CBC Radio, 1948

Date: 1948

Shortly after CBX took to the airways in September of 1948 my father answered a cry for help. Dad worked for the City of Edmonton Light and Power Department and part of his job was responding to customer complaints. He arrived at the house and was greeted by a tearful young woman. She told him that her in-laws had presented them with a new electric stove for their anniversary. It had worked fine all year, but recently it started acting very strangely. All worked well if she was cooking on the four burners on the top of the stove. However, if she chose to use the oven, the spirits came to visit. She loved to cook and the stove was her pride and joy but she was frightened by what the oven was doing when she opened its door. "Sometimes," she told my father, "it speaks to me. Other times I hear music and folk singing." My father did what he could to help the housewife, but the oven¹s actions baffled him.

When the oven was turned on and the door was opened it did seem to speak to you or entertain you with a musical interlude. It was the new CBC radio station all right, for they both heard the station announcement. After checking all of the city's wiring coming into the house, and then double-checking it, my father assured the housewife the stove was wired properly. He recommended that she contact CBC and the store that the stove had been purchased from. He could do no more to help and left her and the mysterious oven behind.

There were other incidents reported in Edmonton after the start of the new radio station. One woman went to her doctor to report hearing voices inside her head. A gentleman also complained to his physician of the same problems. In the first case, the source of the annoying voices in the lady's head was attributed to the metal fillings in her teeth acting as a radio receiver. The male complainant worked in an auto body repair shop. They used electrical grinding tools to smooth the metal of the car bodies. This produced tiny iron filings that had settled in his ears. These tiny particles acted like an old fashioned crystal set and tuned in to the new station's broadcast frequency causing anxious moments for the iron filing's host.