100th Anniversary of Radio Broadcasting on PEI
A talk give by Ian Scott at Government House, Charlottetown, PEI
April 14, 2021
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| The MC for the event was broadcaster Kathy Large, a granddaughter of Keith S. Rogers. |
It is a
great honour to be here today at the location of a ground-breaking event, one
century ago; the day when an international broadcast received here, provided
proof that the emerging technology of long-range radio transmission had arrived.
The event
we are celebrating, we now understand, was the dawn of broadcast media and all
that has followed.
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| Ian Scott |
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| Keith Sinclair Rogers (1892-1954) |
A week
later – the excitement builds as local dignitaries included the mayor, premier,
most of the Provincial Cabinet, several
judges and business owners gather for a repeat performance this time using a
gramophone horn so they don’t have to share headphones. Harder to connect this
time -- but with special greetings
included for the PEI audience from New York it was a success. That same week,
was equally exciting for the Rogers family as they welcomed the arrival of
their son, a welcome brother for their two girls.
Wireless
already existed in Charlottetown with teenage “hams” like Rogers on Morse code keys
from at least 1907. Internationally, wireless Morse code saved 706 passengers
from the sinking Titanic in 1912. Dots and dashes out of thin air were amazing
enough, but it was a bold discovery that sent sounds through the air across vast
distances.
The first
scheduled broadcast happened in Pittsburgh the prior year as fledgling stations
launched – ones that could even reach an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
For Keith
Rogers it began as a young militia member over homemade transmitters at the age
of 15. By 17 he was issued a license for a wireless station at the
Charlottetown Armoury in 1909, (just across Government Pond.) The same year he
worked as wireless operator aboard the icebreaker Minto. At Camp Petawawa, age 19, he and his squad built the first portable
wireless equipment for the Canadian Army. Portable meant two horses to carry, and
four men to move it.
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| Keith S. Rogers at Camp Petawawa |
Rogers like
his father worked in the family insurance business and followed his dad as commanding
officer of the No. 12 Signalling Unit, a
local militia group. WW I saw his young family posted to Halifax, with regular
forces as signals officer at Citadel Hill. After surviving the 1917 Halifax
Explosion, his wife and two daughters, were sent home while Keith remained in
Halifax.
On PEI, Government
House was turned over to the war effort, as a convalescent hospital for veterans
with construction of the Rena MacLean Memorial Hospital next door for
additional beds. As the post-war focus turned from convalescent to
rehabilitation, it housed the Provincial Technical School.
Keith
Roger at war end, was beginning to see the potential for wireless as a civilian
means of communication. An amateur radio operator, with military experience,
his skills were soon put to use by the Provincial Technical School at
Fanningbank teaching a course on electricity and wireless radio, where he also formed
a radio club. It was Friday – as the group turned their dial and located the
signal from far away - the broadcast from students at Union College in
Schenectady, NY. Union College campus station,
WRUC, exists today - available worldwide, streaming on the internet.
Several months
after the 1921 broadcast, Rogers began broadcasting himself locally with announcements
and phonograph music. The Charlottetown Radio Association was formed to gain a
club license in 1923 so members could broadcast using that license. Walter
Burke started broadcasting church services from Trinity Church in Charlottetown
on Jan 25th 1925, as the second church in Canada to do so. Rogers was in
business selling radio receivers to the public, and wanted to add broadcasting
to the operation so in 1925 the first commercial radio license in Eastern
Canada was issued to his radio business with the call letters CFCY. He planned
for TV broadcasting on PEI, and his family completed that after his death, with
CFCY-TV signing on the air on July 1, 1956. His life’s work of connecting people
through “the Friendly Voice of the Maritimes” was realized and these stations
continue today with Maritime Broadcasting the current owners of CFCY/Q93 and
CBC purchasing the television operations.
Broadcasting
united Islanders in new ways as they shared the music of Don Messer and his
Islanders with all the country. It relayed educational programs, farm broadcasts,
radio drama, music, news and weather (not to mention Hockey Night in Canada),
to the region. Long-range forecasts made a huge difference to farmers cutting
hay, and were a matter of life or death to fishers hauling traps long before
alternatives emerged.
From early
church broadcasts to the current level of content available through myriad
broadcast and streaming platforms, the Island has been an active participant in
a new era that began at Fanningbank, one hundred years ago.
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| The Honourable Antoinette Perry Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island See CBC coverage including video from the event. |
