CHTO (1690

kHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base uni ...

) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. The station airs an ethnic

radio format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

. It is owned by Canadian Hellenic Toronto Radio Inc., which is run by John Maniatakos and son of Peter Maniatakos who owns the

Odyssey Television Network Odyssey Television Network, Inc. is a Canadian licensed Greek language television broadcaster who owns and operates three national ethnic channels, available via cable and satellite. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, the company has been in ope ...

. CHTO's programming is predominantly

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, although it is mandated to air programming in other languages as well. CHTO's

radio studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single sin ...

s are on

Danforth Avenue Danforth Avenue (informally also known as the Danforth) and Danforth Road are two historically-related arterial streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Danforth ''Avenue'' is an east-west street that begins in Old Toronto at the Prince Edward Vi ...

in the Riverdale neighbourhood. By day, CHTO is powered at 6,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s. But to avoid interference to other radio stations, at night it reduces power to 1,000 watts. It uses a

non-directional antenna In radio communication, an omnidirectional antenna is a class of antenna which radiates equal radio power in all directions perpendicular to an axis (azimuthal directions), with power varying with angle to the axis (elevation angle), declining t ...

. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

is on Waterman Avenue at Hollinger Road in the O'Connor-Parkview neighbourhood near the

Don River The Don () is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its basin is betwee ...

. It also is heard on a repeater station, CHTO-1 at 1490 kHz in

Mississauga Mississauga is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto (Etobicoke) to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, ...

History

Mrs. Maniatakos operated a closed circuit specialty audio service in Toronto since 1966 under the name CHCR-FM. This service aired Greek language programming 24 hours a day. It was initially available as an SCMO service (via

CKFM-FM CKFM-FM (99.9 FM ''99.9 Virgin Radio'') is a Canadian radio station in Toronto, Ontario. The station is owned by Bell Media. The station airs a contemporary hit radio format, and is the flagship of Canada's "Virgin Radio" stations. CKFM's ...

) but subsequently switched to cable and was available on Rogers Digital Cable channel 959, as part of their digital radio offerings, in Toronto and area. In 2007 when CHTO launched, CHCR-FM was discontinued and CHTO now airs in its place on Rogers Cable. The station was initially going to launch by the end of 2006, but this was pushed back due to technical problems. It has been on the air since . On June 10, 2009, CHTO applied to the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

(CRTC) to increase the daytime transmitting power to 3,000 watts, in an effort to serve communities in Mississauga and Brampton. The request received approval on November 5, 2009. CHTO began broadcasting at its new power as of March 2010. On December 4, 2012, the CRTC approved a change in ownership of the station to John Maniatakos due to the 2009 death of his mother, original owner Mrs. Maniatakos. On October 14, 2015, Canadian Hellenic Toronto Radio Inc. submitted an application to add an AM transmitter at

. The new transmitter operates at 1490 kHz with a daytime power of 23 watts and a night time power of 770 watts. The call sign for 1490 AM is CHTO-1. This application was approved on September 1, 2016.

References

External links

CHTO AM1690CHTO
at The History of Canadian Broadcasting by the

Canadian Communications Foundation The Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF) was a Canadian nonprofit organization which documented the history of broadcasting in Canada, particularly radio and television networks, programs and broadcasters. The organization was established in ...

Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2006-117
* {{coord, 43.6776, N, 79.35075, W, display=title Greek-Canadian culture HTO HTO Radio stations established in 2007 2007 establishments in Ontario