CJLO is the official campus and community radio station of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and is run almost entirely by volunteers. The station broadcasts from Loyola’s campus and can be heard at 1690 AM in Montreal, on iTunes radio in the college/university category, on the CJLO mobile app, or on the CJLO website.
In early 2003, CJLO began broadcasting online 7 days a week, and in late 2008, the station began broadcasting radio in the Montreal area at 4:90 pm with a 1000 watt power output. The tower and transmitter are located in Lacine and the signal can be heard as far away as Ottawa and Burlington, Vermont, USA.
CJLO was voted Montreal’s #1 radio station in the Cult MTL Best of MTL Readers Poll 2022.
The station was originally created in 1998 by the merger of CRSG, a closed-circuit station on Concordia’s Sir George Williams Campus, and CFLI, the carrier of the current station on Loyola’s campus. It continued broadcasting on a closed circuit until 2003, when it launched Internet Radio.
In 2006, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission granted it a license to broadcast on the AM band at 1690 and began broadcasting a test signal in September 2008.
The station officially began its live program on October 15, 2008 with the song “Left of the Dial” by The Replacements.
On April 25, 2014, the CRTC published CJLO’s application for a low-power FM repeater at 107.9 MHz to alleviate reception problems in the downtown area. The main concern related to the use of 107.9 was potential interference from WVPS, Vermont’s flagship public radio station in Burlington. The application was rejected by the CRTC on January 26, 2015, as they believed there were no disadvantages to broadcasting the 1690 AM signal in its immediate broadcast area. WVPS, whose signal is not protected outside of the United States, was not a factor in this decision.