This transmitter tower is owned by Bell Media Inc., which owns CFCN-DT Channel 4, an affiliate of Canadian national broadcast network CTV.
Building off of the call letters, the station's slogan is Calgary's First Choice for News. It first aired on September 9, 1960.
Transmitter power is 220 kW and the tower is 206.1 m
======
Trail Blaisers have made a lovely waymark of a cool tower, and have graciously allowed us (Benchmark Blasterz) to add facts and history about this cool tower and the 5 stations that use it EITHER as a broadcast transmitter (CFCN-DT, CIBK-FM, XLF339-VHF) OR as a Studio-Transmitter Link (CKMX-AM, CJAY-FM). We appreciate their kindness.
This striking transmitter tower was built in 1960 for Calgary TV Station CFCN-TV and its sister radio station CFCN-AM 1060.
In 2022, one FM station (CIBK) and one VHF station (XLF339) broadcast from the tower, while two studio-transmitter links beam the sister stations' CJAY-FM and CKMX-AM (formerly CFCN-AM) signals to their respective off-site transmitters.
The waymarked tower is located on Prominence Point in West Calgary AB CAN, visible from the Trans-Canada Highway.
One unaffiliated tower client is Canada Weather Radio station XLF339-VHF. We also spotted one more (probably inactive) FM broadcast array on the tower. It's common simply to power down antenna arrays and leave them up because it's expensive to remove them. Inactive arrays are replaced/re-energized when their spot is needed for another client. This tower also contains a repeater array, though we are not sure for who.
On to what we DO know:
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFCN-DT
"CFCN-DT
Calgary, Alberta Canada
Channels: Digital: 29 (UHF), Virtual: 4
Affiliations: CTV (1961–present)
Former affiliations: Independent (1960–1961)
Ownership: Bell Media Inc.
Sister stations:
CFRN-DT
CTV 2 Alberta
CKMX-AM 1060
CIBK-FM 98.5
CJAY-FM 92.1
Transmitter coordinates 51°3'34"N 114°10'13"W
History
CFCN first signed on the air on September 9, 1960; owned by the Love family, along with CFCN-AM (1060 kHz, now CKMX). It was the first independent television station in Canada. It became a charter member of the Canadian Television Network, now CTV, on October 8, 1961.
Canadian General Electric built a 173-foot (53 m) antenna for CFCN-TV, the largest of its type built at the time by the company. The antenna was shipped to Calgary in four sections and was erected in stages atop the station's 344-foot (105 m) tower, for a total height of 517 feet (158 m) making it the tallest structure in the city of Calgary until 1968. when the Calgary Tower was completed. The antenna was high gain, ultra power, slot type. Power output would be 100,000 watts video. A 5 kW General Electric modular transmitter would be used. Complete studio facilities were also from Canadian General Electric, including an EMI 4/12" orthicon camera. (State-of-the-art in 1960 -- BMB)
. . .
Analogue-to-digital conversion
CFCN signed on its digital signal on January 8, 2009. CFCN shut down its analogue signal, over VHF channel 4, on August 31, 2011, the official date in which Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory markets transitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts.
. . .
Programming
CFCN airs the full CTV program lineup on a Mountain Time schedule. However, some programs are broadcast three hours after CTV's Toronto flagship CFTO-DT (effectively, one hour later in Mountain Time than CFTO in Eastern Time). This matches the Pacific Time Zone scheduling of U.S. network affiliates from Spokane, Washington available on many Alberta cable systems and thus allows simultaneous substitution of CFCN over the American broadcasts.
News operation
CFCN presently broadcasts 37 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with seven hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it has the second highest local newscast output out of any English-language television station in the Calgary market, behind Global Calgary. It also broadcasts a separate 30-minute newscast at 5 p.m. on weekdays for viewers in Lethbridge and Southern Alberta, available only on the over-the-air transmitters or through cable companies that distribute CFCN-DT-5 Lethbridge."
The CFCN-DT tower also hosts transmitter equipment for CFCN's three sister radio stations, although only one, CIBK-FM 98.5, broadcasts from the tower.
