The other Sydney

By Tim Ritchie                                                                                                                               

The end of 2005 was going to be different from previous years for us as it was the first time we would be abroad for the New Year. We had been invited to a wedding being held on 31^st December in Sydney. Sydney – Nova Scotia, Canada that is.

The wedding went well, but as we were not flying back to Heathrow until 6^th Jan 2006, we had plenty of time to explore Sydney and the Cape Breton area.

Like most (if not all) BDXC members, I always keep an eye open for radio related material. The Cape Breton area has a Marconi museum celebrating his famous radio experiments from this region. Unfortunately, it was closed until the Spring. However, compensation for this was on the way…

On looking around the area of downtown Sydney, I found a building in Charlotte Street (No. 318) called The Radio Building.

                          THE RADIO BUILDING WAS OPENED IN 1929

It is the home of the town’s 3 radio stations:

950   AM CHER THE MAX

1270 AM CJCB COUNTRY FAVORITES

94.90 FM CKPE THE CAPE

We went in to the lobby and chatted to the receptionist for a while. We mentioned we had both worked for BBC radio, and once again it was an ‘open sesame’. We were introduced to the station’s senior journalist/announcer Murray Johnson who gave us a guided tour of the building. The main station is CJCB he explained, which plays mainly classic Country music. CHER plays hits from the 1960’s, ‘70s and ‘80s. CKPE is the AOR outlet.

On the ground floor was the reception and tele-sales area. On the first floor was the older part of the building with the 3 studios, newsroom, offices and transmitters. (The aerial is on the roof). He showed us the electronic newsgathering system and the automated computer play list. They have a small archive and cd collection. (Most music is stored digitally). He mentioned all news bulletins went out live but weather forecasts were normally pre-recorded 20 minutes before they were broadcast. Murray also said they received reception reports from Northern Europeans who have heard CJCB. The stations are fully automated between 21.00 and 06.00. The team of 15 journalists has been whittled down to 3 (including Murray). They encourage locals to become broadcasters. The DJ in the CKPE studio looked about 15!

I image many radio stations in North America are like the set-up at CJCB. We left with some station goodies after a very enjoyable visit.

                         THE RADIO BUILDING DISPLAY WINDOW

Needless to say the signals from all 3 stations were picked up with great ease from the hotel where we were staying.

We also had time to visit a local Native American reservation owned by the Mi’c Maq tribe. The site is just outside borders of Sydney in Membertou. The reservation is exempt from Province and local taxes which makes it very popular with residents and locals alike! It has encouraged much building and development, including a casino and its own radio station CJIJ C99FM.

                                           CJIJ C99FM MEMBERTOU

Radio is very much alive and well in this part of Canada (watching some of the TV I’m not surprised). I noticed this sign in the town centre:

We left from Sydney airport (on a two engine prop Dash 8) on 6^th January with fond memories and plenty of radio recordings on minidisk.