Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 2
The one that works here. OK. This is an interview with Mr. Ian Clark, recorded in Kamloops on March the 2nd, 1982, and Mr. Clark’s office. My name is Dennis Duffy.
00:00:03 Speaker 1
Oh God.
00:00:17 Speaker 2
OK, to start with, perhaps you could tell me a little bit about your your personal background, how you first got interested in radio?
00:00:25 Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much, Dennis.
00:00:27 Speaker 1
I really appreciate your kindness in coming to Kamloops and allowing me to say a few words.
00:00:34 Speaker 1
I I was born and raised over in Grand Forks, and that’s in British Columbia and and back in the 20s when I was just a schoolboy.
00:00:44 Speaker 1
Radio was just coming in and my father bought a set.
00:00:50 Speaker 1
Peanut tube set and of course in those days everything operated on pantries.
00:00:58 Speaker 1
But you know every there was no loud speakers.
00:01:00 Speaker 1
Everybody had to listen on earphones and this very intrigued me very much, Dennis.
00:01:07 Speaker 1
The you know the A batteries were dry cells and they used to.
00:01:13 Speaker 1
When my dad wasn’t around and take the dry cells out of the telephone those days the telephone was you cranked the crank to get the operator and they had batteries in it.
00:01:23 Speaker 1
And these batteries from the telephone came in very handy to supply.
00:01:27 Speaker 1
AA batteries for the radial.
00:01:30 Speaker 1
I went on to Vancouver to complete my education, went on to Kitsilano High School in Vancouver and.
00:01:37 Speaker 1
And finished my second, third year and I think I got sidetracked into broadcasting at that time.
00:01:45 Speaker 1
The depression was on.
00:01:47 Speaker 1
There were three of us who went together and we decided that to make some money pocket money, we put up umbrella antennas.
00:01:55 Speaker 1
These were an antenna that uh sat on the roof.
00:01:59 Speaker 1
A uh 14 foot pole in the center and four guidelines going down.
00:02:03 Speaker 1
And they were all tied in the top and then a feed from one line.
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Down through into the one of the windows and into the homes.
00:02:13 Speaker 1
And then we had a ground wire outside and the.
00:02:16 Speaker 1
We used to sell these for $3. I think it was and we put in hundreds of these things in Kitsilano particularly.
00:02:24 Speaker 1
And George Chandler CDJR invited us to come down and explain our ventures to the people, which we did.
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And I think that was the turning point.
00:02:35 Speaker 1
I I caught my fancy, but in any event we went on and finally we were able to convince Mr.
00:02:43 Speaker 1
Chandler to allow us to start a school.
00:02:45 Speaker 1
Broadcast from Kitsilano High School.
00:02:48 Speaker 1
Well, and if I’m not mistaken, mistaken dentist, that was the first school broadcast.
00:02:54 Speaker 1
Certainly in the West, in any event.
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And from there.
00:02:57 Speaker 2
Being broadcast then by school people.
00:03:00 Speaker 1
So they I think that’s was my introduction to the the thing and I was still going to school when I got involved.
00:03:09 Speaker 1
And I’m not just too sure too sure how.
00:03:13 Speaker 1
In a shortwave operation, V9CS the only.
00:03:18 Speaker 1
Short waved license of its type in the West and.
00:03:23 Speaker 1
It’s still going CWX operator today under the call letter CKF X, we got the call letters assigned to us. Oh, I think it was about 1935 or something along that line.
00:03:37 Speaker 2
Is it being operated by WWX at that time?
00:03:39 Speaker 1
No, it was, uh, operated by it was in the license was issued to the United Church and they had a long wave station CKFC.
00:03:50 Speaker 1
And on four on 730 kilocycles, Dennis was an odd arrangement on them. And in those days, their CWX, ckmo, CKC, DCHL last and CC all share the one frequency, 7:30 kilohertz.
00:04:08 Speaker 1
And I would say that C KWX and CKMO had the bulk of the time.
00:04:15 Speaker 1
Then CSC came third.
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PHTLS 4th and Ckcu DW, which was the Vancouver province station.
00:04:23 Speaker 1
Merely carried their news and you’ll remember.
00:04:27 Speaker 1
Oh, I don’t suppose you will remember the late Mr.
00:04:30 Speaker 2
I’ve heard the name.
00:04:31 Speaker 1
And he was a wonderful man and eventually we carried the Vancouver province dues on the shortwave as well.
00:04:40 Speaker 2
Well, why?
00:04:41 Speaker 2
Why would the all the stations have been on the same frequency?
00:04:45 Speaker 1
Well, at that time they the matter the government were studying how best to establish the to divide.
00:04:57 Speaker 1
I guess you would say the broadcast band and those days there was no regulations.
00:05:04 Speaker 1
You know, you might be on a channel, say, like, 7:30 kilohertz.
00:05:10 Speaker 1
The in that particular case, I might mention there is a station started on 7:30 in Mexico operating 500,000 watts and that naturally caused interference.
00:05:23 Speaker 1
The Canadian garment, I think we were able to convince them to reduce the power to stop interfering with the the stations.
00:05:31 Speaker 1
Mind you, the Canadian stations were all very low powered stations.
00:05:36 Speaker 1
The CCJR had 500 watts and that was considered quite a high-powered station lowest.
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The CW action, Ckmo and so on. They and operated with 100 watts.
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But it’s amazing.
00:05:51 Speaker 1
Then, as in those days, everybody used an outside antenna and it was amazing what you could pick up in the.
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No side antenna.
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Today, you know the.
00:06:00 Speaker 1
Sets uh are not as sensitive as they used to be, and of course there’s no need for it because the stations are operating at a fairly high power.
00:06:11 Speaker 2
So it was basically a move to prevent stations in one city interfering with those in another.
00:06:16 Speaker 1
That’s right, until the North American Broadcasting Agreement came into effect, it was a pretty much of a dog’s breakfast. I remember on CKFCI remember one time my dad.
00:06:31 Speaker 1
And and my brothers and Grand Forks were listening.
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To our station and.
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There was interference, so I said, well, we’ll just change the frequency a little bit and I got up and these were self excited oscillators in those days and reach and tune the thing down.
00:06:51 Speaker 1
So they got on another frequency wasn’t occupied and they received the programming very well.
00:06:57 Speaker 1
Of course, this wasn’t according to Hoyle.
00:06:59 Speaker 2
Would you have gotten your wrist slapped if that had been discovered?
00:07:02
OK.
00:07:02 Speaker 1
Oh, yes, yeah, they it’s one of those things that just wasn’t discovered.
00:07:09 Speaker 1
And I think there are all kinds of things.
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We were Speaking of the late Ross, MacIntyre and Ross and Earl Connor, where, in my opinion, superb engineers, they did it the hard way.
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They built the equipment and.
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They really knew what they were doing.
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They were reading it, really made a tremendous contribution to early broadcasting.
00:07:35 Speaker 2
What was the attraction that radio would hold for a?
00:07:37 Speaker 2
Young person in those days.
