CHNS-FM is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 radio station

Radio station

Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...

, broadcasting from Halifax, Nova Scotia

City of Halifax

Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...

 at 89.9 MHz on the FM dial. It offers a classic rock

Classic rock

Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...

 format branded as 89.9 HAL FM. CHNS-FM is owned and operated by the Maritime Broadcasting System

Maritime Broadcasting System

The Maritime Broadcasting System is a private broadcasting company with 21 radio stations serving several communities in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick....

.

CHNS was Nova Scotia's first radio station, first hitting the airwaves on May 12, 1926. It switched between 910 and 930 AM a couple of times before finally switching to 960 in 1941. It was the host of Canadian National Railway radio "phantom station" CNRH until that network was disbanded. CHNS was an affiliate of the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission

Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission

The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission was Canada's first public broadcaster and the immediate precursor to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.-Origins:...

 from 1933 to 1936 when the network became the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

. It acted as a CBC outlet until 1944 when CBH

CBHA-FM

-External links:** at Canadian Communications Foundation...

 was launched as a CBC-owned station and CHNS became an affiliate of the CBC's Dominion Network

Dominion Network

The Dominion Network was the second English-language radio network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from January 1, 1944 to 1962.It consisted of the CBC-owned CJBC radio station in Toronto and a series of 34 privately owned affiliates from coast-to-coast...

 until 1964. From the 1940s to the 1980s, CHNS 960 AM played host to many of Canada's top broadcasters, including: Knowlton Nash

Knowlton Nash

Cyril Knowlton Nash, OC, O.Ont , commonly known as Knowlton Nash, is a journalist, author, and former long-serving senior anchorman of CBC Television's flagship news program, The National...

, Mike Duffy, Bob Oxley, Jessie Coade, Gerry Parsons, Frank Cameron, Stan Carew, and Ian Hanomansing

Ian Hanomansing

Ian Hanomansing is a Canadian television journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . He currently reports for CBC Television's nightly newscast, The National.-Early life:...

.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the station played an adult contemporary format before flipping to oldies

Oldies

Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....

 in February 1992 and branding itself "Oldies 96 CHNS", broadcasting in C-QUAM

C-QUAM

C-QUAM is the method of AM stereo broadcasting used in Canada, the United States and most other countries. It was invented in 1977 by Norman Parker, Francis Hilbert, and Yoshio Sakaie, and published in an IEEE journal....

 stereo

AM stereo

AM stereo is a term given to a series of mutually incompatible techniques for wireless radio broadcasting stereo audio in the AM band in a manner that is compatible with standard AM receivers...

. CHNS also simulcasted first on 6135, then on 6130kHz on the 49 meter shortwave

Shortwave

Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...

 band with the call letters CHNX until 2001.

The station received CRTC approval to move to the FM dial in April 2006 and moved to its current frequency at 89.9 FM in July 2006 adopting a classic rock format as 89.9 HAL FM. CHNS was given permission to simulcast the FM programming for 90 days on the AM signal and on October 19, 2006, the AM signal was shut down for good, putting an end to 80 years of broadcasting on the AM band.

The old transmitter house was demolished in 2008.

External links

• 89.9 HAL FM
• CHNS history at Canadian Communications Foundation
  Canadian Communications Foundation
  The Canadian Communications Foundation is a history of Canadian broadcasting for radio and television chronicles and documents. It also provides a history of radio and television stations, including networks, programs, broadcasters and many others....