Canada's First Radio Station

It all began in a small station in Montreal

Canada has had a long history with radio. It was on Dec. 12, 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi first transmitted a signal from Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland using a 500-foot kite-supported antenna, to Cornwall, England 3,500 kilometres away.

In 1907, the Marconi station at Camperdown, Nova Scotia began broadcasting time signals on a regular schedule.

On June 6, 1913, the Radiotelegraph Act was implemented, requiring a licence to operate any “radiotelegraph apparatus”, including anyone who just had a receiver and not a transmitter.

With the First World War, civilian use of radio receivers and transmitters was mostly banned until 1919.

One of the few civil radio stations to be established was XWA, operated by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada. It received its licence in either 1914 or 1915. At first it only transmitted Morse code but in 1919, Arthur Runciman did some voice tests. Over time, the engineers got tired of repeating their voice tests and they started to play phonograph records.

The first documented broadcast of entertainment by XWA to a general audience began on May 20, 1920 when a concert by the Royal Society of Canada was heard 175 kilometres away for an audience at the Chateau Laurier.

In April 1922, the station received a commercial broadcasting licence with the call letters of CFCF. It became Canada’s first official radio station, and one of the first in the world.

CFCF eventually changed to CINW and broadcast until 2010.