00:07:40 Speaker 1
Well, I think at that time the, the, I I would think in the early 30s it became very apparent that broadcasting was going to become a very, very useful tool and a very powerful tool.
00:07:57 Speaker 1
The at first, UH radio was slow to people were slow to adopt radios, but it wasn’t very long.
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In fact, I guess.
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By 1932, I’m sure that every home in America had a radio.
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And it was really caught on and it caught the fancy of a lot of young people.
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There were, there was a new discovery was.
00:08:23 Speaker 1
You know, in those days they we didn’t have all the great developments we have today, Dennis and people were really, really amazed and at such a miracle as radio.
00:08:37 Speaker 1
How can this be done and so on?
00:08:39 Speaker 1
Sending sounds through the air and at the speed of light.
00:08:46 Speaker 1
I think it attracted a lot of young fellow young fellas because it was a new venture altogether.
00:08:54 Speaker 2
Can you remember the first time you heard?
00:08:56 Speaker 2
A radio or would that?
00:08:57 Speaker 2
Be going too far back.
00:08:57 Speaker 1
Oh yeah, I remember that very well.
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The tennis.
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This was over at Grand Forks.
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And uh, there was a chap that put up a quite a tall wooden stick. I would think 150 feet.
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And I guess he was quite a brain.
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But in any event he had this.
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Tower up and with the wire running down the side of it and up to this time, anybody that did have a radio had a piece of wire hung in the air.
00:09:31 Speaker 1
And uh, there weren’t, I would think he was perhaps about the second or third that had got a radio in Grand Forks.
00:09:39 Speaker 1
So I went into his place.
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He and he invited me in and.
00:09:45 Speaker 1
The gosh, his he had A at least a dozen dials on this thing.
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No meters.
00:09:56 Speaker 1
I’d like to tell you just how it was technically set up, but that’s too long a thing and you’d put on the earphones and you’d get all the squeaks and the heterodynes and so on.
00:10:07 Speaker 1
And then all of a sudden you’d hear somebody you know, way off in the distance saying.
00:10:11 Speaker 1
This is to keep you all in San Francisco or this key in X in Los Angeles.
00:10:17 Speaker 1
And KSL just came on the air at that time, too.
00:10:21 Speaker 1
There were the three main stations.
00:10:24 Speaker 1
And of course, there were no such things as loud speakers.
00:10:28 Speaker 1
Then I I got to to know this from the chaff very well.
00:10:32 Speaker 1
And he kept working on the thing and eventually he got so that you could hear these things and these stations quite audibly on the earphones.
00:10:41 Speaker 1
And then he got a guy of glass and a glass ball.
00:10:45 Speaker 1
You know, one of these very fancy balls with all the that they had in those days.
00:10:50 Speaker 1
Expensive ones.
00:10:51 Speaker 1
And he would put the earphones in the center of the bowl on the bowl for some reason.
00:10:56 Speaker 1
Rather would have a tendency to magnify.
00:10:59 Speaker 1
So if everybody sat there with their one hand cupping their ear.
00:11:04 Speaker 1
They could hear what was going on.
00:11:06 Speaker 1
But it was it was pretty, pretty crude, but.
00:11:10 Speaker 1
It was the start.
00:11:12 Speaker 2
Can you remember how you felt when you?
00:11:14 Speaker 2
First heard heard.
00:11:15 Speaker 2
Heard something over the radio.
00:11:16 Speaker 1
I was just absolutely amazed.
00:11:18 Speaker 1
I remember very well one night.
00:11:21 Speaker 1
Coming out of his place and the moon was in the sky.
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Beautiful, clear night and.
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You know, looking up and wondering, how could this be?
00:11:30 Speaker 1
How could this be?
00:11:31 Speaker 1
The man had said that the, you know that the the reception that I was listening to in the earphones was I could hear first at Grand Forks before a fellow sitting across from the on the table from the man that was doing the talking in Los Angeles.
00:11:47 Speaker 1
For instance.
00:11:48 Speaker 1
It was a.
00:11:50 Speaker 1
I just left you with an odd feeling and how couldn’t such a miracle occur?
00:11:54 Speaker 2
You said you could hear it simultaneously to what he could.
00:11:57 Speaker 1
That’s right.
00:12:07 Speaker 2
Mentioned in your manuscript that when you got to Vancouver that you eventually got involved with Ckmo.
00:12:13 Speaker 2
In some to some degree.
00:12:16 Speaker 2
Tell me about ckmo at that time.
00:12:17 Speaker 1
Well, they they were at that time.
00:12:22 Speaker 1
As to Campbell?
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I might just say this, if I may.
00:12:28 Speaker 1
They uh at that time when I went to first went to Vancouver from Grand Forks.
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There were two chaps, asked Sue Campbell.
00:12:39 Speaker 1
Uh ray mcness?
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And Don Wilson’s.
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And these chaps, the transmitter was in the Old Vancouver Sun tower down on Beatty St.
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And uh, they were up on the top floor and the transmitter was in the building.
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This was their they did most of their programming from the transmitter.
00:13:04 Speaker 1
They had studios on Hastings St.
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Phil Brown was the manager of the station, and I presume the owner in that time.
00:13:12 Speaker 2
The Billy Brown senior.
00:13:13 Speaker 1
Everybody run senior and.
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The late Charlie Smith.
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Wonderful man.
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Pretty well.
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Did all the engineering at the studio end and he did quite a bit of announcing his well.
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And Mr.
00:13:31 Speaker 1
Brown had his famous British Empire program that was very well listened to, but that the the transmitter and the Vancouver Sun Tower.
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And two of splendid engineers, Ray Mcness and Don Wilson.
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And both of these fellows possessed tremendous voices as well.
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Tough announcers.
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And I found that they had got their start at Kamloops.
00:14:00 Speaker 1
In CFJC.
00:14:04 Speaker 1
And they went on Don Wilson, as you know, became top announcer and Eastern stations and so on.
00:14:12 Speaker 1
And Ray Magness was chief announcer, CBC at Vancouver.
00:14:18 Speaker 1
There are two other chaps came along, Ernie Rose, who I believe is still chief engineer of the B CCTV.
00:14:28 Speaker 1
I know Ronnie was doing to retire here just recently and the other fellow, Ross Whiteside, Ross Whiteside, who is chief engineer of CBC Vancouver of CBT in particular.
00:14:42 Speaker 1
And two tremendously technical people.
00:14:47 Speaker 1
So when I got into seeking a woman, I’d have to kind of recall as to how I got into seeking a woman in any.
00:14:55 Speaker 1
I got to know these two chaps very well, Ernie Rosanne, Ross Whiteside and I consider them today to my very best friends and two of my just wonderful people in my opinion.
00:15:08 Speaker 1
Any tactical knowledge that I gained I think came through them.
00:15:13 Speaker 1
You know, in those days you used to have to build all your own equipment and so on, and these fellas was just an old hand to them.
00:15:21 Speaker 1
They were able to grasp the tactical end very, very easily and and I picked up what what information I know about the technical aspects of radio and and of TV.
