Photos and text
supplied by Pete Byerlay VE3NIX some of which
appeared in a 1983 supplement to the Brant News and Nanticoke Times
 CKPC
first went on the air in 1923 in the town of Preston when Mr. Wallace Russ and two of his
radio "ham" friends, Tom Mead of and Charles Bonner of Galt were experimenting
with a low-powered radio transmitter. Suddenly the phone rang. It was a neighbour
reporting that he could hear the three men talking through his radio receiver. The
experimenters were unaware that their voices were being transmitted on the broadcast band,
and so  CKPC hit the airwaves
for the first time. in an unscheduled entrance. The excitement of the occasion led Wallace
to apply for a license, and CKPC was granted official permission to operate on a 5 watt
frequency. The "P.C." in CKPC stood for "Preston Canada". The station
began regular broadcasts in 1923, just 3 years after the world's first scheduled broadcast
making CKPC one of the oldest stations in Canada.
 The
station was taken over on a full-time basis by Cyrus Dolph a retired Preston manufacturer
on Guelph Street in Preston, Ontario who soon realized it was time to increase power to an
impressive 50 watts at 930 kilohertz on the dial. Dolph saw the station's future as
potentially strong, not in Preston but in Brantford, so in 1933 he moved CKPC to the
telephone city where it operated from studios at the comer of Colborne and Queen streets
in the "Arcade" building, later known variously as the "Eaton"
building, "Walkers" and "Marks & Spencer".
The new CKPC quickly overtook Brantford's first Amateur Broadcast undertaking operated by
Tom Brown using the Amateur Broadcast callsign of 10BQ. 10BQ ran a whopping 15 watts from
a pair of 210's modulated with a pair of 205's. Even with the inverted L antenna which was
only 50 feet long and 75 feet high, the 125 foot radiator resulted in reception reports
from as far away as New Zealand.
Around 1934 the Canadian Government informed all of the "10" prefix Amateur
Broadcasters that they must go full Commercial or sign off. 10BQ decided to sign off and
slip into history. Click here to view the above early QSL from
10BQ
 By
this time, Cyrus Dolph's daughter, Mrs. F.M. Buchanan had assumed management and the
station moved again in 1951 to an elegant old home at 525 Colborne Street at Rawdon. With
a 1,000 watt signal having been approved 6 years earlier, CKPC was now being heard over a
much wider area. The transmitter now operated from a location on the Cockshut Road then at the edge of Brantford.
1960 brought another power increase which made CKPC a 10,000 watt voice. In keeping
with the station's growth, new studios were constructed at 571 West Street the current -
location. It was another milestone in CKPC's development because, for the first time, the
station operated out of a building that was designed and built as a broadcasting facility,
not just a refurbished house or storefront.
CKPC can boast listeners not just from Brant county but from around the world. A letter
was received from Norway in 1983 accompanied by an audio tape of a broadcast that Geir
Stokkeland had recorded as part of his hobby of shortwave listening. You may click the
return address image to view more of Geir's letter to the station.
And so. from an accidental beginning in 1923 to its current position of influence, CKPC has grown up with generations of
listeners.
If you have any early broadcast photos you wish to donate to the Museum
please contact the curator at:
Visit the CKPC Web Site
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