CHWK Moves (& Other Things) — 1951

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Around Your Radio Dial
By DICK DIESPECKER
[Vancouver Daily Province, November 9. 1951]
CHWK, Chilliwack has moved to a new spot on the dial, 1270, and has increased in power from 250 to 1000 watts. Program director Murdo Maclachlan tells me that all upper valley points will have better reception and that CHWK is now a full Dominion Network basic station. They also have a new news editor, Wally Clark, formerly of CJAV, Port Alberni and CFRN, Edmonton. A young New Zealander, Roger Tice-Martin, has also been added to the staff. He is writing continuity. Still another acquisition is announcer Alex Mair from Kamloops.
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[Daily Province, Thurs., Dec. 13, 1951]
Another British Columbia station stepped up its power on Monday of this week. CHWK, Chilliwack, officially increased its power to 1000 watts and changes its frequency to 1270 kilocycles. At a special ceremony marking the event, George Cruickshank, MP for the Fraser Valley, made the official change-over address. He was followed by a number of important speakers including B.C. cabinet ministers Leslie H. Eyres, R.C. McDonald and Harry Bowman; president of the B.C. Association of Broadcasters, F.H. (Tiny) Elphinke, and general manager of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, T.J. Allard.
Proud moment of the big switch belonged to station manager Jack Pilling and his program director, Murdo Maclachlan, a one-time bright light of the UBC Radio Society and one of its many former members who have made a success of professional radio.
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[Vancouver Daily Province, October 31, 1951]
A note from Murdo Maclachlan, prduction manager of CHWK, Chilliwack, telling me about their most successful broadcast of the Royal Visit to the Valley city last Friday. Murdo says that after a 40 minute broadcast from the reception area on the day and a rebroadcast that night the station was deluged with requests for a further repeat. So the broadcast was heard by Chilliwack and the Fraser Valley residents for a third time last night.
Personel working on the broadcast with Murdo Maclachlan were chief announcer Gordon Rose, news editor Wally Clark and women’s commentator Jackie Schofield.
An interesting feature was a fifteen minute recording immediately before the arrival of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, based on the 1939 Royal Visit of the King and Queen. It featured commentaries by Jack Pilling, manager of the station, and Ronnie Wells, former staffer. The disc was recorded off the air 12 years ago by Chilliwack radio technician Len Carey.
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[Vancouver Daily Province, December 5, 1951]
The youngest sports announcer on the Pacific Coast has moved from CJAV, Port Alberni to CHWK, Chilliwack. He is Bob Hall who has made a name for himself as a basketball announcer. In fact, in the Alberni area he is called The Voice of Basketball. For three years that Bob has been in the Alberni district, he has contributed a great deal to the sports picture.
He holds a Class B referee card and has given a good deal of time to refereeing and coaching juvenile basketball games.
When he announced that he was moving to Chilliwack, Hall received an unusual tribute which few radio announcers enjoy. A “Bob Hall” night was held and over a thousand basketball fans turned out to bid him good-bye and good luck.

cArtie note: I may have mentioned here before the Omo Room in the old station at 50 Yale East had all kinds of old transcriptions. I never went through them all, so I don't know if the disk mentioned above was among them.

[Jack Bennest]

was the OMO room - the big studio behind the control room and production?

nice to see names like Bob Hall and Gordon Rose in the news.

[cart_machine]

was the OMO room - the big studio behind the control room and production?

nice to see names like Bob Hall and Gordon Rose in the news.

Yes, Dog, the production studio looked straight into the Omo Room.

And, to be honest, I wasn't really going to post any of this until I saw Gordie's name. He is a true professional and I was very privileged to be there (at $575 a month) when he was still doing the 8am news.

cArtie.

[roses]

Thanks, cArtie!
I'll be sure and pass along your very kind compliment to Dad when I see him this weekend. He will be quite embarrassed, but what the heck!

[cart_machine]

Thanks, cArtie!
I'll be sure and pass along your very kind compliment to Dad when I see him this weekend. He will be quite embarrassed, but what the heck!

Please do. I wish him good health for the coming year.

I don't know who the young people in the business look up to these days but, as a teenaged disk-jockey those 30-plus years ago, I admired your dad.

cArtie.