OUT OF THIN AIR

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Before the establishment of local broadcasting stations in northern Nova Scotia, CFCY was treated as the local station in that area. Where now Antigonish, New Glasgow, Truro and Amherst have their own stations, CFCY was the only one and it enjoyed a large, loyal audience built up over many years. A wide variety of sporting and special events were broadcast from time to time and as well, CFCY was able to provide a service to many businesses in the counties of Antigonish, Pictou, Colchester and Cumberland through radio advertising of their goods and services. Many valued rela- tionships, both business and with individual listeners, were formed over a period of well over a quarter of a century.

Perhaps one of the people from eastern Nova Scotia we saw most frequently was J. “Hy” Goodman. He was in charge of the advertising and publicity for the largest department store in the area and he would come over to “voice” his own commercials, recording on large alumi— num discs enough to last a week. He would sail on the SS. Hochelaga from Pictou around Point Prim and into Charlottetown harbour. The boat would only take about four cars and the crossing would be four hours long. Later on he would fly with Carl Burke on his seven— passenger “butterfly” plane from Trenton to Charlottetown. This would take about twenty minutes and the cost was $7 one way. He told me that he remembers both modes of travel as usually being very rough. “Hy” was listening the night in 1923 that Jack Dempsey was defending his heavyweight championship against “Wild Bill Firpo”.

“I had only one earphone and by then a little one—tube set. Your

father was re—broadcasting from an American station, picking it up on a powerful receiving set he had built. It was coming in fine, but once in a while the broadcast would fade out and Keith Rogers, with only a bare knowledge of the fight world, would take up earphones connected to the set and try to re-create the atmosphere of the ring for us. When the signal strengthened, he would give a deep sigh of relief and leave the rest of the broadcast to the experts.”

Art McDonald persuaded my father in 1937 that it was time to open a studio in New Glasgow and in collaboration with The Goodman

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