00:15:32 Speaker 1
I suppose had its foundation with them.
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And in my time, uh Harry Cook was manager of the States and the studies were then in the Sprott Shaw building on.
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Robson St.
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I did most of my work as an announcer there, although I didn’t do some shifts at the transmitter as well.
00:15:57 Speaker 2
I see.
00:16:00 Speaker 2
What can you tell me about Billy Brown senior?
00:16:04 Speaker 1
Well, Mr.
00:16:04 Speaker 1
Brown, Senior was a very forceful gentleman and.
00:16:11 Speaker 1
They he had very fine concepts of what should be good programming.
00:16:18 Speaker 1
I think he offered a very good form of programming.
00:16:21 Speaker 1
He he was always thinking of the listener, and he devised such programs, as I say, the British Empire program and where he got his recordings for that, I certainly don’t know if he must, so we adopt the records from all over the world.
00:16:36 Speaker 1
He made a very thorough study of music.
00:16:38 Speaker 1
He I don’t think he ever let any records, certainly not from the studios in on Hastings St.
00:16:46 Speaker 1
be fair unless he had personally.
00:16:48 Speaker 1
He’s given his personal approval, really high class.
00:16:51 Speaker 2
Well, what was the British?
00:16:53 Speaker 2
Empire program that was so popular.
00:16:55 Speaker 1
Well, this is programs, even Gracie fields and in the stage of presentations in the Great Britain and so on.
00:17:04 Speaker 1
And I remember one time I I had the pleasure, in fact, of doing the announcing on this particular show, when Gracie Fields was in Vancouver.
00:17:15 Speaker 1
And naturally, she was on.
00:17:17 Speaker 1
She came all, and I remember that very well.
00:17:20 Speaker 1
Very gracious lady.
00:17:23 Speaker 2
I didn’t know she was.
00:17:24 Speaker 2
English I thought she was American.
00:17:25 Speaker 1
No, no, no, very much.
00:17:27 Speaker 1
Very English and her records in those days sold by the minions.
00:17:32 Speaker 1
She was very, very popular.
00:17:38 Speaker 2
What can you tell me now?
00:17:39 Speaker 2
One of the interesting things in your manuscript that was especially interesting to me was the list of the early stations.
00:17:44 Speaker 2
And that’s one thing I’ve been working on a lot is trying to trying to ferret out all these early stations that were going.
00:17:49 Speaker 2
And I thought I had a pretty inclusive list, but you’ve got a few that are new even to me now.
00:17:53 Speaker 2
One I’ve heard tell of before.
00:17:55 Speaker 2
You mentioned it was the CFCB which operated from 1922 to 1923 in Vancouver. Can you tell me anything about that or is that too much out of you?
00:18:07 Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s a little bit to be for my time.
00:18:10 Speaker 1
I I don’t think they they that I should make any comment on that Dennis, because there was a.
00:18:18 Speaker 1
Uh, it’s called duggery going on and I don’t think I should.
00:18:25 Speaker 1
Links and that I think that the license was eventually cancelled, wasn’t it?
00:18:28 Speaker 2
I’m not sure. The only thing I know about CFCB other than that it was on from 22 to 23 is like you pick up little bits of information here and there. The other comment I heard about CFCB was that it was operated by Marconi, the Marconi Company.
00:18:29 Speaker 1
At the German.
00:18:44 Speaker 2
Because it seems that a lot of those stations have the CB initials in their name somewhere and that now I don’t know if that’s true either.
00:18:52 Speaker 2
The other thing that was interesting was.
00:18:55 Speaker 2
Well, they’re actually, they’re all stations that operated from 192223 with two others. I’ve never heard of before CJ’s CB Nelson.
00:19:04 Speaker 2
And now you’ve got it listed under two different color letters, one in Courtney called either CCVC or CK VI.
00:19:12 Speaker 2
It’s quite surprising to discover stations operating in Nelson and Courtney that early on.
00:19:19 Speaker 1
Yes, I I don’t think that I could fill you in on that.
00:19:25 Speaker 1
Dennis, in those days they there were licenses granted and these decents operated, in fact, CC JC was amongst those.
00:19:38 Speaker 1
There were maybe 5 or 10 watts and they operated maybe an hour or an hour and a half or something like that.
00:19:46 Speaker 1
But they couldn’t be considered as regular stations.
00:19:50 Speaker 1
They were experimental stations.
00:19:54 Speaker 2
I see.
00:19:55 Speaker 2
So they they wouldn’t.
00:19:56 Speaker 2
Have lasted very long.
00:19:58 Speaker 2
Just out of curiosity, what would what would have been the source of that information in your in your manuscript?
00:20:03 Speaker 2
The the list of early stations, would you have gotten that from CABG or from from personal contacts or yeah.
00:20:12 Speaker 1
Dennis, it’s hard to recall just where, you know I haven’t touched that booklet for so long.
00:20:17 Speaker 2
I guess what I’m getting at is that I would really like to try and try and assemble a definitive list because there’s so many different variants and on these early stations and I wonder where I could get that information on on the early stations that were stations that were.
00:20:30 Speaker 2
Licensed in BC.
00:20:31 Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem, isn’t it?
00:20:33 Speaker 2
Who is doing your licensing in those days?
00:20:35 Speaker 1
And the Department of Transport.
00:20:38 Speaker 1
Yeah, you might be able to get the information from Ottawa from the original licenses that were issued.
00:20:41 Speaker 2
Yeah, I guess they’ll do the.
00:20:46 Speaker 1
As I’m not just too sure where I picked up that information.
00:20:52 Speaker 2
Well, that’s fine.
00:20:53 Speaker 2
I just thought I’d ask in case you cashing your account.
00:20:54 Speaker 1
I I.
00:20:55 Speaker 1
I have an idea.
00:20:56 Speaker 1
It was from Ross McIntyre, but I may be wrong.
00:21:00 Speaker 2
Again, it’s another case that there being so little in the way of written records, that you more or less have to go on on the on word of mouth.
00:21:06 Speaker 1
That’s right.
00:21:07 Speaker 2
A lot of things.
00:21:08 Speaker 1
That’s an entirely it, Dennis.
00:21:10 Speaker 2
Why do you?
00:21:10 Speaker 2
Think that is.
00:21:11 Speaker 2
Do you think that broadcasters by nature are not record keepers or?
00:21:17 Speaker 1
Well, you know, today there are a lot of things going on and do we stop to record these?
00:21:25 Speaker 1
We we don’t some people do and uh to try to to put down like in a form of a scrapbook of what is going on.
00:21:38 Speaker 1
And but by and large, there’s something.
00:21:42 Speaker 1
The day we do and we say, well, you know, it’s important today and that’s it.
00:21:48 Speaker 1
But you don’t make any official record of the the thing.
00:21:51 Speaker 1
Well, I I think I’ve tried to keep records and of the the last 30 or 40 years.
00:22:01 Speaker 1
And uh, I think, uh, scrapbooks and what have you.
00:22:07 Speaker 1
I had a secretary, Jean Ross, who.
