CKSB (AM)

CKSB

City of license	St. Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Broadcast area	Manitoba
Branding	Première Chaîne
Frequency	1050 kHz (AM) (to move to 88.1 MHz (FM))
First air date	May 27, 1946
Format	Public broadcasting
ERP	10 kW
Class	B
Callsign meaning	Canada K St. Boniface
Owner	Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Website	Première Chaîne

CKSB Building on Rue Langevin, St. Boniface, Manitoba

CKSB is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 1050 AM and 90.5 FM in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is an affiliate of Radio-Canada's Première Chaîne network.

The station's AM signal broadcasts at 10,000 watts at all times. During the day, the station broadcasts with a relatively omnidirectional pattern, but at night, its signal is broadcast at a lower power toward the south, in order to protect Mexican station XEG-AM near Monterrey.^[1]

History

CKSB-AM signed-on at 6 p.m. on May 27, 1946 as a French-language commercial station, broadcasting from 607 College St. in St. Boniface, Manitoba. The building site was originally part of the St. Boniface College that burnt down in 1922. It originally broadcast on a frequency of 1250 kHz with an ERP of 1,000 watts. The antenna was originally located three miles from the studio, at Dawson Rd.^[2]

Two rebroadcast AM rebroadcast transmitters were added in the late 1960s — CBXF (Ste. Rose du Lac) on February 1, 1968 and CBKB (St. Lazare) on March 12, 1969. Both stations operated on the 860 kHz frequency.^[3] Ste. Rose du Lac has now moved to 92.9 MHz.

The station was independently owned and operated until 1973, when the CBC/Radio-Canada network purchased the station to expand its French network service.

On March 16, 2006, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved an application by the station to implement a new 2.8 kW FM rebroadcaster in Winnipeg itself to simulcast the AM programming heard on 1050 kHz.^[4] The new FM signal is heard at 90.5 MHz with the callsign CKSB-10-FM. It was set up due to address reception problems in parts of Winnipeg.

In September 2012, the CBC applied to shut down CKSB's AM transmitter (1050) and replace CKSB-10-FM (90.5) with a new 100 kW FM signal on 88.1 MHz.^[5] This application was approved by the CRTC on March 18, 2013.^[6] The new callsign for the station has yet to be announced, as "CKSB-FM" is already used for Radio-Canada's Espace musique outlet at 89.9 MHz.

Transmitters

CKSB has rebroadcast transmitters in the following communities:

See also

• CKSB-FM
• CBWFT-DT

References

External links

• La Première Chaîne de Radio-Canada
• CKSB AM history at Canadian Communications Foundation
• Query the REC's Canadian station database for CKSB