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Speaking Of CHLO...

There have been a lot of posts about receiving the new CHLO on 530. But does anyone have any technical information about coverage maps and directional antenna information for CHLO St. Thomas, ON on 680? It had a very strong signal to the West into Michigan Days, across areas of Ontario with excellent conductivity. It was a four tower parallelogram, 1000 watts DA-1, 1 U3 using WRTH notation. I saw a coverage map of CHLO 680 on a website some years ago, but much of the coverage into the United States was blocked by boxes of other information, like many border station coverage maps don't show contours in the other country. But as DA-1, it must have radiated a lot toward KNBR 680 San Francisco, CA, a Class I-B, and under the old skywave rules that may still be applicable under international agreement, it should have been severely restricted in that same direction to protect KNBR. Maybe someone has access to the old CHLO 680 information, or possibly information from the many related CHFI/CFTR 680 gradual upgrade applications as they cleared the deck on 680. Perhaps Mr. Fybush has information about the station near Rochester that moved from 680 to 990 to clear 680 for CHFI/CFTR.
 
I sure do! WRNY signed on in 1947 as a 250-watt ND daytimer from a site on the west side of Rochester and remained at that power level for 32 years while changing calls to WRVM and then WNYR. It built a new tower in the 1960s less than a mile from its original site.

In 1979, Rogers paid to move WNYR from 680 to 990, first from a temporary three-tower array at the former 680 site and then from six towers to the west of Rochester in Clarkson, NY. There were international negotiations to allow Rochester to use a Canadian clear channel and to allow 990 in Philadelphia to expand its DA.

This allowed CFTR to get rid of its 13-tower array in Mississauga in favor of a new 8-tower array across the lake in Grimsby with much better coverage of Toronto.
 
Thanks, Mr. Fybush.

Did you ever see any of the applications for CHFI/CFTR 680 which might have shown the information about CHLO 680, probably from before 1970? If not, do you know anyone who might have access to it?
 
From the Canadian Communicattions Foundation site for CHLO/CFHK.

"CHLO was hoping to open May 14. Major John Frederick Peterson, DSO, spent two years getting the station licensed and built. Prior to this, Peterson was with the Peterborough Examiner. General Manager for CHLO would be Tom Warner, former commercial manager at CJKL Kirkland Lake. The station's brand new building - Radio Centre - 133 Curtis Street - was located in the centre of town. All studios floated on cork and were entirely divorced from the surrounding walls. Glass panelling would allow viewing from the streets. Radio Centre displayed the following slogan: The Voice of The Golden Acres. CHLO would be the second station in Canada to use four towers. Each one was 241 feet high and spread nearly 1300 feet apart. The ground system was spread out over 175 acres and required more than 44 miles of copper wire. The transmitter and four towers were located on Lots 9 and 10, Concession 12, Yarmouth Township, Elgin County. In early May, the preliminary technical proof of performance was in its final stages. The "LO" in the call sign represented London, even though the station was licenced to St. Thomas. CHLO did operate a London sales office though (until 1960).

CHLO officially signed on the air May 14. An advertisement for the station promoted it as "A New Voice In A Rich Market". Its 1,000 watts on 680 kHz would include in its intense-signal area, the prosperous counties of Elgin, Norfolk, Oxford, Middlesex, Perth, Huron, Lambton, Kent and Essex."

With towers that far apart, in a square or rhombus or other parallelogram configuration, it would be multiple nulls and lobes, all fairly large. 175 acres seems a bit much for a typical array on 680 of this type. I would tend to think that only one dimension of a parallelogram would be spaced that far apart. The description of the strong service area that included Lambton, Kent, and Essex Counties, which would suggest what I observed, and the coverage map as I recall, incomplete as it was. That is in the arc required for protection for KNBR, which according to the skywave model at the time, went out about 750 miles nondirectional, perhaps Colorado would be the closest. The WDBC 680 Escanaba, MI Night pattern has a deep null toward KNBR with just 1000 watts, from the late 1940s as I recall.
 
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FWIW, back in the day here in the Cincinnati area I picked up CHLO when it was on 680. And then when it moved to 1570 it was fairly regular here at night, sometimes mixing with CFOR Orillia.
 
FWIW, back in the day here in the Cincinnati area I picked up CHLO when it was on 680. And then when it moved to 1570 it was fairly regular here at night, sometimes mixing with CFOR Orillia.
There were no stations operating on 1570 at Night in the United States until the 1980s, so CHLO and CFOR were often heard in that era. 1570 was a Class I-A Mexican Clear Channel.
 
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