CBK (AM)
radio station in Watrous, Saskatchewan
CBK (540 kHz) is a Canadian public radio station licensed to Watrous, Saskatchewan. It broadcasts the CBC Radio One network as a Class A clear-channel AM station powered at 50,000 watts around the clock from a non-directional antenna near Watrous.
Its studios are located at the CBC's broadcast centre at 2440 Broad Street in Regina, with an additional bureau in the Saskatoon Co-op building on 4th Avenue South in Saskatoon. The Regina facility also houses CBK-FM and CBKT-DT. In Regina, a nested rebroadcaster, CBKR-FM 102.5 MHz, simulcasts CBK for listeners who may have trouble receiving the 540 AM signal amid downtown office and apartment buildings.
Due to CBK's low frequency, transmitter power, and Saskatchewan's flat land (with excellent ground conductivity), its daytime signal reaches most of the southern two-thirds of Saskatchewan, including Regina, Saskatoon, Yorkton, Swift Current, Lloydminster, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert. It also provides grade B coverage as far west as Calgary and as far east as Winnipeg, and reaches across the border into North Dakota and Montana. At night, it can be heard across much of the western half of North America with a good radio, but is strongest in Western Canada and the North-Central and Northwestern United States.
History
CBK officially opened during an evening ceremony in Watrous on July 29, 1939. The K in the station's call sign honours Henry Kelsey, an English fur trader, explorer, and sailor who was the first recorded European to have visited what is now Saskatchewan.
CBC engineers deliberately chose to place the station's transmission facilities near Watrous in order to provide the best possible broadcast signal to the densely populated portion of Saskatchewan, including the cities of Regina and Saskatoon.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “CBK (AM)” as radio station in Watrous, Saskatchewan. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as radio station in Watrous, Saskatchewan. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5009124. Authority coordinates are 51.680, -105.447. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow CBK (AM) primary sources, CBK (AM) archive and radio research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “CBK (AM)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.