Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of April 5, 2015
Edition #829

Talent: GARY MERCER
Station: CKWS Kingston, Ont.
Date: January, 1976
Time: 29:40 (unscoped)

A new era in Canadian radio began when CKWS went on the air during the Second World War. Even though CKWS was an AM station, it was the first radio outlet in Canada to transmit its programs by FM, though some explanation is required. CKWS programming was beamed from a 40-watt FM transmitter at its Kingston studios to its AM tower site on Wolfe Island. The signal was then broadcast with a 1,000-watt signal at 960 on the dial.

CKWS signed on August 31, 1942. It stayed there until January 15, 2008, when the station now known as CFFX abandoned its AM signal having moved to FM as Lite 104.3 exactly three months earlier.

Gary Mercer was the morning show jock at CKWS in the 1970s. Hear him here.

(The Don Shuttleworth Collection)

More 1976 airchecks here!