CJJC 850 to 800 - when?

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CJJC 850 to 800 - when?

Postby jon » Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:53 pm

I'm trying to help nail down a date for the CJJC 850 to 800 KHz frequency move. Most Internet sources name June 1975 as the date, but I know that is wrong because I remember listening to Robert O. Smith doing a.m. drive on KTAC-850 Tacoma long before I left Burnaby in April 1974.

Anyone have any information? If not, I'll try DX'ers as many like to get station verifications for reception reports on the first day of a frequency or call letter change, much as stamp collectors like First Day Covers.
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Postby radiofan » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:18 am

Jon - I just listened to Joe Chessney's welcome to CJJC 800. He mentions the approval to move to 800 and raise power to 10kw was granted in December of 1970. Weather issues delayed construction of the new site for more than a year. He also mentions final approval after testing was granted a few days ago .. on January 26th. Joe also made a couple of mentions of the station being 10 years old. I believe CJJC originally signed on in late 1962 or early 1963.

I'd say the change to 800 occured on Jan. 31 or Feb 1, 1973.
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Postby cart_machine » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:27 am

radiofan wrote:Jon - I just listened to Joe Chessney's welcome to CJJC 800. He mentions the approval to move to 800 and raise power to 10kw was granted in December of 1970. Weather issues delayed construction of the new site for more than a year. He also mentions final approval after testing was granted a few days ago .. on January 26th. Joe also made a couple of mentions of the station being 10 years old. I believe CJJC originally signed on in late 1962 or early 1963.

I'd say the change to 800 occured on Jan. 31 or Feb 1, 1973.


RF, I can't remember the date, but 1973 sounds right to me.

I wish I had access to the Langley Advance, because Joe had an ad campaign to announce the change. No doubt Frank Storey worked out a contra deal :)

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Postby jon » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:22 am

radiofan wrote:I believe CJJC originally signed on in late 1962 or early 1963.

CCF (broadcasting-history.ca) lists January 19th, 1963, as the original signon date for CJJC.

Really great info, RF! I'll pass it on right away.
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Postby skyvalleyradio » Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:55 am

although I can't pinpoint a date, I have a clipping (in poor shape) from the "Bellingham Herald" Dec 22, 1970 about KGMI 790's objection to the 800 kHz assignment for CJJC being a potential for interference to Whatcom County listeners tuning in to KGMI. The article states they are trying to enlist help from the FCC to stop this.
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Postby jon » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:07 pm

I'm comfortable with the CCF's date of December 15, 1970, for the CRTC approval of the frequency change. Which coincides with your Bellingham article. It is the actual date of the move that I was questioning. And that RF seems to have nailed down very tightly.
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Postby Jack Bennest » Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:18 pm

I send the thread to Dave Chesney

Jack

Interesting, but still can't nail an exact date. I might have an old clipping in a box somewhere, but God knows where it is. An interesting note aside, when CJJC moved to 800 from 850 to increase the power to 10,000 watts the signal was much poorer. Within a year or so the same consulting company that talked Dad into moving to 800 from 850, put in an application for CFVR in Abbotsford to increase their power to 10,000 watts and move to 850 on the dial.

Conspiracy? Well I'm just saying....

Peace
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Postby cart_machine » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:11 pm

Top Dog wrote:[color=blue]
quoting Dave Chesney....
when CJJC moved to 800 from 850 to increase the power to 10,000 watts the signal was much poorer.


It still baffles me that Joe changed frequencies. In doing so, the tx pattern had to be set to not interfere with KGMI. That meant there were whole swaths of Langley township you couldn't get the local station. I guess the idea was to go west and beam toward Vancouver after 'WX stole his format.

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Postby jon » Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:07 pm

A lot depends on what stations CJJC had to protect when they moved to 800 KHz. I suspect CKOK-800 in Penticton was also an issue, besides co-channel interference with 790 in Bellingham. I cannot see them having to protect KINY-800 in Juneau, Alaska, XELO-800 in Mexico, CKLW or anything else. And KGO-810 San Francisco and CHQR-810 Calgary were much too far away to warrant any co-channel protection.

If Bellingham was the only concern, CJJC would still have had a problem if they had to protect all of KGMI's listening area South of the 49th parallel. About the only solution that I can think of would have been a transmitter site "right on" the border, due North of Bellingham, with basically no signal going South, night or day. That, of course, puts you in White Rock, and the CRTC would see that as a poorly disguised attempt to become a Vancouver station.

All that said though, I still think that a transmitter site right on the border, as far West of Langley as possible, would have provided the best signal coverage. Even if CJJC had to protect CKOK, I cannot see it having to be that big a null in their pattern, which, in my plan, would point right at Langley!