00:22:11 Speaker 1
It was very active in TV here.
00:22:15 Speaker 1
The she kept a scrapbook on TV, which she was pretty.
00:22:19 Speaker 1
Well, the history of the thing.
00:22:22 Speaker 1
The station CFJC TV are celebrating their 25th anniversary in April.
00:22:29 Speaker 1
And they now found that all these little 2 bits of the past are past are very, very useful to them.
00:22:36 Speaker 2
But at the time when time is happening, one doesn’t think it’s noteworthy that happen.
00:22:40 Speaker 1
That’s right.
00:22:41 Speaker 1
That’s right.
00:22:42 Speaker 1
And you never, you know, just pass on and even go.
00:22:50 Speaker 2
Jumping around here.
00:22:55 Speaker 2
CTFC how did you?
00:22:59 Speaker 2
How did you get involved with KFC?
00:23:02 Speaker 1
Well, as I say, I was going to school in the in the. I got involved with their shortwave V9CS.
00:23:09 Speaker 1
And from there into CKFC.
00:23:13 Speaker 1
And CFC and and it was owned and operated by the United Church.
00:23:18 Speaker 1
And it wasn’t really operated by the United Church.
00:23:20 Speaker 1
It was operated by radio service engineers, who then had a.
00:23:26 Speaker 1
A fair sized operation going on Davie St.
00:23:29 Speaker 1
in Vancouver and Cyril Trot and Norman Hill, where the owners of the place and serial trot very confident uh young men in that times he maintained and uh the equipment for the United Church.
00:23:45 Speaker 1
And the equipment was located in an upstairs room in the.
00:23:54 Speaker 1
Chalmers United Church at 12th and Granville in Vancouver and they uh up on the roof.
00:24:01 Speaker 1
Uh, they they had a large building next door uh to the church center and the, you know the.
00:24:12 Speaker 1
Badminton courts and basketball courts so that it’s quite a fair sized building.
00:24:18 Speaker 1
And on the roof of that there was a counterpoise strung up on.
00:24:26 Speaker 1
So you might say the rafter type of construction.
00:24:33 Speaker 1
That supported the this ground system, and then they had the antenna up on two towers.
00:24:40 Speaker 1
Uh going, uh, diagonally across the building.
00:24:43 Speaker 1
And that was the antenna.
00:24:45 Speaker 1
And uh.
00:24:47 Speaker 1
This worked very well, and then when uh, uh, the switch went to uh.
00:24:56 Speaker 1
Design just have to recover all this. We eventually, when they broke up the 7:30 kilohertz ckmo and CCMC shared time on 1410 kilohertz and.
00:25:16 Speaker 1
By this time, I got my feet into the broadcasting business and got into public address work.
00:25:23 Speaker 1
And if I can just digress for a moment the the big jubilee of the City of Vancouver was in 1936, I believe.
00:25:34 Speaker 1
And we were doing PA’s all around the town for various things, and we built these PA’s ourselves and.
00:25:45 Speaker 1
So we had just quite a fair bit of equipment, but Jerry Maguire was mayor of the City of Vancouver at that time and he said no, I want this year of the Jubilee Music in Stanley Park.
00:25:59 Speaker 1
And can you people supply?
00:26:02 Speaker 1
So we went to work on it and we put in outlets in nine different places in Stanley Park and they eventually extended that system by landlines.
00:26:14 Speaker 1
To parks everywhere, including Queens Park and in Westminster.
00:26:18 Speaker 1
So we we had a big operation going called public address Limited.
00:26:24 Speaker 1
And they joined the Jubilee year year.
00:26:26 Speaker 1
They had many big events.
00:26:28 Speaker 1
The Don Boston point and at the Marion Walk and Bowl and elsewhere and we picked these up and and fed them around the parks and uh.
00:26:39 Speaker 1
Just prior to that, the United Church very graciously said, well, we could take over the operation of their radio station so.
00:26:49 Speaker 1
The and we were called the standard Broadcasting Company and I was the President and the manager of the AT and a public address limited.
00:26:58 Speaker 1
We put in a new transmitter over north of Vancouver.
00:27:02 Speaker 1
And we set up our studios on the 10th floor in the Vancouver Stock Exchange.
00:27:08 Speaker 1
And this was going along quite, uh, nicely until they the and the changeover brought about by the adoption of the North American Broadcasting Agreement or the Havana Agreement as you referred to it, Dennis.
00:27:24 Speaker 1
Came into effect when CFTC or C KFC, went off the air along with CKC Dean CHLS.
00:27:32 Speaker 2
Now when you when you took over the station, do you mean that?
00:27:38 Speaker 2
Did you buy them out or did you assume their license?
00:27:41 Speaker 1
Well, they yeah, we we the license was still in their name.
00:27:46 Speaker 1
But with the the equipment, the equipment was such that at that time that was necessary to replace it.
00:27:57 Speaker 1
You know the carbon microphones then serve the purpose, and the northern electric oil filled.
00:28:07 Speaker 1
Phone of pickups and so on.
00:28:08 Speaker 1
It’s very, very purpose.
00:28:10 Speaker 1
And so we put in all new equipment.
00:28:15 Speaker 2
I see.
00:28:18 Speaker 2
So it was just simply that the United Church couldn’t afford to operate it anymore or.
00:28:24 Speaker 1
No, I don’t think that was true then I think they, I don’t think that they United Church now.
00:28:31 Speaker 1
I could stand corrected here.
00:28:33 Speaker 1
I don’t believe that the.
00:28:37 Speaker 1
That that cost them anything, I would think that in the early days when they first came on the air, that radio service engineers said, fine, now we will look after the equipment for you and perhaps they even supplied the equipment, I don’t know.
00:28:54 Speaker 1
But in any event, we’ll look after the equipment.
00:28:56 Speaker 1
For you.
00:28:57 Speaker 1
And you will in turn allow us from time to time to run programs sponsored by radio service engineers and will give us some publicity.
00:29:05 Speaker 2
Oh, I see. So.
00:29:08 Speaker 1
And then when we took over, I don’t think if the equipment, if we paid anything for the equipment and I I I don’t recall whether what happened to the equipment.
00:29:18 Speaker 1
Because I don’t think we ever used any of it.
00:29:21 Speaker 2
Did you continue the same kind of programming that they were carrying?
00:29:25 Speaker 1
Well, no.
00:29:26 Speaker 1
We went into wider range of programming.
00:29:31 Speaker 1
We carried the morning service of worship from First United Church in Vancouver, the Reverend Andrew Ron.
00:29:38 Speaker 1
And I’m sure that uh.
00:29:42 Speaker 1
80% of the radios that were on in Vancouver in those days on Sunday morning were tuned to Mr. Rotten. He was a very, very forceful man.
00:29:51 Speaker 2
I just think I forgot to.
00:29:51 Speaker 2
Turn my tape over.
Part 2
Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 1
Sorry, what you’re saying about CKC?
00:00:05 Speaker 1
The kind of.
