Favourite Canadian radio station, past and present

[cyberdad]

Tincap....

Thanks for the background on the 101.1 signal. Makes perfect sense.

And thanks also for the tip on "Seaside FM". Actually, I have listened. But it's been a while, and I'd more or less forgotten about. it. I'll check it out again. My memory is that I liked the station, but not so much the lower bitrate stream. (32K?) A lot of those have been upgraded, so hopefully that's the case here.

I generally prefer vintage top 40, but I also like to relax from time to time with "beautiful music", big band/standards, jazz, and/or classical. As I posted elsewhere, I was also a fan of the previous format of CBC-2.

 

[Dusty Dale Brooks]

I am so late to this long thread...I grew up in Stowe, Vermont so Montreal radio got a fair share of my ear. I loved CKGM they were very WBZish, adult but hip. Then you had CFCF, but WVMT in Burlington (620) beat on them and they were directional so they were a tough listen. Occasionally I could pull in CFOX but again their directional signal made them noisy.

My alltime favorites were Montreal CHR's CFOX 1470 and CJMS 1280 in the late 60's. CFOX was a fun English CHR with a Montreal flavor, and CJMS was an incredible Top 40 with both local Francophone hits and the latest ones from France. Somehow flowing French jocks and Franciise Hardy and Marie Laforet and Johnny Halliday and Joe Dassin made a perfect combination.

I loved this post from way back...Wow CJMS I forgot about them. They would come in pretty well. They were indeed a great French rocker.

It was great reading Lee Smith's posts on CKLW and CHUM. I was a HUGE Big 8 fan, in fact CKLW was IMO the best rock radio station in Canada, though for all intents and purposes it was an American station catering to Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland and all points south. They were Top 5 in the USA among AM rockers.

Take CKLW out of the equation and the best was CHUM, then CFTR, CHOM in the 80s, CFUN, CHED, CKXL, and CKLG. CFCF and CFOX would also be in the Top 10.

 

[N1WVQ]

Favorite Canadian station (as heard in Rhode Island): CJSB/540, 54 Rock out of Ottawa!

 

[icybluelake]

In the 70s, CKLG 730 Vancouver and CKLW 800 Windsor

In the 80s, CFNY 102.1 Toronto

In the 90s, CING 107.9 Burlington (Energy 108).


-- An American fan of Canadian radio

 

[spunker88]

In Upstate NY near Canada, Ive always had to listen to Canadian stations since the only formats that seem to be able to make it in rural NY are country, a/c and some classic rock. If you wanted any rock new and different you had to tune into Canada. I enjoyed listening to 106.9 when they were The Bear CKQB Ottawa. I found a bunch of Canadian bands they played that I had never heard before. They had something different about them back then, now they seem to be nothing special since they became Virgin. CILV 88.5 plays some good alternative but they have a pretty weak signal here.

About the only good AM clear channel station these days is CFZM 740 Toronto, still playing music. The rest of the AM dial is full of IBOC noise, the same talk programs, and way too many graveyard channels.

 

[Tincap]

In Upstate NY near Canada, Ive always had to listen to Canadian stations since the only formats that seem to be able to make it in rural NY are country, a/c and some classic rock. If you wanted any rock new and different you had to tune into Canada. I enjoyed listening to 106.9 when they were The Bear CKQB Ottawa. I found a bunch of Canadian bands they played that I had never heard before. They had something different about them back then, now they seem to be nothing special since they became Virgin. CILV 88.5 plays some good alternative but they have a pretty weak signal here.

About the only good AM clear channel station these days is CFZM 740 Toronto, still playing music. The rest of the AM dial is full of IBOC noise, the same talk programs, and way too many graveyard channels.

I'm happy to be living just across the river from you, as I can tune in my current (longtime) favourite, Classic FM's (WCNY.org) 90.9 WJNY Watertown NY signal. WSLU (NCPR.org) is another favourite...both have filled in nicely, since the dumbing down of our CBC.

~BG

 

[Gregg]

Nobody has mentioned a legendary FM Rock station, CHOM, Montreal. In the 70s it was a free-form progressive rock station that was bilingual. Not only did the DJs program their own shows but every four hours when they'd change shifts, they were encouraged to chat with one another. Some of the French DJs didn't speak English very well, and few of the English DJs spoke much French either. But the dialogues were fun and made Montreal sound like a great city for rock concerts and night life. The two DJs I remember were The Real Don Steele and Jeffery Olivier Brown, who despite his WASP name was one of the francophone DJs. The commercials were all done in English.

I'd be listening from Northern Vermont for a couple of weeks in the summer when my family would be on vacation on Lake Champlain. The mix of U.S., British and Canadian rock was great, with about 15-20% French Canadian and French rock as well. I read later that CHOM was an experiment, the only Canadian station allowed to broadcast in both languages, since it was doing a sort of free-form rock format. After a few years the CRTC forced them to go back to English-only.

I was also impressed with CHOM's top 40 sister station 980 CKGM (now on 990), although its signal into Northern Vermont was hard to pick up. CFOX and CJMS would also come in sometimes. I had to laugh at CJMS doing French Top 40. They'd often play French covers of popular Top 40 songs.

Same thing for CKVL-FM 96.9 (now CKOI), which was French automated 50s/60s Oldies. 24 hours a day there were no DJs, just a jingle that went "VL-FM wooo." They also played a few French covers of Oldies hits. Because it was automated, no one ever told us the names of the songs.

Gregg
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