Canadian regulators have given the CBC permission to move another station on Lake Superior’s North Shore from AM to FM.
CBC Radio One station CBLB (Schreiber) currently transmits on AM 1340 with 40 Watts. It’ll move to 90.9 FM with 130 Watts at 31m above average terrain (class A1).
The CRTC says it received no interventions regarding the application.
The approval comes a year after the CBC converted Radio One station CBLM (Marthon) from AM 1090 to FM 107.5. CBLM-FM, transmitting with 3.935kW/280m (class B) from Neys Provincial Park, also replaced CBEH/1010 (Terrace Bay), but the Schreiber station was left on the air because it’s just outside CBLM-FM’s main coverage area.
The stations all carry the CBC Radio One lineup in simulcast with CBQT/88.3 (Thunder Bay), which includes a morning show from Thunder Bay, a noon show from Ottawa, and an afternoon show from Sudbury.
The Schreiber station must move to FM by May 13, 2021. For you radio nerds, here’s a rare recording of last year’s program interruption telling listeners in Marathon and Terrace Bay to tune to FM:
Schreiber, Terrace Bay, and Marathon are all on Highway 17 mainline of the Trans-Canada Highway, which is also part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour. (Your reporter recommends a stay in a lakefront site at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park’s Rossport Campground west of Schreiber for gorgeous views, and a stop at the Villa Bianca Inn’s food court in Schreiber for generous serving sizes.)
CBC Radio One still has about a half-dozen other low-power AM stations in northwestern Ontario. They include CBLW/1010 (White River), which already has authorization to move to 97.7 FM.
The only other stations in the region are a French-language Ici Radio-Canada Première transmitter in Marathon and commercial outlet CFNO-FM/93.1 (Marathon), which has numerous rebroadcasting transmitters.