International Broadcasting

Back last October when I was in Canada on business, I had the opportunity to drive to Niagara Falls, just a short 147 kilometer (90 mile) drive from Toronto west down the Queens Expressway along the shore of Lake Ontario. About 3 quarters of the way to Niagara Falls by Grimsby, I passed an unusual AM antenna system. I assumed it was an AM antenna system because of the height of the towers and the placement.

On my visits to the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) I had started listening to one of the news stations, CFTR Toronto, 680 AM. CFTR is a 50,000 watt blow torch that isn't heard in the USA. I was intrigued to know why since Toronto is just across the border and with only Lake Ontario between it and the USA, but at the time it was not one of the items that was at the top of my list of things to do.

On this cloudy, windy, chilly Sunday in October, I am scooting down the QEW at 120 km/h (70 mph) listening to CFTR. As I approach Grimsby, the radio begins to overload. WOW! That makes no sense. I am 60 miles from Toronto and now CFTR is starting to overload the receiver? Guess with the lake I am now directly in the middle of the beamwidth but that doesn't make any sense either since I am now between Toronto and Buffalo and I know there is a 680 in Boston (WRKO) that is a 50,000 watt station as well and they don't put 50 kW blow torches that close together on the low end of the AM band and certainly NOT when there is international boundaries involved and 680 is a US Class 1-B clear channel so any Canadian station has to protect the US stations. It all wasn't adding up.

Just about that time I see 8 towers, with 4 towers in a two row alignment parallel to the QEW on the left between the QEW and Lake Ontario. (The QEW is never more than a 1 mile or less than a road bed from Lake Ontario in this part of the province.) The radio overload is getting worse and to the point that as I approach the towers, the splatter is now so bad, I can't understand what is being said (classic close encounter overload). I see an exit and over pass beside the towers so I decide to take it and see what 8 towers in 2 rows might be since I have never seen a tower pattern like this. I have seen 5 tower AM arrays but if this is an AM array, I need a picture of it but why is it pointing TOWARD Buffalo or into the Canadian wilderness where there is no one there to hear it?

I pull up to the corner of the land I see that yes there are 8 towers parallel to the shore with 4 towers in 2 rows and a building in the middle that looks like an AM transmitter building.

CFTR Antenna, Grimsby, Ontario

As I pull down in to the center of the array, I see the transmitter building but no markings on who or what this transmitter site is. I am now assuming that this must be a local station (Grimsby) or one that is licensed to Niagara Falls and to keep it out of the US they had to move it away from the boarder to keep it from crossing into the US too much and it is interfering with CFTR.
CFTR Transmitter Building

Then as I pull down to the end of the array, I look across the lake and then it hits me what it is. THIS IS CFTRs TRANSMITTER SITE!! I can clearly see Toronto just about 20 miles across the lake with the CN tower rising above the city and lake shore.

Toronto on the opposite shore of Lake Ontario through the CFTR antenna system

What I thought was 8 towers configured in a 4 tower two row arrangement, it is really more different than I thought, it is actually two towers in a four row arrangement! That is EXTREMELY unique! It all of a sudden makes sense. In order to keep CFTR out of the US and to provide the required signal strength into the GTA (CFTR is very strong everywhere I went, even downtown Toronto) they needed a very directional antenna system but if the antenna was put west or east or north of Toronto, it would be impossible to keep CFTR out of the US and keep the population in the coverage area. Since Niagara Falls is on the south shore of Lake Ontario and is almost due south of Toronto (Toronto is on the north shore) around the western part of the lake, they put the antenna south of town and very highly directionalized it to the north straight at Toronto over the lake with hardly any signal to the south and into the US. The beamwidth of the CFTR pattern is wide enough at 20 to 40 miles to cover the entire GTA. Ingenious!!

I get back in the rental Jeep Liberty and drive on down the QEW, CFTR starts to get better. About 10 miles down on the right, I see ANOTHER antenna array configured the SAME WAY!! Nine towers in a two tower 4 row with one in the rear configuration aimed at Toronto. Come to find out it is the sister station to CFTR, all sports CJCL 590 AM, TheFan. Another 50 kW blow torch with an even tighter antenna pattern that has no back wash into the US at all.

If I didn't make it to Niagara Falls, this side trip was worth it! I did try and look for a way to get to CJCL's towers, but I didn't find an easy way so I kept on driving and didn't get a chance to take a picture of it. Since I had pictures of CFTR's antenna, I decided to not get off the busy highway and take a picture. I arrived at Niagara Falls about 15 minutes later and then looked forwarded to seeing them on the way back.

Being so far south in the US, you really don't think about how other countries deal with things like that, but after seeing CFTR's antenna system, it gives me a much better appreciation of what foreign broadcasters have to go through to serve their audiences when they live beside the USA.