CKLG Signs On

[cart_machine]

CKLG UNIQUE ON COAST
Music and Polls Top Fare From North Shore Station
Music ? middle of the road, popular and classical ? and public opinion polls will make Vancouver?s newest radio station, CKLG, unique on the coast.
Bob Bowman, manager of the station which goes on the air Thursday, has drawn up his program schedule in ?blocks? instead of standard 15 minute pieces.
From opening at 6 a.m. until 9 a.m., ?The Lions? Den? will be broadcast over the 1,000-watt voice of the North Shore, 1070 kilocycles. ?The Lions Den? will be composed of news and music.
Then, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., request music will be interspersed with news broadcasts and public opinion polls.
?We?ll ask a question on a topical subject and during the day will broadcast the public?s opinion on it as shown by telephoned responses to the station,? Bowman said.
No also promised ?no extremes? in music.
?There will be no blaring trumpets or soggy ballads,? Bowman said. ?We?ll feature familiar tunes and current hit parade favorites.?
And every night too, from 9:05 to 10 p.m., the station will broadcast its symphonic concert hour.
CKLG ? LG for Lions Gate ? opens its $250,000 one-floor building after nine years of effort.
First application for a license was rejected in 1946. Since then, the management has kept plugging until the license was finally granted last May.
Originally scheduled to go on the air in early December, it was plagued by technical troubles which constantly kept deferring opening date.
Now everything is cleared up, says Bowman, a veteran broadcaster who started out as a newspaperman, and the transmitters at the foot of Mount Seymour on Keith Road are all set to give Greater Vancouver and especially the North Shore its fifth radio station.
That transmitter, wholly automatic and fully controlled from the broadcasting studios, is not the only modern thing about the new station, either.
Bowman describes it as a high-fidelity radio station, with 15,000 cycle turntables and pick-up arms.
Small, thin television microphones are standard equipment at the new studio.
Many of the station?s staff are already familiar figures at the coast.
There?s footballer Al Stoddard, the sports director. Rudy Hartman, the program manager, who started at CJAT in Trail in 1939.
Glen Jamieson, son of a long-time Vancouver music critic, is an announcer.
Hal Francis, Peter Kosick and John Sharpe, the news editor, are also well-known city radio personalities.
- Vancouver Sun, Feb. 2, 1955

PENCIL MICROPHONES
CKLG is High Fidelity Outfit
Radio station CKLG?s North Vancouver home is a $250,000 structure located on Eleventh, just east of Lonsdale.
Designed by Harry Barratt, it is a former B.C. Telephone building which has been completely rebuilt and redesigned.
The outlet is a high-fidelity station. Announcers will be using the newest type ?pencil? microphones made so popular by TV broadcasters.
All studios feature a ?cough button? to help the announcers. A quick touch of the button puts the station completely off the air, if needed.
The station also features an automatic transmitter which can be completely controlled from the studios by the operator-announcers.
CKLG is going to be the most unusual station in Canada, according to Bob Bowman. The public opinion poll is an outstanding example.
Every day CKLG will ask listeners to vote on some current issue, such as the selling of beer in grocery stores, or legalizing lottery tickets in B.C. Voting will take place by telephone from 9:15 to 10:00 a.m. and 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
A special battery of telephones has been installed to handle the calls and a special telephone number YO 7171 is being employed.
Results of the public opinion poll will be announced every fifteen minutes throughout the day, as tabulating the voting progresses.

Housewives Help Each Other in New Program
There?s no need to be plagued by household problems, if you listen to CKLG?s program ?What?s the Answer,? to be broadcast daily from 11:05-12:00 noon. {article goes on to say housewives can call Bob Bowman with problems and await solutions from other listeners}.
- Vancouver Province, Wed. Feb. 2, 1955

[radiofan]

Housewives Help Each Other in New Program
There?s no need to be plagued by household problems, if you listen to CKLG?s program ?What?s the Answer,? to be broadcast daily from 11:05-12:00 noon. {article goes on to say housewives can call Bob Bowman with problems and await solutions from other listeners}.

Now we know where Terry Moore's household hints got it's start.

[radiofan]

Vancouver Radio Broadcast Schedule, Wednesday February 2, 1955
The day CKLG 1070 hit the air from North Vancouver [LG=Lions Gate]



Thanks to cArtie for his work in researching and rebuilding this grid.

[radiofan]

US and Nanaimo Radio Broadcast Schedule Wednesday February 2, 1955



Thanks again to cArtie!

[Eldon-Mr.CFAY]

Hi Everyone,
Hope you had a great summer so far and are having a good Labor Day Weekend in 2012!!!! Still on extended leave in Ontario and will be here till end of September 2012!!!

I must say I generally don't have a lot of time to go into the Radio West Archives but I really congratulate RadioFan and everyone else at Radio West for the amazing amount of historical radio station information here. To all Radio West members if you have not looked into the past topics please do yourself a favor when you have time and check it out. There is a vast wealth of information on radio station histories etc. particularly the British Columbia and Greater Vancouver area.

