Radio .. and Me - 23

My AM radio in the early 60s delivered few choices -- during the day, that is.

As have written before, the family 'tube' radio, then my new portable 'transistor' radio, captured only two or three stations.
But, after dark -- AM radio signals began to bounce across the ionosphere, and 'the heavens opened up' to a variety of excellent stations along the Eastern Seaboard! (Photo by: http://www.freewebs.com/oldradios/)

These came in reliably about 50 per cent of the time, depending on atmospheric conditions (and NOT, surprisingly, the weather), and appeared to be strongest during clear, cold winter nights. On other nights, though, signals were unreliable, or even not there.

I list most of my favourites, all were 50,000-watts, heard in Cape Breton, going UP the dial:

-- 550, CFNB, Fredericton, New Brunswick They had the first 'All-Night' show in the Maritimes; playing country music. (It was excellent, local, company. Most other stations 'signed-off' after the Midnight News, or at 1 a.m.) CFNB has moved to FM, not available.

-- 590, WMCA, New York City. The first big rock station to adopt the 'Home of the Good Guys' promotional concept. I later learned that a friend, native of my home town, had worked there as a techie / operator, title: 'engineer.'

At all the big 'Top 40' stations, it was a two-man presentation: a 'disc-jockey' / personality /announcer / host, announced the records, did the patter, time checks, weather and requests, and read LIVE commercials and inserts. The 'engineer' cued and spun the 45s records and ran the reel-to-reel or cartridge tapes with promos and lots of commercials. 'Top 40' came from the fact that they played top 40 currently charted songs during a typical four-hour shift; today, that's: 'heavy rotation.' The 'block program' also mandated a five-minute newscast EVERY HOUR, by a news announcer, with commercials. (In the U-S-A, at least; Canada's regulations forbade commercial messages 'within' a newscast. A sponsored newscast had to play the message either before or after the news; headlines were considered as part of the body of the newscast.) WMCA is now All-Talk. All these stations have 'net sites, but some have blocked the audio streaming.

-- 610, CHNC, New Carlisle, Quebec. The only French station available during the day. Part of Radio-Canada network. Lots of upbeat music and fast-paced local commercials. CHNC has moved to FM, not available.

-- 630, CFCY, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. They proudly added this phrase to their IDs: The Friendly Voice of the Maritimes. They were the originating station for the popular daily music show: 'Don Messer and His Islanders.' (Not bad for a man from New Brunswick!) The show moved to CBC TV in the late 50s, first in the Maritimes and then to phenominal success on the national network; usually number 2, behind 'Hockey Night in Canada.' CFCY has moved to FM, not available.

-- 66, WNBC, NYC. Flagship NBC Station. Played rock, New York Rangers hockey, with some excellent all-night talk with Brad Crandall, a highly-skilled pioneer in that format. (One night he successfully dealt with the challenge of a dreaded 'suicide call.') Later, it originated the innovative, 'Monitor!' a national, rolling, live-to-all-time-zones, news magazine program. The big 'Morning Show (into the early 80-s) was: 'Imus in the Morning' which later went to TV. The station is now WFAN, all-sports.

-- 690, CBF, Radio-Canada's flagship station in Montreal. They had excellent news coverage, all Montreal Canadiens games (and the playoff games, when the 'tri-colore' ran off a fantastic run of Stanley Cup seasons). During the War, my Mom and Dad sometimes tuned to CBF for episodes of a daily, 15-minute radio serial, Un homme et son péché,' ('A Man and his Sins'), about an old, cruel miser in an early Quebec colonial village. Despite layers of ominous organ music and overacting, it had a sensational radio run of … THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS! It moved to TV in the early 60s, and enjoyed deserved great success as, Les belles histories des pays d'en haut, beautiful stories from the Laurentians. CBF has moved to FM, not available.

-- 7-10 WOR, NYC. Flagship station of the Mutual Broadcasting System. THE pioneer (then, and still) of All-Talk radio . . . with long, intelligent discussions, without confrontation; indeed, their promos bragged that they no longer played music! Again, during the War and later, my folks listened to the commentator, Gabriel Heatter, whose opening phrase, even during its bleakest periods, Good evening, everyone---there is good news tonight, introduced uplifting, but true, stories. His V-E Day broadcast is still considered a classic. (A 'commentator' was not only a 'reporter' -- he gave his version of the day's news, and many developed huge audiences.)

-- 73 CKAC, Montreal. A radio pioneer in news (at :45 past each hour), political discussion, sports, later the flagship station for Expos baseball and Alouettes football.

It was an important source of news during the F-L-Q 'October Crisis' of 1970, when the extreme fringes of the Quebec independent movement kidnapped a British trade official, James Cross, and a provincial cabinet minister, Pierre Laporte. The station received and had to read the 'F-L-Q Manifesto,' its rambling, lengthy list of demands. Cross was late released unharmed, but Laporte was assassinated, and his body dumped in the trunk of a car. CKAC later became a talk station, then all-sports. Today, the Sports Talk has moved to FM, and (alas!) it's . . . All-Traffic, All the Time.

And so, Dear Reader, although our tour has made it only one-third of the way up the radio dial, we'll pause here.