00:00:06 Speaker 1
In this case.
00:00:07 Speaker 2
You know, it was a we were going into more of a.
00:00:14 Speaker 2
Regular commercial station, I think than what was held before we had advertising on we had.
00:00:22 Speaker 2
Local news and so on and so forth.
00:00:30 Speaker 1
When it was still being run by the United Church or under under the direct control of the United Church, and they were, they would be on the only very briefly during.
00:00:39 Speaker 1
The week, right?
00:00:40 Speaker 2
Yes, they were on in those days, they.
00:00:45 Speaker 2
I think they were on from 10 on Sunday mornings till 5:30 in the afternoon.
00:00:53 Speaker 2
And then they were on from 2 to.
00:00:56 Speaker 2
5:00 o’clock Monday through Friday, and I don’t think they were on at all on Saturdays.
00:01:01 Speaker 1
Oh, so they were on the air more than some of the other stations then than say, say, CK.
00:01:05 Speaker 2
CD oh, yes.
00:01:07 Speaker 2
Yeah, CK CD.
00:01:08 Speaker 2
We’re in the Vancouver province stations.
00:01:13 Speaker 1
What kind of when it was under the direct control of the church?
00:01:16 Speaker 1
What kind of programming would it be?
00:01:18 Speaker 1
Strictly religious programming?
00:01:19 Speaker 2
No, no, they church were very fair about that they when.
00:01:26 Speaker 2
In the on the long wave, we stayed pretty close to running quality programming, you know, not religious failure programming, but you know the latest we ever got would be songs by Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald and so on.
00:01:44 Speaker 2
But we ran a lot of symphonies.
00:01:45 Speaker 2
And so on.
00:01:47 Speaker 2
But later on, of course, we went into more modern music.
00:01:51 Speaker 1
I see and that stuff would have all been on transcription or 78 or.
00:01:54 Speaker 1
Something like that.
00:01:57 Speaker 2
You know the the transcriptions we did didn’t come into play until even later than that.
00:02:06 Speaker 2
Gee, I would think it would.
00:02:07 Speaker 2
Be about.
00:02:09 Speaker 2
35 or 36 before transcribed programs became the thing.
00:02:18 Speaker 2
There was a champ in the name of Johnny Baldwin of All Canada radio facilities in Vancouver.
00:02:24 Speaker 2
At that time, and he were brought in, the first transcriptions.
00:02:27 Speaker 2
In fact, I bought the first one from him.
00:02:31 Speaker 2
Dentist day.
00:02:31 Speaker 2
I don’t know whether that means anything to you or not.
00:02:33 Speaker 1
Oh yeah, Benny Dennis day.
00:02:35 Speaker 2
But uh and uh, you had to buy a series of, say, 27 weeks or 28 weeks and or run.
00:02:43 Speaker 2
You had to buy the whole bunch.
00:02:44 Speaker 2
You couldn’t just buy one transcription, but they became very, very popular in transcriptions, and I’ve got a lot of them right here in this.
00:02:52 Speaker 2
Building tenants of the old.
00:02:55 Speaker 2
Electrical transcriptions you know great big fat records.
00:02:59 Speaker 2
And but they served a very useful purpose.
00:03:04 Speaker 1
In those early days at CFC, CFC was a is it a fairly clean technical operation, or was it fairly haywire?
00:03:13 Speaker 2
I don’t like to admit this, but it was a haywire operation.
00:03:17 Speaker 1
Even when the radio services engineers, people were involved.
00:03:21 Speaker 2
Well, you know, but you see in those days, Dennis, there was no place you could buy you you can.
00:03:27 Speaker 2
Yes, Marconi, Marconi and I stand corrected on that.
00:03:30 Speaker 2
Marconi turned on the transmitter.
00:03:33 Speaker 2
And uh, it could be that.
00:03:36 Speaker 2
That the RCA and Northern Electric could have been turning all transmitters, but the only I think as you said, there was a Marconi transmitter CFCT in Victoria and I think that was the only Marconi commercially built transmitter.
00:03:55 Speaker 2
In the WWX ckmo, OCD had a commercial belt transmitter.
00:04:03 Speaker 1
Minded the problems had the money they could afford it.
00:04:05 Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s right.
00:04:06 Speaker 2
They they had one and uh, but uh and the.
00:04:13 Speaker 2
Canadian National railways CNR V There was there and there was a lovely northern electric 500 Watt transmitter. Yeah, that’s right.
00:04:21 Speaker 2
They they could afford it too, but the the rest of it is CJOR and the the rest of us all is all home built stuff.
00:04:22 Speaker 1
That could afford it.
00:04:32 Speaker 1
There’s a good story in the manuscript.
00:04:34 Speaker 1
Maybe you could tell me about setting up the OR realigning the transmitter at CFC BKFC with with Lori Irving.
00:04:41 Speaker 2
All he would, you know, I don’t like to.
00:04:48 Speaker 2
Bannerman was the radio inspector in Vancouver in those days and the just a splendid gentleman.
00:04:54 Speaker 2
A man who of great compassion, understood things.
00:04:58 Speaker 2
And we got into several of the.
00:05:01 Speaker 2
Various problems technically, and we’re operating in the wrong frequency and various things and.
00:05:11 Speaker 2
He was a most understanding man and.
00:05:15 Speaker 2
As I say, had an understanding, we knew we were trying to do our best and we weren’t always successful and we got off on the wrong tangents and what have you but.
00:05:26 Speaker 2
He had no time.
00:05:27 Speaker 2
Did he threaten to cancel the licence or to do anything?
00:05:30 Speaker 2
He just drilled our to our attention, said follows.
00:05:33 Speaker 2
That’s not.
00:05:34 Speaker 2
You have to do such and such and we respected him very highly.
00:05:39 Speaker 2
Didn’t want to.
00:05:41 Speaker 2
I think there were times just to be honest with you, Dennis, when he he kind of closed his eyes and his ears and said, well, you know they’re
00:05:49 Speaker 2
They’re at least doing something.
00:05:52 Speaker 2
He was a very understanding man, fortunately.
00:05:56 Speaker 2
And and I think sharing back in those days with the depression was raging and they I I found in Vancouver that the a great understanding on the on the part of the older people in Vancouver.
00:06:11 Speaker 2
Who just you know said well, you heard a couple of young bucks are trying to do something and they’re green behind the ears and so on, but we’ll help them.
00:06:25 Speaker 2
And I can mention a number of the.
00:06:28 Speaker 2
People Charlie Thompson at the Bank of her motors and importantly, became Mayor of Vancouver.
00:06:33 Speaker 2
If I’m not mistaken, and there were others many, many others row, Holland and so on that.
00:06:42 Speaker 2
You know, if it weren’t fair there, the support and cooperation and getting behind us, I don’t think we would have been able to have gotten anywhere at all, but they were.
00:06:53 Speaker 2
They were.
00:06:54 Speaker 2
They seemed to understand that the, you know, was tough times and for young people particularly, and we owe.
00:07:02 Speaker 2
The people of my youth youth of those days owe them a debt of gratitude.
