stuck
>with such an awful nightime signal?

Actually, there is a good case to be made for XWA (which is what CIQC/CFCF
was originally called, being on before the much more famous KDKA and WWJ
(but my guys at WGI/1XE were on too!!!).  If I recall the agreement made in
1928 around the time of the now famous Radio Act, the Canadian stations were
very bitter about the frequencies and patterns they were allocated, and
equally angry that the US government decided where the Canadian stations
(which were very few in number compared to US stations) could and could not
direct their night signals.  There was no agency in Canada yet comparable to
the FCC, and from books that I have read, this was part of the problem--
there was no major force to go to Washington and advocate strongly for the
needs of Canadian radio.  And as you know from silly rules that keep
stations like WILD from being on at night, once you create an agreement to
'protect' certain signals, tradition sets in, and even a silly rule becomes
difficult to change...  [A good book, still in print, about the history, and
the problems, of Canadian radio is "Listening In" by Prof. Mary Vipond...] 

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