.It was a dark and stormy night! Well...actually...the night sky was clear and star-lit but it was icy cold in the single digits, Fahrenheit-wise, with blustery winds wailing incessantly through the cracks. And, it was time to retire for the evening. My standard procedure is to tap in one of any number of select frequencies into the bedside Sony 2010 to catch a few minutes of "Coast to Coast AM with George Noory". After listening in to George's real world and "Coast world" headlines, I then enter some other frequency as a dial tone channel. Typical choices include China Radio International at 6020 KHz or 6040 KHz. By this time of night, those signals are wavery and weak, and the languages spoken are not in English. Sometimes I plug in 391 KHz (lower sideband) where DDP, a non-directional aeronautical navigation beacon beeps its way north from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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But also on occasion, I'll dial in random frequencies above 1600 KHz where many signals can be heard from Canada and also the West Indies. So this past Wednesday night, I keyed in 1670 KHz as my dial tone and could hear a fading, fluttery signal with a haunting choral musical selection playing. But the voices heard were those of children's and not adults. When the song concluded, a very young girl speaking in French provided commentary and then another children's group vocal aired and I dozed off.
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Several times during the night, I awoke. More chorus. All children. More talk, all children. Now here was something completely different! When compared to the principal provider of kids programming over stateside AM and FM radio dials, Radio Disney, this station seemed truly alien, or at least from another time. But unlike the over-compressed, over-hyped and over commercialized Miley Cyrus and Vanessa Hudgens audio chozzerai that Disney pumps out, these children sound so innocent and so child-like that it was a pleasure to listen.
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One issue in listening to this facility was that there did not seem to be any sort of identification. But then again, it was in French, a language I no speak. SO! Over to Google and a jump to Wikipedia and I got the following stub.
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CJEU is a Canadian radio station licensed to broadcast a French language children's radio format at AM 1670 in Gatineau, Quebec. The license is held by Fondation Radio-Enfant, a non-profit educational agency. Fondation Radio-Enfant was originally granted a short-term license, with the call sign CIRC, on 96.5 FM for the duration of the Rendez-vous de la Francophonie 2002 and in 2003, Fondation Radio-Enfant was also granted to operate at 1250 kHz on the AM dial, however, due to possible technical issues, the station never went on the air. The 96.5 frequency in Gatineau was later reassigned to CFTX-FM and Fondation Radio-Enfant was granted a permanent AM license in early 2007 to operate at 1670 kHz. CJEU was reported to be operating on December 10, 2009, playing music mainly in French and sung by children.
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And this addendum from http://www.dxing.info/news
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And this addendum from http://www.dxing.info/news
CJEU operates 24/7 at a power of 1 kilowatt both day and night. The radio not only aims its programs at children and youth, but the programs are also made by children to some extent. The station is located at Atelier Radio Enfant Inc, Studio de la Maison de la culture, 855 boul de la Gappe pièce 310, Gatineau, Quebec J8T 8H9, Canada. CJEU can also be contacted by email
mailto:info@radioenfant.ca or by phone at +1-819-243-6226.
mailto:info@radioenfant.ca or by phone at +1-819-243-6226.
