CFVR

[Jack Bennest]

Thanks to Gerry Pash for supplying this via a number of pdf files.

This picture taken at the time of CFVR becoming more than just a satellite to Chilliwack.

[johnsykes]

That picture brings back some great memories of my time spent there, filling in when Richard Dettman called on me.

Living in Abbotsford for the past 13 years, I drive by that building on Allwood Street....look up to the second floor...and sigh.
A real loss for local broadcasting.....typical of today's industry unfortunately. One of my fill-ins was on news, the day all hell broke out on that commune in Texas. Having done sports only for so long, it became more like a running commentary of a hockey game more than a news broadcast.

[Fustercluck]

The odd thing is, this is probably the time the Valley needs it's own news talk voice.

Gangs, grow ops, crime, infrastructure issues, division between the BC Liberals and BC Conservatives, high municipal taxation, the deal with the rink and the Heat, transportation.... there's lots of red meat there...

It could be profitable if done right... just not as profitable as a iPod shuffle with a stick.

[johnsykes]

And all we have right now is a poor imitation of JR Country. For the 5th largest city in B.C., methinks that's not good enough. Too close to Vancouver? nah....reception out here is the pits a lot of the time...that's why I got my satellite.

[Dan Sys]

But John, aren't you forgetting that SONIC FM has the repeater on 92.5 in Abbotsford for your listening pleasure. Me thinks that you would make a fine citizen of the Sonic Nation.

[Mike Cleaver]

Nice shot of the control room!
For those technically inclined and interested in old radio gear, that's a tube McCurdy board with two 12" McCurdy rim drive turntables.
The mic is an Electrovoice 665, the professional version of the chrome 664.
Not certain about the cart machine, could be a Spotmaster or Tapecaster and an Ampex 601 to the right of the console.

[hagopian]

Nice to see the McCurdy's.
We loved em at CFUN so much, that Brother 'Boom Boom' Benson, so the legend goes, actually rode one. I think he stood on it. Maybe folklore, but knowing the amazing dude from New Mexico, I wouldn't be surprised.

Thanks, for the shot.

[johnsykes]

It's sonic alright.......NOT! I much preferred their losing effort as FUN-FM, etc. The current effort? I'll leave it to the kids to listen....which brings me to a question....just how many radio stations do kids need? you mean to tell me that so-called adults in their late 20's, 30's and 40's listen to stations that blurt out noise like they do? Even in our heyday, there were stations like NW, QM etc that played sort of calming music as compared to LG and CFUN. Not now.

[beddows]

I remember when I was program director at the SFU radio station in the 70's we would drool over the prospect of a McCurdy board to replace our Collins. When I went to a reunion a couple of years back, they showed me a closet with 2 junked McCurdy boards they had acquired after I left. sad.

As for Sonic, thank god I live a lot of the year in Mexico.

[hagopian]

I honestly think that there is a huge hole in Vancouver for, gulp, personality radio, with a huge playlist of music from 60's and 70's and the 80's.
Announcers that actually know what their audience wants, and live, no V/T - 20/20 news...jingles, and watch the demo that actually has money, ie. Boomers, flock to the station.
Won't happen though.
Too obvious.

The stations, as John says, are all chasing the same "young demo".

Just thinking out loud.

[jon]

I remember when I was program director at the SFU radio station in the 70's we would drool over the prospect of a McCurdy board to replace our Collins. When I went to a reunion a couple of years back, they showed me a closet with 2 junked McCurdy boards they had acquired after I left. sad.

I was there, too, "Boss".

But the point that is probably missed in all this is that the technology has changed so much that most equipment we lusted for "back then" just has no place in today's world. For example, my CCRadio-EP, on sale regularly for $59, is better than the best DX communications receiver I ever owned, which cost me $105 in 1967, and probably translates into over a thousand smackers today. And I can do better audio editing with Audacity software for free than I ever could no matter how good I was with a razor blade or split second timing of multiple tape drives and cart machines.

On the more practical side of things, I was not really interested in acquiring reel to reel tape recorders when stations were throwing them out recently, thinking they were still 600 ohm audio inputs and outputs, which would doom the use of all boards unless you did the entire studio "retro". If you do that, you are faced with the frequent tube failures of yore that saw transmitters shut down weekly for preventative maintenance, and engineers spending a lot of time fixing boards.

[cart_machine]

Jack, did Gerry have a date for the photo? It's from the ASM News; the typeface is pretty easy to recognise. Maybe it's my memory being fuzzy after all these years, but I thought the control room looked into the newsroom and there was a window. Maybe they put that in later.

Bob's talk show booth was to the left of the control room, and production was to the left of the booth. It had an old board that came from CHWK. Huge pots.

I can't remember when the station moved from the Park Hotel. You'd go up to the mezzanine and the station was on the right. There was an stand-up teletype clacking away in the lobby across from the stairs to the mezzanine and you could read the news as it came in on the wire.

cArtie.

[Jack Bennest]

Studios opened on September 13 1970 on Allwood Street - article with this picture published on Wednesday October 7, 1970

[gwp]

Studios opened on September 13 1970 on Allwood Street - article with this picture published on Wednesday October 7, 1970

The photo is of the production control room. To the right is the talk booth and then the main control room.
The McCurdy board is actually a solid state board. You will note that the microphone is on the table .. the microphone arms had not arrived yet. These photos were taken just before we moved from the Park Hotel.

The board in the main control room was a rebuilt Collins with solid state cards. The main control room looked into the newsroom and the news announcer would perform from the newsroom.

[Mike Cleaver]

That McCurdy must have been one of the last "hybrid" boards they built.
That case style was designed for the tube amplifiers but probably was modified inside to use the new AT242 Transistor amps in place of the AU300 tube jobs.
They were probably trying to use up the old stock cases before introducing the new, more streamlined ones, still with rotary pots, before moving into the "slider pot" series a couple of years later.
We had one of the first "new model solid state ones," the one with ten large rotary pots with the cream front panel and blue side panels when we built a new main control room at CJOC in Lethbridge in 1969.
McCurdy made great rugged reliable gear.
I can never recall any major problems with any McCurdy board I ever installed/used.
CHUM used McCurdy exclusively for many many years.