Montreal Radio Update

Any new news on both stations ? Thanks.

Any news testing on 600 AM yet ? what's taking so long ?

600 had to send away for some new transmitting equipment. It's going to take some time for it to arrive and install. It may have arrived already, I don't know...but with a few late season snow storms the past few weeks, Including a very deadly on last week, I doubt they've been able to get out to the site to install anything.

To be more precise, and I'm quoting from a letter sent to the CRTC in French (that I'm using google translate to translate to English. " On the other hand, a change of frequency is required in order to transmit the 600 khz frequency. These changes affect the essence of the site. The transmitter must be partially re-sampled at the factory in order to be re-tuned to the new frequency. The phasing system must be completely redesigned. To broadcast at the new operating frequency. In addition, these two stations (600 & 940) coexist on the same broadcast site. Which leads to additional complexities as to the design of the system.

In order to carry out the various modifications of the broadcasting system of the AM station 600Khz, we contacted different manufacturers. Based on the responses of the tenders obtained, it would seem that some manufacturers have difficulty obtaining the materials required to effect the conversion within the prescribed time limits.

I confirm, however, that the works are already erected. And the design is virtually complete. On the other hand, the rarity of the AM equipment is a reality Nowadays. Pieces are now made on request and delivery delays are much longer than in the past. It is fairly frequent to meet delivery delays of 12 to 16 weeks.

Following the above information, we believe that it will be possible to carry out modifications to the 600KHz broadcasting system only in the spring of 2017."

Take from that what you will. That come courtesy of Steve Faguy's blog, in which he posts the original letter from a Patrice Lemée, engineer at Commspec. Away would mean out of town, so a different province would definitely be away. To use Newfoundland English, although I live in Ottawa (a mere 2 hours away) when I go there I "come from away."

The transmitter they are talking about retuning is the one previously tuned to 690. Since there is a station using that frequency, I imagine they probably couldn't turn it on without causing problems to CKGM.

With some severe snowfall over the past couple of weeks that resulted in some extremely deadly conditions that have closed highways in Quebec and the Atlantic region, (if the parts are coming from Halifax) that could result in even more delays as highways have been closed for as much as 12 to 14 hours, shipments have been delayed. There was a storm in the Montreal region that was so bad 2 weeks ago, emergency vehicles couldn't reach people for 14 hours. There's video of the crashses on youtube from our national and local news that shows just how bad it's been here this past month. Airports have been closed and flights have been cancelled. It's been a mess from here to the east coast this month. There is still a significant snowpack on the ground that isn't going away for a few weeks that could also hinder access to the transmitter site itself. Understand that I am not trying to make excuses, but pointing out that there are circumstances ranging from old equipment to weather that can cause unexpected delays.

The call sign of CFQR has been assigned to the new AM 600. Those calls were previously used in Montreal on 92.5 FM for a long time. I was hoping they'd go for the old CFCF calls myself.

According to the Canadian Radio News Facebook page, what is now CFQR was running a test tone over an open carrier intermittently yesterday (June 21). This was later replaced by the music feed from sister station CFNV 940, which temporarily went off the air. The two stations share a transmitter site, which is located in the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve, and it's believed this was done to properly tune 600. TTP Media has until June 30 to get this station up and running. When all is said and done, CFQR is slated to have an English news/talk format.

Regarding CFNV 940, now billed as "La Superstation," they are still in stunt mode, playing continuous music interspersed with a few commercials for local businesses. The French news/talk format slated for this frequency has yet to launch.

They've been turning off CFNV during the daytime until about 7 pm to do tuning for CFQR. It was on and off intermittently today with just an open carrier. I'm one of the admins on the Canadian Radio News facebook page and was the one who posted the info. I just had a feeling that I should check out 600 that day, and tuned in and heard the carrier and a tone. At first it was a "possibly testing" post, and I waited for confirmation from people in Montreal that it was them. I'm in downtown Ottawa, and the station was not really expected to be heard here. It does, but the signal is very weak. Then again, all Montreal stations are much weaker here during the summer months. I even posted a video in one of the comments on how the carrier is received in Ottawa.

There is currently nothing happening with CFQR 600 AFTER 7 pm for now. We'll probably have to wait a few days before people can try DXing it at night.

Quick little update. CFQR did a lot more testing this past weekend, including some up to between 8 and 10 pm. All testing was done between 10 and 50% power according to the station's owner. Some music was played, a tone was played most of the weekend...and some open carrier. As of late morning, nothing has happened there, and they restored service to 940 CFNV, which had been off during the time they were working on CFQR. CFNV would return to air most nights after dark. The stations has to get everything done by Friday, and from what I was told, all is going well, but they wouldn't give any more details other than that.

we have been hearing non-stop music on CFQR,so when does talk radio start?