NorthEast Radio Watch 8/25: NERW On The Road!

[Scott D Fybush <fybush@world.std.com>]

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--------------------------NorthEast Radio Watch--------------------------
                             August 25, 2000

IN THIS ISSUE:

*SPECIAL ISSUE: NERW On The Road - Ottawa, Northern NY, South Jersey

-----------------------------by Scott Fybush-----------------------------
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*August in the Northeast...and that means the NERW-mobile has been
logging plenty of miles surveying the radio scene from Hull to Cape
May.  In this special issue, we'll recount the details of our travels
over the past few weeks.

*Phase one of the NERW travels began on the road up to Canada, which
turns out to be heavily under construction.  (This public service
announcement to anyone heading north on I-81 at night: You'll spend
something like two hours waiting to get over the Thousand Islands
Bridge; use 37 or 12 to the Ogdensburg bridge instead.  Now back to
our programming...)  

Once we had detoured to Ogdensburg, crossed into Canada, arrived
long past midnight in Brockville, and gotten some sleep, it was time
to begin checking out the morning radio dial, which looked something
like this:

830 CFJR adult contemporary
102.1 CBOF-FM-7 Radio-Canada premiere chaine
103.7 CHXL classic rock "The River"

Of course, there's plenty more to hear in the Brockville area than
just the locals; we had no problem taping the Ottawa FMs from 80 km or
so away, not to mention much of St. Lawrence County, New York, just
across the river.  (More on that market as we continue our journey...)

Back to Brockville, though: After spotting the CBOF-FM-7 stick along
the river northeast of town, we retraced our steps out the former
provincial highway 29, past the CFJR/CHXL studios, and out to the
three-tower CFJR array, which dates back to the station's mid-80s
frequency change from 1450.  

Continuing north on 29, we came to Smiths Falls, where we nervously
hit "scan" on the AM dial to see whether CJET had made the move off
630 yet.  The news, in this case, was good: The station's move to 92.3
hadn't yet taken place, and the six towers of the 630 array (two rows
of three) still stood behind a farm on a side road east of the former
29.

While navigating our way around the street fair in the middle of town
(and being temporarily diverted by the factory tour at Hershey's
Canada!), we made our way to the CJET studios as well, but found only
a locked door to greet us.  (Though there must have been someone
inside, since the station's country format sounded live and local...)