100 years ago: first radio broadcast
Montreal was the site of the first radio broadcast in Canada a hundred years ago from station XWA, which eventually evolved into CFCF and, like most of the AM band, has since been abandoned. Wikipedia says the early history is obscure, but that XWA’s first licence was connected with a training school on Rodney Street – but even the list of old street names in the appendix to Le rues de Montréal doesn’t list any Rodney Street.
Raymond Lutz 10:15 on 2020-05-23 Permalink
I can’t find confirmation on the net this (1919) was actually the first radio emission of voice from Canadian territory but learned that:
#1 Marconi deployed wireless telegraphy installations in Canada (St. John’s NL 1901 and Drummondville 1925) essentially to avoid legal battles and regulatory restrictions In Europe (from military, incumbent cable or radiotelegraphy competing companies);
#2 the first world voice 18 km transmission was achieved by a Canadian (born 100 km from here, East-Bolton!) using equipement built on Massachusetts coastline in 1906, Reginald Fessenden.
#3 Fessenden developed AM transmission and heterodyne signal processing: “Marconi Company purchased in 1914 a license to Fessenden’s patents from the National Electric Signalling Company (NESCO), which later became the Radio Company of America (RCA)”.