City of License

[jon]

Er, did C-ISL ever transmit from anywhere except at the south end of No. 6 Road in Richmond? Gimme a break -- the stn's licensing to 'serve' Richmond and Delta was a simple cynical backdoor approach at the time to add another AM to the whole Vancouver market: didn't do that, never will, no matter the format.

I thought the subject of City of License deserves a separate thread of its own.

I'm certainly interested in hearing examples of abuses, but I think the CRTC has really done a good job over the last 10 years or so in putting back some credibility into City of License or whatever the official Canadian name is for that FCC term.

The stations that I've seen newly licensed to smaller communities in the shadow of a big city really had to go to a lot of effort to make sure they didn't deliver a "City Grade" signal into that big city. CFCW-FM (CAM-FM) is the first one that I recall. Licensed to Camrose with 50,000 watts, you can hear them in parts of Edmonton, but certainly not a City Grade signal. It was almost as if an FM in another nearby Edmonton community was more recently licensed to the neighbouring frequency as further evidence that CFCW-FM was not intended to be heard in Edmonton.

Closer in, the new FM stations in Leduc and Fort Saskatchewan actually have Nulls in their directional patterns that point right at Edmonton.

At the other end of the scale, the licensing of a station in Lacombe has been more problematic. Many of the local residents work in Red Deer, and want to listen to the Lacombe station on their commute. Although the station is not allowed to "sell" into Red Deer, they are allowed to accept advertising from Red Deer merchants who want to attract Lacombe residents, whether or not they work in Red Deer. Shortly after the station went on the air, 20% of its advertising revenue was coming from Red Deer advertisers. I haven't kept current with the situation now that the independent owner was granted a license for a second FM, this time actually licensed to Red Deer.

That is FM. What about AM?

I'll never know why 1200 was licensed to Surrey, not Vancouver. On the other hand, as I mentioned recently in another thread, the Toronto suburb of Mississauga has a non-directional fairly low powered AM station that only offers a City Grade signal to Mississauga and a majority of only one neighbouring community.

[jon]

Sorry, I was confusing the current batch of CRTC applications for stations with a City of License of Surrey with CJRJ-1200, which is licensed to Vancouver, not Surrey.

[xwdcatvb]

Er, did C-ISL ever transmit from anywhere except at the south end of No. 6 Road in Richmond? Gimme a break -- the stn's licensing to 'serve' Richmond and Delta was a simple cynical backdoor approach at the time to add another AM to the whole Vancouver market: didn't do that, never will, no matter the format.

I thought the subject of City of License deserves a separate thread of its own.

Closer in, the new FM stations in Leduc and Fort Saskatchewan actually have Nulls in their directional patterns that point right at Edmonton.

That is FM. What about AM?
.

Is there such a "city of...." label here? Locally, we could throw a question at 980 immediately. It seems still to be officially a New Westminster outlet... though the programming originates at or is fed through a control room in the Black Tower at Georgia and Granville in Downtown Vancouver, while the transmitter is in the Tynehead area of NE Surrey, pushing 30km to the ESE.

I'm not aware of any Vancouver-area FM which has a null to limit access or coverage to another area within Canada. In fact, a neighbouring broadcaster managed to, let's be frank, hoodwink the CRTC into allowing a re-broadcaster at the Mount Seymour location of all major locals.

At least C-ISL maintains its studios within a reasonable bike ride of the transmitter location, which no doubt fulfills the original idea of a Richmond/Delta/White Rock.

Then years ago, CKLG was licenced to North Vancouver -- was the original transmitter site in Tilbury? Dunno... before my time.

[jon]

Then years ago, CKLG was licenced to North Vancouver -- was the original transmitter site in Tilbury? Dunno... before my time.

I believe that Gord Lansdell did the original research on CKLG for the CCF. "The transmitter was located at Blair Range in North Vancouver" when they were on 1070, but moved to Delta with the frequency change to 730 in 1957.

[Mike Cleaver]

FM is line of sight transmission, usually 75 mile limit because of the curvature of the earth.
There are some rare atmospheric conditions that are conducive to FM skip but they are unusual.
Thus, most FM signals are not directional to protect other FMs, simply to focus the signal on the market area.