CFRM-FM
Encyclopedia
CFRM-FM is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 radio station that broadcasts at 100.7 FM in Little Current
Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands, Ontario
Northeastern Manitoulin and the Islands is a municipality with "town" status in Manitoulin District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, approximately 30 kilometres south of Espanola. Its main town is Little Current, located on the northeast side of Manitoulin Island...

, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. The station, a community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...

 outlet owned by Manitoulin Radio Communication, broadcasts a country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 format branded as The Island.

History

The station originally began operating in 2002 on 101.1 FM, as Manitoulin's first local community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...

 station with a rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 format including a mix of various formats such as oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....

, classic hits
Classic hits
Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes rock and pop music from 1964 to 1989. The term is sometimes erroneously used as a synonym for the adult hits format, but is more accurately characterized as a contemporary style of the oldies format...

, retro music with some current music branded as Rock'n the Rock. One of CFRM's mottos were "rock'n the rock" and "when the lights go out we stay on the air because we're powered by rock and roll". CFRM-FM received approval from the CRTC to increase its power from 1.4 watts to 5 watts on July 12, 2002 and received approval again on September 20, 2005 to increase power from 5 watts to 45 watts.

On October 23, 2006, CFRM-FM changes formats to its current country music format. On March 19, 2007, CFRM-FM moved from 101.1 FM to its current frequency at 100.7 FM with 1,830 watts.

In 2008, the station applied to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to add a rebroadcaster in Sudbury, citing that this "would allow Sudbury residents who own property on Manitoulin Island
Manitoulin Island
Manitoulin Island is a Canadian island in Lake Huron, in the province of Ontario. It is the largest island in a freshwater lake in the world. In addition to the historic Anishinaabe and European settlement of the island, archeological discoveries at Sheguiandah have demonstrated Paleo-Indian and...

 to stay connected by providing them with important information relating to local weather, marine and road reports and events specific to Manitoulin." That application was denied by the CRTC on April 29, 2008.

On January 20, 2009, the station applied to change its authorized transmission contours by increasing the average effective radiated power from 1,830 watts to 27,500 watts, by decreasing the effective antenna height above average terrain from 164.5 metres to 155 metres. This would change the station's transmitter class from A to B. This application to change the ERP received approval on March 19, 2009.

Going green

CFRM has implemented a plan to become an environmentally friendly
Environmentally friendly
Environmentally friendly are terms used to refer to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies claimed to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment....

 radio station. The project to go "green" consists of three phases:
  • Phase I - Installing a wind turbine with grid tie at the tower site to help power the transmitter plant. This project was completed mid June 2008.
  • Phase II - Installing a vertical wind turbine at CFRM's studios in Little Current. This project will be completed by October 2008.
  • Phase III - Installing multiple wind turbines at the tower site, effectively creating a small wind farm which would also put excess power onto the grid. To be completed by summer of 2009.


During its history as a low-power experimental station, CFRM served a testbed for technologies, such as Ibiquity
IBiquity
iBiquity Digital Corporation is a company formed by the merger of USA Digital Radio and Lucent Digital Radio, with the goal of creating an in-band on-channel digital radio system for the United States and around the world...

's IBOC
HD Radio
HD Radio, which originally stood for "Hybrid Digital", is the trademark for iBiquity's in-band on-channel digital radio technology used by AM and FM radio stations to transmit audio and data via a digital signal in conjunction with their analog signals...

 digital radio
Digital radio
Digital radio has several meanings:1. Today the most common meaning is digital radio broadcasting technologies, such as the digital audio broadcasting system, also known as Eureka 147. In these systems, the analog audio signal is digitized into zeros and ones, compressed using formats such as...

 system, which are rarely used elsewhere in Canada.

External links

  • The Island
  • CFRM history at Canadian Communications Foundation
    Canadian Communications Foundation
    The Canadian Communications Foundation is a history of Canadian broadcasting for radio and television chronicles and documents. It also provides a history of radio and television stations, including networks, programs, broadcasters and many others....

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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