00:07:07 Speaker 2
Could never repay.
00:07:14 Speaker 1
Can you tell me about the background of?
00:07:17 Speaker 1
CFJC beginnings of C of CFJC.
00:07:23 Speaker 2
Well, see if JC began this operation here in 1926.
00:07:28 Speaker 2
And really, was the first commercial station in the interior.
00:07:36 Speaker 2
In fact, it was the only station in the interior.
00:07:40 Speaker 2
At that time.
00:07:42 Speaker 2
They it was before my time 1926, but.
00:07:47 Speaker 2
In the former Dell lease building, which has now been replaced by the main branch of the Royal Bank of Canada.
00:07:55 Speaker 2
On the 2nd floor, they had an area curtained off, and they had a phonograph and A2.
00:08:04 Speaker 2
Uh, double button.
00:08:11 Speaker 2
And that and the transmitter that was lights for 10 watts.
00:08:16 Speaker 2
And I think it put out about 5 or 6 watts.
00:08:20 Speaker 2
And an antenna on the roof and they, you know, operated in the evening hours and they held the microphone in front of the phonograph for the music and.
00:08:33 Speaker 2
Did they’re talking?
00:08:34 Speaker 2
What have you.
00:08:34 Speaker 2
And that was it.
00:08:36 Speaker 2
They didn’t.
00:08:36 Speaker 2
Uh, have a number of people.
00:08:38 Speaker 2
They they were said that the there’s Mr.
00:08:42 Speaker 2
Jack MacArthur who lives in Hansford.
00:08:45 Speaker 2
Now, I believe retired man of some years now, he was one of the first performers here and in fact, I think he’s the only.
00:08:54 Speaker 2
Living one who did perform on the CFTC in the very beginning, and then the.
00:09:06 Speaker 2
That went on for a time, and then the station was transferred. The ownership from one set of the from NS Dalgleish Limited to DS Dalgleish and they were in the stock business at the time. And you know in the in 27 and 28.
00:09:26 Speaker 2
The stock market was very lively and you were used to broadcast stock quotations on the radio, and this became a very popular thing in Vancouver too.
00:09:35 Speaker 2
We carried a lot of it in Vancouver.
00:09:37 Speaker 2
Fact just came to mind.
00:09:40 Speaker 2
And then the uh, the I presume that the the Depression struck 1929 came and.
00:09:53 Speaker 2
So the statesman was taken over by the Kamloops Sentinel.
00:09:57 Speaker 2
And they set up a.
00:10:01 Speaker 2
More powerful transmitter 250 Watt transmitter.
00:10:05 Speaker 2
On the street, which is right now and now isn’t right in the middle of the middle of one of the residential districts, but at that time was on the hillside and all by itself and they operated from there with 250 watts.
00:10:22 Speaker 2
And then they in the well, I would think about 34.
00:10:31 Speaker 2
Move the transmitter to North Kamloops on Mackenzie Ave.
00:10:36 Speaker 2
and N Camp Loops.
00:10:38 Speaker 2
And they operated to change the frequencies to.
00:10:46 Speaker 2
880 kilohertz.
00:10:49 Speaker 2
And then in 1936, it could have been in 1935.
00:10:55 Speaker 2
Uh, Mr. Dunstons of the.
00:10:58 Speaker 2
Who was then coming in to head up the new garment network to be called the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
00:11:07 Speaker 2
Howe, Mr.
00:11:08 Speaker 2
CD Howe and Mr.
00:11:10 Speaker 2
Duncan came to Kamloops and spoke to Mr.
00:11:12 Speaker 2
White, who was then the owner, and Mr.
00:11:16 Speaker 2
Ralph White.
00:11:17 Speaker 2
Senior the late Mr.
00:11:19 Speaker 2
Ralph White and said we would like you to become an affiliate of the new network, to be called Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
00:11:28 Speaker 2
CFJC at that time had been carrying programs from what was called the Canadian Radio Commission, which was started after the Sir John Hart report to raw Commission report.
00:11:43 Speaker 1
Is that, would that be the error report?
00:11:45 Speaker 2
Yes, there search on their report.
00:11:47 Speaker 2
Pardon me and.
00:11:50 Speaker 2
The and then the Canadian Radio Commission.
00:11:55 Speaker 2
Uh was the founder of Network Broadcasting in our country, but then they had brought up the the head of the BBC, who was a Canadian and I just he was born in Maple Ridge.
00:12:09 Speaker 1
Glastonbury would be gladly yes.
00:12:15 Speaker 2
And so he headed up the the Canadian Radio Commission.
00:12:21 Speaker 2
But and then it was all right, but they they were very heavy on the classics, but.
00:12:29 Speaker 2
And they’ve taken over the facilities that were had been operated up to that point by the Canadian National Railways.
00:12:36 Speaker 2
On their television network and they, you know, I think we often tend to forget that the C&R did a first class job. Uh, in the early days when they started into network broadcasting.
00:12:52 Speaker 2
And they had their trains equipped with radio hose, and the idea was that you could travel on, as they said, travel a national way.
00:13:02 Speaker 2
That was their theme.
00:13:04 Speaker 2
And uh on the railroad and uh, they they had, uh earphones and certain cars that you would listen to the stations now behind you there were a lot of areas where there was just no reception as they traveled across the country.
00:13:20 Speaker 2
But as they got near they some centers they could get the reception.
00:13:24 Speaker 2
But the CRV in Vancouver and.
00:13:27 Speaker 2
The the network produced many very fine programs, especially in dramas.
00:13:37 Speaker 2
Declaring Bull, who was manager today of CBX and CB XT in Edmonton.
00:13:46 Speaker 2
Was in Vancouver in in those days and I had the pleasure of working with him from time to time.
00:13:52 Speaker 2
And the first condenser microphone.
00:13:58 Speaker 2
That was used in our country, I think was installed in CNV in Vancouver and it was a great step forward in broadcasting and I don’t know how I managed to come into possession of it, but I still have to home talk to.
00:14:17 Speaker 2
My basement that it was a long microphone and had to have an amplifier right beside the head and you had the big cable carrying all the power to it and you had batteries, a car battery and.
00:14:29 Speaker 2
A number of other batteries to operate this thing, but the quality was really superb.
00:14:34 Speaker 1
There would be the early Phantom powered microphone.
00:14:37 Speaker 2
That’s right. Now today they the condenser microphone, I guess that the condenser condenser microphone is used in 90% of all TV and radio stations today. Wonderful thing of course today with the even arise nation of.
00:14:57 Speaker 2
They’re able to get all compact the thing down South and all the the amplifiers are right beside the microphone.
00:15:09 Speaker 1
Maybe I could backtrack a little bit here and some of the things you mentioned you were talking about the original owner of the station, the original dog leash, NS dog leash, who ran a store?
00:15:20 Speaker 1
What was the?
00:15:21 Speaker 1
What kind of a store was it?
00:15:22 Speaker 2
It was a department store.
