Three FM Stations on 90.7

90.7 is one of the few fully open frequencies in the lower end of the FM band here in Toronto. So I tend to check it a lot for possible DX. Between June 29 and July 4 I heard three noteworthy stations here, although I was only able to get a firm ID from one of them.

The one I was able to identify has been added to my Toronto FM log:

65. CFU758, 90.7, Vaughan ON, 2009-07-04, 19:14-19:19, "RAV FM, The Voice of Vaughan"

CFU758, RAV-FM, is a low powered campus station. It's one of the very few campus stations in Canada operated by a high school - Vaughan Secondary School. It also calls itself the Voice of Vaughan. I logged this on the Honda radio in my '95 Civic while stopped in a parking lot near Wilson and Dufferin in North York.

At the same time as I was hearing RAV-FM, I was also hearing an outlet of CBC Radio Two on the same frequency at about equal strength. Most likely this was CBL-2 in Paris, Ontario, but I suppose it could also have been CBL-3 in Orillia. Not enough to identify which, so for now it doesn't go in the log.

The third station I heard on 90.7 I don't know what it was. On June 29 at 0235 UTC I heard, at home on the Satellit 800, a slightly-staticky but steady station. It was broadcasting music - good quality blues. Then without any announcement it transitioned into a documentary that ran to 0330, on the life and work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Later I googled about this documentary and found that it was actually the soundtrack of a BBC-TV documentary about Nietzsche called Human, All Too Human. After the documentary it went into some type of ambient/electronica music to 0340, at which time it abruptly went off the air. Two days later I heard the station again. It was playing an eclectic but high quality mix of music, then went into a political show called Democracy Now, which sounded like it was coming off the Internet, and more music. I eventually turned it off when that Nietzsche documentary returned for an encore performance. This time there were a couple of brief IDs, but I missed them.

What was this? I don't think it was a licenced broadcaster. To me it sounded like it was either a pirate, or maybe someone with a legal low-powered FM transmitter doing a bit of broadcasting. In the latter case it would have to be one of my neighbours. I'm keeping an ear out for it on 90.7 just in case it puts in another appearance.