The second and third sister radio stations, CKMX-AM 1060 and CJAY-FM 92.1, each use a separate studio-transmitter link to their respective separate transmitters a few kilometeres away from the CFCN tower. The CJAY-FM is a few km away in West Calgary, while CKMX-AM transmits from a 3-tower antenna array in MacKenzie Flats, south of Calgary.
Proof that sister station CIBK-FM is also on the CFCN-DT tower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIBK-FM
"CIBK-FM
98.5 Virgin Radio
City Calgary, Alberta
Broadcast area Calgary Metropolitan Region
Frequency 98.5 MHz (FM)
Programming
Format Top 40/CHR
Ownership
Owner Bell Media
(Bell Media Radio G.P.)
Sister stations
CKMX-AM
CJAY-FM
History
First air date September 6, 2002
Technical information
Class C
ERP 100,000 watts
HAAT 298.5 meters (979 ft)
Transmitter coordinates 51.065°N 114.2"
Transmitter location information for CJAY-FM 92.1, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJAY-FM
CJAY-FM has its studios in the CFCN-DT building, but uses a studio-transmitter link to reach its transmitter a few mile away. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJAY-FM
"CJAY-FM
City Calgary, Alberta
Frequency 92.1 MHz (FM)
Branding CJAY 92
Programming
Format Active rock
Ownership
Owner Bell Media
(Bell Media Radio G.P.)
Sister stations
CKMX-AM
CIBK-FM
History
First air date June 1, 1977
Technical information
Class C
ERP 100,000 watts
HAAT 298.5 meters (979 ft)
Transmitter coordinates Calgary, AB: 51.065°N 114.214°W
CJAY-FM (CJAY 92) is a Canadian radio station that broadcasts an active rock format at 92.1 FM in Calgary, Alberta. The station uses its on-air brand name as CJAY 92 and is owned by Bell Media. CJAY operates repeater transmitters located in Banff and Invermere, British Columbia. Its founder was Ralph Connor, who moved to Calgary from Sudbury, Ontario to start the station.[1] On June 2, 2018 CJAY's studios relocated from their Centre Street location where they had been for 15 years back to their original location on Broadcast Hill, while its transmitter is located at Old Banff Coach Road and 85 Street Southwest.
CJAY was owned by Standard Broadcasting until 2007, when Standard Radio was acquired by Astral from Standard Broadcasting due to Standard's exit from terrestrial broadcasting. As part of Astral's merger with Bell Media on June 27, 2013, CJAY is now owned by Bell Media."
Which brings us to the oldest and most interesting sister station, CKMX-AM 1060, known as CFCN-AM from 1922-1994.
CFCN started as experimental radio station VAW in 1921, before Canada was issuing radio licenses for commercial entertainment broadcasting to the general public. Once that regulatory scheme was established, VAW was assigned the call letters CFCN, becoming the third radio station licensed in Calgary.
From Wikipedia, CKMX-AM information and transmitter coords: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CKMX
"CKMX-AM
City Calgary, Alberta
Frequency 1060 kHz (AM)
Programming
Format Comedy
Affiliations
CBC Dominion (1944-1962)
24/7 Comedy (2010-2014)
Ownership
Owner Bell Media
(Bell Media Radio)
Sister stations
CIBK-FM
CJAY-FM
History
First air date May 18, 1922 (experimental 1921–1922)
Former call signs CFCN (1922-1994)
Former frequencies
440 metres (1922-1925)
690 kHz (1925-1931)
985 kHz (1931-1933)
1030 kHz (1933-1937)
1010 kHz (1937-1947)
Technical information
Class B
Power 50,000 watts
Transmitter coordinates 50.9006°N 113.87W"
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CKMX
"History
CKMX was first licensed as a broadcasting station, with the original call sign CFCN, to W. W. Grant Radio, Ltd. of Calgary, Alberta in May 1922. However, the station's founder, William Walter Westover Grant, already had extensive experience with radio development, and a 1923 company advertisement credited him with 13 years of work designing and building radio apparatus, as well as "The construction and installation of the greater portion of Radio-telephone apparatus used by the Royal Air Force during the war", in addition to "The construction of seven commercial and government Radio Stations, including the famous 'High River' Station".