00:15:28 Speaker 2
The IT was operating the start that I would think in the latter part of the 1800s and they provide a marvelous service here for many, many years.
00:15:45 Speaker 2
It was a they had when I came to town, they had a gross Atari in the basement and they had.
00:15:53 Speaker 2
Furniture and hardware and you name it.
00:15:57 Speaker 2
They had all kinds of things and.
00:15:59 Speaker 2
When they they they, Mr.
00:16:02 Speaker 2
Ross Dalglish said.
00:16:03 Speaker 2
Ross Dalglish is still living here in Kamloops.
00:16:06 Speaker 2
He retired.
00:16:08 Speaker 2
It must be 10 or 15 years ago or more and his sons who were working at the store at the time, chose not to carry on.
00:16:20 Speaker 2
And sold the store was uh, alternately closed.
00:16:24 Speaker 2
And as I say, they’re all banker located on that property now, but they.
00:16:30 Speaker 2
I think you know could be said the way that stores operate in those days.
00:16:35 Speaker 2
It was one of the old type of stores that there was a friendliness and there was continuality about the place and if you didn’t like something you you took it back and there were no questions asked and everything was done on a very friendly.
00:16:50 Speaker 2
Cases I remember one time and I think I can tell this story.
00:16:54 Speaker 2
I went in at the end of the day and I was in a hurry to get home and I picked up something.
00:17:00 Speaker 2
I went to pay for it to one of the cash registers and there was nobody there, so I.
00:17:05 Speaker 2
I grabbed one of their build things, you know?
00:17:09 Speaker 2
Anybody who’s rebuilding pads.
00:17:12 Speaker 2
And I wrote out my name and the thing and the the cost of the thing and and.
00:17:20 Speaker 2
I picked up a bag and put my whatever it was and went on my way home.
00:17:25 Speaker 2
I guess a couple of days afterwards I went in and one of the old English there was a hearing, Dalgleish was in the store at the time and his brother.
00:17:38 Speaker 2
His name just escapes me at the moment.
00:17:40 Speaker 2
And he said to me, you write that bill last night or the few nights ago.
00:17:44 Speaker 2
And I said, John, he said again, he said.
00:17:47 Speaker 2
From now on, you just write your own bills.
00:17:49 Speaker 2
When you come in here, you shall save us time.
00:17:53 Speaker 2
And I from that day on, I went in and and I got to patronize store for a long time and they I wrote my own bills and the end of the month I get my statements and that was it.
00:18:06 Speaker 2
But this was the type of thing that the the type of store that went on a few.
00:18:11 Speaker 2
You know, you might be a stranger yourself to town if you’ve gone in and said, well, no, I’d like radio or.
00:18:17 Speaker 2
And they gave you.
00:18:18 Speaker 2
I want a TV set and.
00:18:21 Speaker 2
And I’d like to try one out.
00:18:23 Speaker 2
I bought a home where I’m living in such and such a place.
00:18:28 Speaker 2
They’d have their truck bring it.
00:18:29 Speaker 2
Up to you.
00:18:30 Speaker 2
But they, you know, they when, uh, perhaps even other than your name, they and their address they don’t.
00:18:41 Speaker 2
When they ask you any other questions at all, they trust you.
00:18:44 Speaker 2
They do.
00:18:45 Speaker 2
You know, there was a great deal of trust in all the years that I was in business and see if JC here.
00:18:52 Speaker 2
For 30 years, I never signed a contract with the local merchant. His word was his bond and hundreds of $1000 worth of business, but never asked anybody to sign a contract of. I remember one time Mr. Dalgleish brought a transcription service, a transcribed series.
00:19:12 Speaker 2
And I think it ran for about oh.
00:19:16 Speaker 2
15 weeks and.
00:19:19 Speaker 2
He thought that it wasn’t quite what he wanted.
00:19:22 Speaker 2
And he knew that we were obliged to pay for the transcriptions.
00:19:26 Speaker 2
And he said, oh, no, no, no, he said.
00:19:27 Speaker 2
I understand that actually I pay for the transcriptions.
00:19:30 Speaker 2
You know, these are the type of.
00:19:32 Speaker 2
There are people of of integrity, of.
00:19:37 Speaker 2
I’m not saying that I don’t want to say that the people today don’t have don’t possess that the town has grown and there’s been many changes taking place.
00:19:47 Speaker 2
But in those days they there was a feeling of, you know, that these were your brothers.
00:19:55 Speaker 2
And was a nice feeling.
00:19:57 Speaker 2
I suppose this type of feeling he said exists in really small communities even today.
00:20:03 Speaker 1
What would dalgleish’s interesting radio have been? Was it just a community service or was it to their advantage to run a?
00:20:10 Speaker 1
Radio station in another.
00:20:11 Speaker 2
You know, I think they they, you know they by using the radio they could promote their store and promote the sailor radios in particular.
00:20:19 Speaker 1
If you would give something people to listen to, if, if if they bought a radio right, I don’t imagine there would been very, very much else, it would have been able to be picked up up here at that time.
00:20:23 Speaker 2
That’s yeah.
00:20:30 Speaker 2
Well, some of the American stations were coming through.
00:20:34 Speaker 2
And you know, they were some fairly high-powered stations down California.
00:20:40 Speaker 2
Uh, K&X and.
00:20:45 Speaker 2
There was another really powerful station was very popular and on those days in LA there was keep on kiji all in San Francisco.
00:20:56 Speaker 2
Of course.
00:20:56 Speaker 2
And there was KSL in Salt Lake City.
00:20:59 Speaker 2
And key and key something in Denver, Co.
00:21:05 Speaker 2
So the rooms maybe five or six stations that you can get at night time reasonably well.
00:21:12 Speaker 1
I’m really interested in the involvement of Ralph White and the Kamloops Sentinel.
00:21:16 Speaker 1
It seems rather unusual that a newspaper would would buy a radio station.
00:21:23 Speaker 2
Well, I I think that they looked at and said well, it’s.
00:21:29 Speaker 2
You know all this radio thing is starting to be widely accepted and we might be very wise.
00:21:37 Speaker 2
They could.
00:21:38 Speaker 2
Perhaps some time have an effect on on the operation of our newspaper.
00:21:45 Speaker 2
And that they thought, well, they.
00:21:48 Speaker 2
They might be very wise and I I would think they they had good reason, good sound, logical reason to purchase it.
00:22:00 Speaker 1
I’ve heard I don’t know saying this is the case, but I’ve heard stories of in another particular incident in BC where a newspaper stirred up a radio station simply to prevent anybody else from doing so, and and deliberately kept the station small and under under financed.
00:22:19 Speaker 1
That wouldn’t have been the case here, would it?
00:22:20 Speaker 2
No, I I don’t.
00:22:22 Speaker 2
I don’t think I can agree with that.
00:22:25 Speaker 2
When the.
00:22:27 Speaker 2
After I came to town.
00:22:30 Speaker 2
In 1940.
00:22:32 Speaker 2
The equipment at that time was about on par with most other.
