800 CHAB celebrates a milestone Tuesday night as former announcers, sales, station managers, and loyal listeners gather together.

 

The old gang was together again Tuesday night at the Heritage Inn as 800 CHAB celebrated it 85th Anniversary. Employees past and present reminisced about days gone by with some of our most loyal listeners.

Bob Wyatt worked at CHAB back in the 60's and tells us one of his favourite stories.

"There was a company that manufactured rock wool for insulation and he bought one 60 second commercial. Through freak reception this commercial was picked up in by a guy in New Zealand and he was looking for rock wool and didn't even know it was available. So he ended up buying an entire car load."

Vern Trail served as a salesman for the radio station for years and eventually the station manager. He chats about one of his favourite memories that has become legend in the halls of CHAB. It all happened one day when the crew was supposed to announce a parade live on the radio.

"I sold the Swift Current Frontier Days Parade, we stayed there overnight but we slept in. I woke up about 10 o'clock in the morning and said 'guys the parades gone!' We went and borrowed a record player with band music and we said 'what's this band coming up' and 'oh that's the Lions Junior A Band and they've played before the Queen' but it was all fake."

Barrie Vice is another long time member of CHAB that was at the celebration Tuesday night. Barrie was a hit on the morning show for years and reminisced about how radio has changed over the years.

"Back then of course everything was 100 percent live, then wax records came along, then audio tape in the form of reel to reels, and today we have radio stations with hard drives. So it’s a world of gigabytes and hard drives. I don't know about you but back in my day a gigabyte was a sandwich at McDonald's and a hard drive was from here to Lake Diefenbaker over the pot holes."

For more on the 85th Anniversary of 800 CHAB tune into Southern Saskatchewan's favourite station this week as we look back on the best moments in our history in Moose Jaw.