CHCE and CFCL/CFCT Victoria (Roots
of CJVI 1941-2000)
Victoria did not lag far behind
Vancouver in establishing its first radio station. In 1922, four
young Victorians formed the Western Canada Radio Supply Company to
build and sell receivers. With Kenneth G. Moffatt as manager,
they opened a store on Fort Street that also housed, for a short time,
a 5-watt station called CHCE. According to G.M. Warnock, one of
Moffats's partners, the transmitter was built on the premises and
occupied a small mezzaine balcony. Mr. Warnock writes: "Broadcast
entertainment consisted of a stack of 3-minute assorted vocal and
musical favorites popular in that era with no commercials or newscasts
that I recall."
Meanwhile, Dr. Clem Davies of
Centennial Methodist Church decided that the church should have its own
station. Davies, who had previously broadcast in southern
California and was later heard on CKWX Vancouver was determined the
station should be in operation by Easter Sunday of 1923. A
500-watt Marconi transmitter was hurriedly purchased and installed, and
the station commercial broadcasting on schedule as CFCL.
Eventually the church choir master, George Deaville, became involved in
the operation of CFCL. In the Daily Colonist of April 1, 1956,
Mrs. Bertha Parsons--Deaville's sister--explains how this came about.
"George really got into
radio in a strange way. Dr. Davies had arranged for a temperance
worker to make a broadcast. The station engineer at the time did
not favour prohibition and vowed that not a single word would be sent
over the air. To make his threat good, he locked up the studio,
pulled out wires, switched tubes around and created no little
chaos. George broke down the door and stayed up all night working
to repair the damage and succeeded in getting both the station and the
temperance talk on the air."
In 1924, Dr. Clem Davies left the
pulpit of Centennial Methodist and established the Victoria City
Temple. George Deaville moved the radio transmitter into downtown
Victoria where he continued broadcasting on an amateur basis. A
new licence, CFCT, was obtained by Davies for his City Temple
broadcats, although the call sign CFCL may also have been used for a
time. In 1926, Deaville purchased the station and began to
operate it commercially as CFCT.
Both Don Horne and Dick Batey
worked at CFCT in the latter part of the 1930s, a difficult time for
the station.
DON HORNE: The station in Victoria was in many ways, similar to CKMO;
neither station had much money. CFCT had been at one time, one of
the most powerful stations on the west coast. They had been 500
watts, but I guess the transmitter just eventually wore out. When
I arrived in 1936, they were actually using the same little ship
transmitter that I had taken my wireless telegraphy test on in
Vancouver. It had been modified as a broadcast station. I
really don't know how they were allowed on the air; the quality must
have been pretty bad. Of course, you thought at the time it maybe
sounded pretty good, but by today's standards it would be
terrible.
DICK BATEY: I gather at one stage of the game Deaville had a good and
reasonably well-run and reasonably profitable radio station. But
when I entered the picture in 1939, it was a thoroughly run-down,
utterly haywire operation. For example: some of the commercials
came on 33 1/3 rpm 16-inch disks, and we didn't have a 33 1/3 rpm
turntable that worked. There was a turntable with a pickup arm,
but the motor was broken. We used to turn it by hand. That
made for some interesting commercials; the pitch went up and down as
the speed varied. But you got comparatively adept at turning the
thing at the right speed with your finger.
CFCT was
purchased in 1941 by the Island Broadcasting Company, with shares
mainly held by Jim Matson (then owner of the Daily Colonist) and
Taylor, Pearson and Carson Ltd. The station has operated since
then as CJVI, and was until 1950 the sole station in Victoria.
Author Dennis Duffy,
Written in 1982