May 23-30, 2001

Prince Edward Island

It's not often that we can squeeze an entire province into a single episode of Tower Site of the Week. In fact, this is the only time we'll even try to do it (well, until we travel to Nunavut or the Yukon, but then those are mere territories, aren't they?)

In any event, this week's pictures come from an all-too-short overnight stay on Prince Edward Island in June 1998. Nestled off the coast of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, P.E.I. is known for potatoes and for the classic Canadian children's tale Anne of Green Gables. The house, in Cavendish on the north shore of P.E.I., is said to be the most popular tourist attraction in Canada.

But we were after some different attractions three summers ago, and did we ever find them, all the while enjoying some of the prettiest scenery and friendliest people in North America. It's even linked by road to the rest of the continent; the Confederation Bridge had been open for just a year when we drove across it, and it's still there, carrying traffic from New Brunswick across to the middle of the island. (DX from the middle of the bridge is incredible, with saltwater paths to just about everywhere!)

Our first stop after traversing the bridge involved heading west, out towards P.E.I.'s second largest community, Summerside.

When we visited, this blue building at 763 Water Street was home to an AM station, CJRW 1240, serving up a steady diet of country music.

That single tower off to the left was something of an anomaly on this particular trip, which began in Boston, ran up through Maine, then included all the directional arrays of New Brunswick. We'd almost forgotten what a little non-directional graveyarder looked like when we pulled up.

While we were taking these pictures, a tour bus full of Japanese visitors (the Japanese are huge fans of the Anne books) also pulled up alongside the site. Japanese tower aficionados? Just a bit lost? We'll never know...

What we do know is that CJRW is no longer to be found on the AM dial. A year or so after our visit, the station applied to move to 102.1 FM, and that's where you'll find it today, still playing country music under the nickname "C-102." Is it still using that tower on Water Street? Someday I'll have to go back to P.E.I. and find out.

Heading east again towards Charlottetown, the provincial capital, the Trans-Canada Highway passes the site of P.E.I.'s oldest radio station, descendant of "10AS" way back in 1924.

CFCY (630) is an occasional visitor to the New England airwaves. It's the island's full-service AM voice, co-owned (as we'll see below) with Charlottetown's other commercial stations by the Maritime Broadcasting System. The three towers are at the top of the page (though the rear tower is hard to see at the rear of the site); the building is carefully concealed to look like an ordinary house - well, except for the STL dishes!

Charlottetown's second AM station came along in 1974. CHTN began its life on 1190 kHz, first as a 1000-watt station, later increasing to 10 kW from its transmitter site at Rocky Point, a spit of land southwest of Charlottetown.

Later in its life, CHTN moved down the dial to 720 kHz, becoming the most often-heard P.E.I. station in New England, and often drowning out Chicago's WGN at night with its oldies programming.

Of course, the 1190 allocation remained on the books internationally (even though it lasted barely 15 years on P.E.I.), meaning new 1190 signals such as WLIB New York (when it added night service in the Great WOWO Massacre of the mid-nineties) still had to protect the non-existent signal from Charlottetown. It could be worse, of course; the 1150 signal in Boston must protect CHSJ in Saint John, N.B. - even though that station moved to 700 kHz in the eighties, then to 94.1 FM in the late nineties!

In 1994, CHTN moved in with the Maritime Broadcasting stations on the third floor of a building at 141 Kent Street in downtown Charlottetown, later consolidating ownership with CFCY and sister FM station CHLQ (93.1) when the CRTC began to allow such duopolies in Canada. .

A stop there yielded no bumper stickers, alas, but did produce some CFCY license plates and a nice Canadian flag to wave in the car on the way back to the States!

The CFCY/CHTN/Magic 93 facility is just a few blocks from one of the most important spots in Canadian history: the Province House where Canadian political leaders met in late 1864 to begin the discussions that would lead to Confederation three years later. Actually, just about everything in Charlottetown is just a few blocks from Province House; it's a very compact, friendly little city indeed.

It's also home to one of the smallest CBC facilities in Canada. CFCY served as Charlottetown's CBC affiliate until 1977, when the Corporation established its own station on the island. The CBC had acquired CFCY-TV (Channel 13) from the radio station in 1969, renaming it CBCT and moving it to a new facility just north of downtown Charlottetown. In 1977, the CBC signed on CBCT-FM (96.1), replacing CFCY as the island's CBC Radio affiliate.

In subsequent years, the CBC would add three more transmitters to the channel 13 tower near Bonshaw, along the Trans-Canada Highway 12 miles west of Charlottetown. CBC Stereo service (later Radio Two) began as a relay of CBH-FM Halifax on 104.7, later taking the calls CBCH-FM. French-language service arrived on 88.1, with CBAF-FM-15 relaying Moncton's CBAF (and later CBAF-FM). French-language TV programming is seen on CBAFT-5 (Channel 31), relaying CBAFT from Moncton, N.B.

Two more TV towers round out the Charlottetown dial (though we didn't stop to take pictures of either one): CTV is represented by CKCW-TV-1 (Channel 8), relaying the Moncton signal, while Global took over the old MITV network, including CIHF-TV-14 (Channel 42).

We didn't see the TV relays in Elmira (CBCT-2, channel 11) at the far eastern end of the island, nor in St. Edward (CBCT-1, channel 4; CKCW-TV-2, channel 5 and CBAFT-6, channel 9) at the western end, either.

But our brief stay on Prince Edward Island that June ended with one more pleasant surprise. As we headed back towards the Confederation Bridge that Monday morning, en route to Sackville, New Brunswick and the Radio Canada International facility (another Site of the Week to come), we began scanning the FM dial for signs of summertime skip.

A signal popped up on 90.9 with religion, sending us to the FM Atlas in the back seat. No sooner had I observed with amusement, "I never knew there was a radio station owned by the Baha'i religion," then up popped the ID: WLGI, Hemingway, South Carolina, Baha'i Radio. It was a neat catch, and another sign of the fun that a P.E.I. vacation can bring.

A special note: We'll be on the road this summer gathering many more tower photos to keep this page humming through the fall and winter months - and we just might be near you! Click here for a look at the itinerary!