-------------------

OK, lets look at reality. Here are the 10KW day and night patterns for CKST-800, which I assume were the original ones when CJJC first moved to 800 KHz. It took six towers to accomplish it, two closely spaced rows of three towers.

Image Image

They appear to provide no protection for CKOK Penticton, but I've got to believe that huge NNW night null is for KINY Juneau!
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Postby radiofan » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:42 pm

The CJJC 800 10kw site was on 248th Street at the south side of Highway #1, which is at least 5 miles east of downtown Langley.

I too think a TX site right along the border in the area of 232nd or 248th Street would have worked wonders. 100% of the signal could have been sent North and Northwest t cover Langley and into Vancouver.

When CFVR moved to 850, they located the TX site about 1 mile north of the border and a bit east of downtown Abbotsford.
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Postby jon » Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:16 pm

Here are the CFVR 10KW day and night patterns for 850 KHz:

Image Image

4 towers, equally spaced, in a row.
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Postby radiofan » Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:58 pm

Here's the audio of CJJC's move to 800 from 850, likely on Friday Feb 2, 1973.

CJJC 800 (Click Here)

13:22 4,704 KB
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CJJC move from 850 to 800

Postby Laterider » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:11 pm

One of the reasons for the move to 800 was that the consultant for CJJC was also consulting for the CBC and the CBC wanted to use 850 for a new station in Victoria. They convinced Joe that 800 would be a great frequency for the Vancouver market and so he bought that argument. However 850 did not get approval for Victoria and so after the move to 800 the 850 frequency was just generally left floating until Dennis Barkman (?) from Chilliwack phoned Joe to ask him if he would oppose his applying for the 850 frequency for Abbotsford. Ironically I was in Joe's office arguing with Joe to consider moving back to the old 850 frequency to get away from the Bellingham protection. I could not believe it when Joe told Dennis that he would not oppose his application. The Fraser Valley AM transmitter sites were never good for Vancouver coverage due to poor ground conductivity towards the Vancouver direction. CKNW found this out in 1963 with their transmitter move from Queensborough to the Port Kells site and they were operating on 50 Kw. For CJJC to assume they could get a better signal on 10 Kw into Vancouver from a site east of CKNW was a pipe dream. This was also confirmed when Monarch bought that station and upped the power to 25 Kw and added another tower. The ground conductivity into Vancouver is broken by an underground gravel seam running from the Mary Hill area on the north side of the Fraser River to an area in central Surrey effectively blocking much of the ground wave signal. All of this could have been prevented if the old DOC used real and proven ground conductivity figures instead of the present theoretical figures.
I arrived at CJJC on April 1, 1974 and finished the transmitter site installation. (I was their April Fools kid that year) The station had been on 10 Kw for about a year at that point but the RCA transmitter had been quickly installed to just get it on the air. In retrospect the old 1 Kw site would have been just as good on 10 Kw on 850 and a whole lot of money could have been saved. In my opinion there was a lot of politics and misinformation involved which haunted the station for many years to come.
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Postby gwp » Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:02 pm

Within a year or so the same consulting company that talked Dad into moving to 800 from 850, put in an application for CFVR in Abbotsford to increase their power to 10,000 watts and move to 850 on the dial.
Conspiracy? Well I'm just saying....
Peace Dave Chesney

When it was learned sometime in 1971 that CJJC was moving to 800 from 850 it was I that suggested that Fraser Valley take a look at 850 for CFVR. It was as simple as taking the coverage profile of CJJC and superimposed it onto the Central Fraser Valley market.
At the time FVB was not interested in puting a signal into Vancouver, just providing better coverage from the Vedder Canal to Aldergrove. Even at 1kw it looked like a good idea in theory and we wondered why CJJC would give up the frequency. Subseqently, we had our consultant take a look at it, who I know was not the same consultant used by CJJC. A kilowatt into two towers would provide the desired coverage The plan sat on the back burner for a number of years. Finding a farmer to host the towers was one part of the puzzle.

CJJC moving to 800 did need to provide nighttime protection to CKOK. CKOK was (is) licensed to 500W at night. We could tell when CJJC changed pattern.
Last edited by gwp on Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Postby jon » Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:15 pm

A Seattle DX friend went through his old IRCA DX Monitor newsletters:

I checked my old DX Monitors from around that date. The February 3 DXM has a flash tip from Dave Mielke in Vancouver, saying CJJC had moved to 800. He also said CJJC ran a loop tape on 850 until Feb 5 saying tune to 800. Nothing specific as to when the move to 800 actually took place, but Feb 2 is apparently in the right ballpark.
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