CKOV Page

01. Two students read copy – picture above supplied by Mike Cleaver

02. John Tanner – young days in radio at CKOV - thanks to Mike Cleaver

03. CKOV folder – for presentations – thanks to Paul Hesketh

04. Dick Diespecker comes to Kelowna during WW2

05. Election coverage

06. Band plays on CKOV

07. CKOV QSL

08. CKOK and CKOV joint broadcast

09. Pears on CKOV

10. Old transmitter site of CKOV

11. Bob Hall in CKOV main studio

12. Hall at Service Station remote

13. Barrie Clark

Link to CKOV Memories by Mike Cleaver

CKOV is Kelowna’s oldest radio station. From small beginnings in 1912, George Dunn operated an amateur transmitter. Later, in 1920 he was given the call letters 10-AY. It was James Bromley-Browne who saw the future and potential of radio. In 1931 he took over 10-AY lifting it to professional standards with the call letters CKOV.

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Having experimented with Church Service broadcasts and musical programs on a friend's Ham station, James W. B. Browne decided to start a commercial radio station. He used his own money to get it going and then "sold shares" for $2.00 each. At one of his license renewal hearings years later, he was told by the regulator to "clean up" the ownership of the station. It took him several years, and even then, they could not find some of the people who had "donated" to the resources of CKOV.

The station was in the Browne family for over fifty years before it was sold to Seacoast Communications Group in the late 1980s.

In 1964, CKOV founded CKOV-FM, which, when sold to Seacoast Communications, became CKLZ-FM.

SOURCE: Book - "Imagine Please" by D. J. Duffy - B. C. Archives -see Bibliography

BC Radio History