00:22:40 Speaker 2
Commercial stations in BC they they had 1000 Watt home built transmitter and you know and it’s a pretty difficult thing even in those days to really build the transmitter of that power.
00:23:00 Speaker 2
Particularly in those days that you know.
00:23:03 Speaker 2
1000 Watt transmitter.
00:23:04 Speaker 2
The transmitter must have been.
00:23:07 Speaker 2
Or 20 feet long in any event.
00:23:13 Speaker 2
And there were many, many problems involved with it.
00:23:19 Speaker 2
After I became manager of the station, I went to the late Mr.
00:23:23 Speaker 2
White and I said to him, you know.
00:23:26 Speaker 2
I think we have got to get some new equipment.
00:23:31 Speaker 2
And he said, well, what kind of money are we talking about?
00:23:36 Speaker 2
And I said, well, we’re incentive building anymore, where I would suggest that we, we buy the equipment.
00:23:43 Speaker 2
That this is the trend today not to build anymore, but to buy the equipment and.
00:23:49 Speaker 2
My my parole for was to buy a new Northern electric transmitter.
00:23:54 Speaker 2
And new Northern electric equipment for the studio.
00:23:59 Speaker 2
And he said, well, they.
00:24:05 Speaker 2
Just let me think about.
00:24:07 Speaker 2
So there was a fine engineer and.
00:24:12 Speaker 2
Norm Ollie, who was the?
00:24:15 Speaker 2
CBC engineer in Vancouver at the time.
00:24:20 Speaker 2
And with his help and guidance, I got all the necessary information that I needed.
00:24:29 Speaker 2
So I went back to Mr.
00:24:30 Speaker 2
White and.
00:24:32 Speaker 2
I said to him, you know, Mr. White, there is one microphone, 44 BX RCA velocity microphone.
00:24:41 Speaker 2
And there’s a pair of earphones.
00:24:43 Speaker 2
That I like to keep, but the rest of it I like to.
00:24:47 Speaker 2
Throw out all together.
00:24:50 Speaker 2
Put in Brown new new equipment and he went along with it.
00:24:55 Speaker 2
So it certainly showed that, you know, at that time they I would like to say the station wasn’t making a profit, but I if it was, it would have been a very, very small profit.
00:25:09 Speaker 2
At that time.
00:25:10 Speaker 2
So I must say to the leaf, Mr.
00:25:15 Speaker 2
Ralph White and his son, Mr.
00:25:18 Speaker 2
Ron White, Ronald White, who uh took over as manager and president of the company after his father passed on.
00:25:28 Speaker 2
Have treated me completely fairly.
00:25:31 Speaker 2
They were just wonderful.
00:25:33 Speaker 2
And uh, they I think after I was here four or five years, they very graciously allowed me to lease the station problem and that had no time during that time that I leased the station from them.
00:25:49 Speaker 2
Did they ever say why you’re doing this or you’re doing that?
00:25:53 Speaker 2
Injuring our business and there were times when we’d definitely we’re, oh, right, competition to their newspaper.
00:26:01 Speaker 2
The camp of Sentinel.
00:26:03 Speaker 2
At no time, at no time did they say to me you shouldn’t do this or shouldn’t do that.
00:26:09 Speaker 2
They were sometimes up there there and the tour of their newspaper when blast me and they and their editorials and there are other times I guess when I went after them on the air.
00:26:23 Speaker 2
And it worked very well.
00:26:24 Speaker 2
And then with the passage of time, uh, Ronald White, uh very gracefully brought me into the ownership of it and ultimately the complete ownership of it.
00:26:37 Speaker 1
So the relationship with the newspaper was very friendly.
00:26:39 Speaker 2
Oh, couldn’t have been friendlier, Mr.
00:26:43 Speaker 2
Ron White, who still is active in various projects in the town long since retired.
00:26:54 Speaker 2
As an eye, I don’t suppose a month goes by that we don’t get together.
00:26:59 Speaker 2
We I don’t know how many times a year we we have dinner at his home or at our home or we go to a restaurant.
00:27:08 Speaker 2
And uh, I can say this.
00:27:13 Speaker 2
Uh, Dennis, that I never enjoyed a friendlier relation with anyone than I did with uh.
00:27:19 Speaker 2
Ronald White had no time.
00:27:22 Speaker 2
Did he ever raise his voice to me or my voice to his?
00:27:27 Speaker 2
At no time did we ever.
00:27:33 Speaker 2
Have any disagreements, you know whether if we didn’t talk about sell right there and land the way we used to.
00:27:40 Speaker 2
To it.
00:27:41 Speaker 2
If I had something in my mind or he had something in his mind, we’d he’d phone me or I phoned him.
00:27:46 Speaker 2
We’d go down to what was the royal cafe or in in the Royal Cafe still going?
00:27:51 Speaker 2
And we’d have a cup of coffee, we’d sit there and toss the thing out.
00:27:55 Speaker 2
And that was it.
00:27:57 Speaker 2
We never, you know, when we were any other time when we got together were strictly social.
00:28:03 Speaker 2
We never didn’t doing do any business talking in the business hall anytime.
00:28:08 Speaker 2
We never talked business.
00:28:09 Speaker 2
My office never talked to business.
00:28:10 Speaker 2
To his office, we always went.
00:28:12 Speaker 2
Out for coffee.
00:28:14 Speaker 2
And it was a wonderful arrangement.
00:28:16 Speaker 2
They have treated me very fairly.
00:28:18 Speaker 1
It seems it seems even more remarkable when you consider that at times it would have been in their best interest to to try and take more control over the station and.
00:28:29 Speaker 1
It seems very unusual.
00:28:30 Speaker 2
You know, they were very fine people, you know, they we went on into various projects, they weather Bureau, we operated the Dominion, Uh Meteorological Service here for I don’t know 20 some overbore in 20 years and we built it together.
00:28:48 Speaker 2
We built a skyway drive in we started.
00:28:51 Speaker 2
Various ventures together.
00:28:57 Speaker 1
That seems the complete opposite of the story of what happened.
00:28:59 Speaker 1
Had the station under their thumb and.
00:29:04 Speaker 1
There was never any whisperings of that that the Sentinel had a monopoly and that it had the newspaper and the station.
00:29:13 Speaker 2
I don’t ever recall.
00:29:16 Speaker 2
That being said, uh.
00:29:18 Speaker 1
Of course, today, today, if that today, if that happened, that would be the first thing anybody would would would scream.
00:29:23 Speaker 2
Would be monopoly?
00:29:24 Speaker 2
Well, I think so, but it was accepted they was completely independent.
00:29:35 Speaker 1
They didn’t share Staffs or advertising departments or anything.
00:29:37 Speaker 2
No, nothing at all.
00:29:39 Speaker 2
We weren’t in the same building at all.
00:29:42 Speaker 2
No connection with each other.
00:29:44 Speaker 1
Well, it certainly sounds like a unique a unique arrangement.
00:29:46 Speaker 2
Yeah, it worked out very, very well, Dennis.
00:29:49 Speaker 1
I’ll just change tapes here.