Montreal: the Rest of the Story??

[cd637299]

Hi

Many of you here were able to hear Montreal's AM 690 & 940 every night.....I was totally amazed to find out that they both signed off for good on January 29.

From here, I was not able to hear them since the 1970s or 80s....but they were monster signals, with 50 kW nondirectional (or at least authorized to do so). Both were CBC-owned when I heard them, to give you an idea how long ago that was!

Anyway, I only learned of this the very day they said bye bye.

Any idea why in the world that they just could not *sell* the stations? Certainly some of the other MTL AM's coulda jumped at the chance to upgrade their signal, wouldn't you think? This does not sound like good business, by any means.

The 940, traced back back back, is arguably the first station to go on the air in the world, claiming 1919 to be the on-air date.

Any thoughts as to why this happened? :shrug:

cd

[Mike-CT]

What I read was that these two stations were at the bottom of the Montreal AM ratings and too expensive to operate. Why nobody else in Montreal was interested in jumping to those freqs, just a guess but I would bet it involved money, or lack of.

Anyway, the BBC on 693 is completely clear and easy to hear in the evenings now. It's usually clear but sometimes the station in the Azores pops in with music for a while.

[Russ-PA]

In Canada, it doesn't work the way it would in the US. We may well see ( as we did when CBC abandoned the channels earlier ) other stations come in now to apply for the frequencies and potentially buy equipment from Corus - in fact I think it's likely, especially for 690. Another station currently in the market with good ratings, but desiring better coverage etc. could well be interested.

[cd637299]

Yes...I was thinking *cough* AM 740 Toronto *cough* (they even appeared here in South FL the other night)....

cd

[Robert Grant]

What I read was that these two stations were at the bottom of the Montreal AM ratings and too expensive to operate. Why nobody else in Montreal was interested in jumping to those freqs, just a guess but I would bet it involved money, or lack of.

Anyway, the BBC on 693 is completely clear and easy to hear in the evenings now. It's usually clear but sometimes the station in the Azores pops in with music for a while.

What are you doing to get around WLW's IBOC blasting 690 (and, of course, 680, 710 and 720) to bits?

In fact, I wonder if the fate of the Corus stations was sealed by IBOC interference from WLW and WWJ (this is, the 940 station).

[cd637299]

@Mike-CT, similar to Robert's above post....what in the world kinda radio do you have????

If money is good, the wife & I plan to go to Cape Cod in June. Do ya think I can get the 693 UK using a Superadio II & Select-a-Tenna? or would IBOC be too much to handle?

Mike's radio must be selective as anything.

cd

[spunker88]

Yes I just read about this today. The DXer in me is happy since I now have 2 fresh frequencies to Dx from, but the AM enthusiast in me is saddened by this. Its sad to see two big 50kw stations go, two I could pull in every night of the year since im in Upstate NY only around 150 miles from Montreal sometimes I could pull them in during the day.

I tried these frequencies just now on my AM radio and 690 is not anything to call home about. I hear CFTR on it and get interference from WLW. About the only station I see that i could try for is WNZK out of Michigan at 2.5kw nighttime. But with that little power and my crappy AM radio, CFTR will always overpower it. 940 on the other hand sounds like a pretty quiet spot since it is not surrounded by anything powerful. Sounds like a good frequency to try and ID some stations. It looks like everything shuts down to under 50 watts on 940 in the northeast. Virginia's WKGM looks to be the closest station that has power at night, but I just tried 940 and it was pretty much silent.

[cd637299]

FWIW Spunker, I vacationed in Toronto back around 1999, and actually heard XEQ Mexico City on 940, even though Montreal's 940 was still on air. XEQ seemed like a rather easy catch! Keep an ear out....

And.....doesn't WNZK move to 680 for nights? (This is the last AM station I know of, to have day & night on different frequencies.)

cd

[Mike-CT]

Chris it's a Kenwood R75, which is very selective, but the antenna is a flag. The flag's lobe is east toward Europe and NYC/WWL/etc is in a null, so that helps greatly. But IBOC is IBOC and it still ruins the freqs at times, no matter what antenna you use.

[Robert Grant]

FWIW Spunker, I vacationed in Toronto back around 1999, and actually heard XEQ Mexico City on 940, even though Montreal's 940 was still on air. XEQ seemed like a rather easy catch! Keep an ear out....

And.....doesn't WNZK move to 680 for nights? (This is the last AM station I know of, to have day & night on different frequencies.)

cd

It certainly does!

I wonder if they can now apply to go to 690 fulltime, 2.5kW/50kW U5!

[cd637299]

Um, no.

cd