Grant served in the British Royal Air in France during World War I, where he gained experience installing and maintaining radio equipment. After the war ended, he returned to Canada, where reportedly in May 1919 he "constructed a small station in Halifax, Nova Scotia, over which voice and music were broadcast in probably the first scheduled programs in Canada".
In 1920, Grant began working for the Canadian Air Board's Forestry Patrol, developing air-to-ground communication for the spotter aircraft used to report forest fires, initially using radiotelegraphy. The original base was located at Morley, Alberta, where Grant constructed station CYAA. In January 1921 operations moved to the High River Air Station in southern Alberta, where Grant established station VAW, which was capable of audio transmissions. In addition to the forestry work Grant began making a series of experimental entertainment broadcasts, believed to be the first in western Canada.
In early April 1922 the Calgary Herald reported that "Residents of High River have enjoyed several concerts 'out of the atmosphere' during the past few months", with VAW maintaining a regular broadcasting schedule on Tuesday and Friday evenings, on a wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz.) A March 31, 1922 musical program from High River was reported heard in Hawaii, about 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) away.
In Canada there was no formal category for stations making entertainment broadcasts intended for the general public until April 1922, so the earliest stations making broadcasts operated under a mixture of Experimental, Amateur, and, as was the case with VAW, governmental authorizations.
In 1922 federal regulators added a new licence classification of "Private Commercial Broadcasting station", and in late April 1922 an initial group of twenty-three station assignments was announced, including two in Calgary: CFAC, licensed to George M. Bell on a wavelength of 430 meters (698 kHz), and CHCQ, licensed to the Calgary Herald newspaper on 400 meters (750 kHz). Grant, from his base in High River, provided some technical assistance to the newspaper when it was setting up CHCQ.
Grant left the forestry project and established W. W. Grant Radio, Ltd. in Calgary, which on May 18 was issued the city's third commercial broadcasting station license, with the randomly assigned call letters CFCN, operating on 440 meters (682 kHz).
In 1923 the station's transmitter was upgraded from 100 to 1,000 watts, as part of a reconstruction following "a devastating fire which destroyed the plant of the W. W. Grant Radio Ltd." A few months later CFCN, now using the slogan "The Voice of the Prairie", had a further upgrade to 8,500 watts, a very high power for the time period.
In addition to operating the radio station, Grant's company sold a line of "Voice of the Prairie" brand receivers, however the Westinghouse Corporation sued him for infringing certain of its patents. On July 3, 1926 the Exchequer Court ruled in Grant's favor, but on appeal the Supreme Court of Canada on October 4, 1927 reversed the decision. To pay his outstanding legal fees, Grant arranged to sell CFCN to H. Gordon Love.
The station became a phantom station affiliate of the Canadian National Railway radio network and later of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Dominion Network, until the Dominion Network dissolved in 1962.
In 1947, CFCN moved to the station's current AM frequency at 1060 kHz. The call letters were changed to CKMX in the fall of 1994 when Maclean-Hunter sold it to Standard Broadcasting while retaining ownership of sister station CFCN-TV. . .
. . .
Standard Broadcasting was acquired by Astral Media in 2007, and in turn by Bell Media in 2013. The Bell purchase reunited CKMX with its former television sister [CFCN-DT]"
Sad that CFCN-AM had to give up those historic call letters, but Blasterz understand why MacLean-Hunter didn't want CFCN-AM to keep that call after it was sold away from its sister TV station in 1994.
The other broadcast client on the CFCN-DT tower is XLF339-VHF, Canada Weather radio, which has leased a spot on the CFCN Tower. Source: https://worldradiomap.com/ca/calgary
"XLF339-VHF 162,400
Transmitter:
Patterson Heights, CTV Tower
Blasterz could only find this website about the station: https://canadaradio.live/weatheradio-canada-xlf339-vhf-1624-34892/
"Weatheradio Canada - XLF339 is a broadcast station from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, playing Emergency & Public Safety, Scanner, Weather.
We were not able to find out any information about who the repeater client is on the tower.