Chapter Sixteen

Comings and Goings CFCY, First Station in the Maritimes at 5000 Watts

a power output of 1000 watts. Our full-time staff by this time was

fourteen people. The CHCK 50 watt transmitter that my father had purchased from Jim Gesner and his board of directors was used for public service broadcasting only. We had expanded our operations and the rented quarters in Queen Street’s Brace Block were becoming too cramped. The ever present urge to develop and improve, to create a modest Prince Edward Island “Radio City” plunged Dad into planning a building designed to facilitate a modern radio station with an efficient business office and studio. One that he would own.

He found a large old home that had been a boarding house next to the Charlottetown Hotel. After a lifetime of improvising and making over, I think he intended, at first, to do all the renovations himself with the help of George Morrison and his son Lloyd. Given the state of the building and what he wanted to do with it—which was to completely redesign it from the bottom up—it soon became apparent that his old Way of doing things would not work. Dad could envision how a complex piece of electronic equipment would work out, but when it came to buildings and interiors he could not picture what they would look like when finished. It was not too long before they found themselves in hot water, so an architect, James Harris, was consulted.

Hours of talk later, with ashtrays piled high with cigarette butts and the air blue with smoke, they agreed upon a plan. To help Dad see what

In the year 1941 CFCY was on the air for seventeen hours a day with

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