100 YEARS OF RADIO On December 9, 2021, Pickering College marked the 100th anniversary of the first trans-Atlantic radio signal. This anniversary is of particular importance to the school as this milestone was achieved on the school’s campus in Newmarket. Ted Rogers Sr., a radio aficionado and Pickering College alumnus, is said to have sat at his telegraph key in what is known on the school campus as Rogers House, taken a deep breath and tapped out a message in Morse code. With that, he made history as the only Canadian to successfully compete in the first amateur trans-Atlantic radio competition, transmitting a signal across the Atlantic to Ardrossan, Scotland. Ted was the son of Pickering College Chairman of the Board Albert Rogers, and would become the father of Ted Rogers of Rogers Communications Inc.
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More recently, radio has played a key role at Pickering College since 2007 with the launch of campus radio station 102.7 CHOP FM, thanks to a generous donation from the Waters, an alumni family who owned and operated CHUM Limited. “CHUM Limited always believed that giving back to the communities in which it operated radio and television stations was most important,” says Jim Waters. “Pickering College played a significant role in our daughters’ lives. Our family’s donation towards the building of CHOP FM is our way of ‘giving back.’”
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