Such is the case here with CKLG 1070's sign-on information and schedule for 1955. I had never really seen it or checked it out before. I knew CKLG had originally signed on in 1955 or the 50s at 1070 and had seen the 1070 frequency mentioned in Radio-TV Experimenter magazines old Whites Radio Logs. I have many issues of that great old radio magazine from the late 1950s to early 70s. Anyway did not know hardly anything about early CKLG 1070 History and this topic on Radio West was extremely helpful to me this early Sunday Morning, great reading!!!! For one thing the program schedule was great and really gives you an idea how information and local stations were back then. I thought CKLG started out doing great community service programming for the North Shore and Vancouver. My knowledge of the station had been Top 40 Rock and growing up in the mid-60s to 70s it was my favorite top 40 rock station in Vancouver and I listened to it much more than CFUN 1410! I may have liked CKWX 1130 with its top 40 format but it was before my radio listening time!!!! I was too young to be into radio at that time!!! My parents however did listen to CKNW 980 when I was young a lot, I don't think they tuned in to CKLG 1070 much and I never heard it mentioned back then. It was always Top Dog Radio NW 98 on their radio dial until CJOR 600 came along with the Talk Shows and Burns on-line. By the way I do recall hearing about Pat Burns being on CKLG North Vancouver for a time too! But my parents heard him on CJOR the most. Anyway one thing I was very interested in is where CKLG 1070 North Van. had their transmitter site. I always thought it was Lulu Island or Delta. However on Radio West I find out it was on Keith Road near Mount Seymour, most interesting, did not know that before! I also did not know where the studios in North Vancouver were. Again the answer on this Radio West historical topic off Lonsdale. Great information, thanks to all who did this research!!!

One thing I am still wondering about is what the original AM 1 KW. Transmitter was for 1070 CKLG, Continental, Gates or what??? Anyone know. Also does anyone know how many towers 1070 CKLG used at the North Vancouver transmitter site? When I get back to B.C. I am going to make a trip over to North Vancouver to check it out. ve7ROX Jim are you reading this. I don't know if Jim even knows this stuff and he works practically every day driving around North Vancouver at night for one of the TAXI Companies there. Hes into the technical side of radio heavily like I am but not sure if he even knows much about 1070 CKLG. Anyway if hes reading this he has found out a few things!!!

In addition to all this info. if anyone has any photos or information about Pat Burns on CKLG in North Vancouver that would be interesting to add to this thread!!! By the way other articles I have taken a look at on Radio West about Radio History have been most interesting too and Jon has done a very good job at many topics, really enjoying past articles! I joined Radio West in May 2009 so there were already some great topics covered before I was a member. You might consider that too if you have joined recently and backtrack the Board Index for them.

Anyway take care and its great to have Radio West. Thanks a lot RadioFan, Jon and Dan and others who help make it so great!!!!

73s Eldon

[jon]

And every night too, from 9:05 to 10 p.m., the station will broadcast its symphonic concert hour.
- Vancouver Sun, Feb. 2, 1955

But the newspaper schedule shows them signing off at 6:15 p.m.

Even that doesn't make sense, at first glance, because 6:15 was well past February sunset in Vancouver.

Only thing that does make sense is that CKLG was licensed to stay on the air until sunset in Los Angeles, where clear channel KNX is located.

[jon]

From the CCF site (broadcasting-history.ca) comes this explanation:

1954
The transmitter site was to be at the foot of Mount Seymour. Target launch date: December 1.

1955
On February 3, the Department of Transport gave the okay for CKLG to begin broadcasting on 1070 kHz with power of 500 watts. Due to interference to and from KNX (1070) Hollywood (Los Angeles), CKLG's power was temporarily reduced from the authorized 1,000 watts. CKLG would still operate as a daytime-only station - 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. to give engineers a chance to work on the transmitter. Such work could not be done while the station was on the air. When the problems were resolved, CKLG would operate at full power, 19 hours a day. CKLG signed on the air later on this date. The transmitter was located at Blair Range in North Vancouver, up on a hill where grounding was poor, and so was the signal. The technical problems mentioned earlier, prevented the station from a planned debut in December of 1954.

[VE7ROX]

Yes, the Blair Rifle Range is at the North East corner of Northlands Drive and the Mount Seymour Parkway. This is about a kilometre east of the old Coach House (now known as Holiday Inn), where an IRCA convention was once held, and a little west of the Parkgate Plaza, where the road to the Mount Seymour Ski Lodge is located. Click here: http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/8626/blairriflerangenv.jpg Keith Road (East Keith) comes to an end at the old Coach House Location. What is there now is a Town Pantry restaurant, Seymour's Pub, and the Holiday Inn. rox . . .

[radiofan]

Here's the actual Vancouver Sun story that cart machine retped for us ...

[radiofan]

CKLG Sign On on air lineup (ad from same full page feature as above story)

[radiofan]

CKLG's original Owners, The Gibson Brothers ...

[radiofan]

This may answer Eldon's question about what type of transmitter CKLG used in North Vancouver

[radiofan]

The competition welcomes CKLG to the Vancouver Radio Dial ...

[freqfreak2]

The competition welcomes CKLG to the Vancouver Radio Dial ...

Wow! That's something you don't see anymore: fraternal respect from within the business.

[Neumann Sennheiser]

The competition welcomes CKLG to the Vancouver Radio Dial ...

Wow! That's something you don't see anymore: fraternal respect from within the business.

These days, only sharks and lawyers.