eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

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eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby jon » Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:12 am

Four pieces (Marconi brand transformers), apparently from CJCA's first transmitter, have just been sold for $400 (Canadian) on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0360503903

Some nice pictures there.

CJCA was Edmonton's first radio station and Alberta's first commercial radio station, signing on May 1, 1922, with 50 watts on 450 metres. Owned by the Edmonton Journal and run by Dick Rice, who would later own CFRN AM, FM and TV.

Here is some CCF info from http://www.broadcasting-history.ca on Alberta's first (initially non-commercial) radio station:

1919
In early May, W. W. Grant, recently returned from the war, in which he was decorated for his radio accomplishments, constructed a small radio station in Halifax, over which voice and music were broadcast (may have been the first scheduled radio prgrams in the country).

1920
Grant started a station at Morely, Alberta, a few miles west of Calgary. Station CYAA was set up for the federal government, in connection with the Canadian Air Force Forestry Patrol.

1921
Grant constructed a 50 watt station at High River, Alberta, over which Western Canadians heard their first broadcast concerts.

1922
In the spring, Grant moved the station from High River to Calgary and the call sign was changed to CFCN. The government issued a commercial licence to Grant, after The Herald's CFAC received its licence. CFCN had the distinction of being the first station in Canada to receive compensation for commercial broadcasting. CFCN broadcast over a frequency of 1010 kHz with a power of 750 watts and shared time with station CKCX.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Russ_Byth » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:53 am

Hey Jon... we're waiting for the transmitter pics from your crooze! :cheers:
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Steve Sanderson » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:00 am

Russ_Byth wrote:Hey Jon... we're waiting for the transmitter pics from your crooze! :cheers:


Russ...There are no transmitters in the Buffet...Just sneeze deflection shields!
:shock:
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Alaska Transmitters

Postby jon » Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:30 pm

No transmitters for you. But I do have three shots of the studio building in Ketchikan of the local NPR station:

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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Howaboutthat » Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:16 pm

:sad3: Its just not the same without the transmitters. :sad10:
Houston, We're dealing with morons!.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:38 pm

Somewhat reminiscent of KBHR (K-Bear) of "Northern Exposure" fame.

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Chris Stevens: "It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself".

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"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Mike Cleaver » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:58 pm

I'm sure these transformers are from a much earlier transmitter but both CJOC and CJCA had 5kw Marconi transmitters in Lethbridge and Edmonton when I arrived there in '67 and '76.
They were four cabinets wide with big glass portholes.
The transformers were in a basement vault.
Whenever we fired these up as standby transmitters, the entire building would shake on the bass notes.
A small family could have lived inside the transmitter cabinets, floor to ceiling height and at least 20 feet long and six feet deep.
They had huge tubes and sounded great on the air but by that time, tubes were hard to come by.
The CJCA one was at Ellerslie, the CJOC one halfway between Lethbridge and Coaldale.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby pieinthesky » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:15 pm

...the CJOC one halfway between Lethbridge and Coaldale.

Was that in the house or near the tower?
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Mike Cleaver » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:47 pm

The house up front at the CJOC transmitter site housed the stations two transmitters in one half and had living quarters for the engineer in the other half.
No one lived there while I was at the station.
Same at Ellerslie for CJCA.
CJCA had a retired engineer, Jack Fry, living there while I was at the station.
The new transmitter site further south did not include living quarters.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby pieinthesky » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:56 pm

Thanks for your reply, Mike. I never knew what the house had in it. Too bad it was torn down, it had a treed yard.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby jon » Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:03 pm

I had forgotten that CJCA moved their transmitter. CCF gives the year as 1977, when they went to 50KW.

As I mentioned last year, they have CRTC approval to move to a site South of Devon -- way out to the SW. But, I'm guessing that they will wait until they sell the current site -- they appear to own it, based on the For Sale sign -- given parent Allarco's bankruptcy filing.

I originally posted the first post in this thread because I thought it was sad that CJCA's first transmitter has been broken up and sold in pieces. Of course, CJCA could have done that themselves, perhaps as early as 1924 when power was increased from 50 to 500 watts. Just as many of us never thought to save the history of our early years in Radio, even more so when the Radio industry was so young.

Hmm. The CCF history of CJCA has me thinking that the original transmitter, likely with modifications, was in service until 1935. Here is the CCF entry for that year:
"A new Marconi 1,000 watt transmitter was bought by CJCA and the antenna site was changed from Oliver to Belmont."
In case anyone is interested, Oliver is the area just West of Downtown. Belmont is in the extreme NE corner of Edmonton and was only relatively recently developed into housing (about 1978). I cannot find any information on when it opened, but a prison was the main development there before that. The prison closed in the 1990s.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Mike Cleaver » Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:37 pm

I was involved the the '77 50kw build as I was the third engineer at the station.
Gord Skutle was chief engineer and Andre Picard was second engineer.
The Continental 10kw was moved from Ellerslie to the new site to be the backup transmitter to the Continental 317 C 50kw.
Just about all of Edmonton's major stations changed to that model Continental within a 2 year stretch and the engineers for those stations, even though they competed ferociously, had a common parts pool with each station stocking some parts so no one had to lay out the bucks for a complete set.
I remember when our audio board in the 317C went hummy during an Eskimos game, I put the 10kw on the air and got a spare audio board from CHED.
The Ellerslie site was shut down after the move but was filled with old radio transmitter stuff.
The towers were toppled in the late '90's, I believe and I think Jack stayed in the house until he died.
That beautiful old 5kw Marconi probably went to the dump, in pieces.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby Mike Cleaver » Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:59 pm

Looking at Google Earth, it looks like the old Ellerslie site still is vacant.
I'm pretty sure it's that brown square field just east of Highway 2 north of Ellerslie Road.
I can't for the life of me remember the location of the "new" site, ('77) except that it was further south and east.
Where do they want to re-locate, Jon?
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CJCA's Transmitter

Postby jon » Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:44 pm

CJCA is currently less than two miles South of the latest (early 1990s) City limits, which is 41 Ave SW (minus 41st Avenue to us old timers). CJCA's transmitter is accessed from a road that will be called 91 Street if City limits ever get extended South. The 4 towers are a bit to the West.

The new transmitter location is South of Devon, Alberta. Devon is West of Edmonton then quite a way South on Highway 60. The new site is actually quite close to the Leduc #1 Oil Well, which now hosts the Canadian Petroleum Discovery Centre. The Oil Well gushed oil on Feb. 13, 1947, changing Alberta forever. And ending its days as a Have Not province.
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Re: eBay: CJCA's First Transmitter

Postby MIKE FM » Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:29 pm

I'm assuming this is their current site...

http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad18 ... GP1867.jpg
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