year. Lombardi was also in conflict with Service and another minority shareholder, James Longo, who had appealed for the license to be transferred from Lombardi to themselves. Subsequently, Lombardi bought out Service's share of the company (Longo was not recognized as a shareholder by the CRTC). Lombardi was able to regain the license after a new hearing in which Service and two other bidders failed to convince the CRTC to award the license to one of them over Lombardi. 24-hour broadcasting CHIN had attempted to broadcast at night by securing a second frequency at 1600 AM, but its application was denied by the CRTC in 1973. CHIN was able to make an agreement with the owners of clear-channel Class A KXEL in Waterloo, Iowa, which also broadcasts on 1540. With that pact, the CRTC authorized CHIN to broadcast 24 hours a day from a new transmitter with a directional pattern that better protects KXEL from interference. The next year, CHIN acquired a competitor when Brampton station CKMW (now 530 CHLO), switched to a multilingual format after being acquired from former CHIN sales representative Bill Evanov. Additional ethnic stations are now found on AM 1320, 1430, 1610, 1650 and 1690, all serving the growing immigrant communities in Greater Toronto. FM rebroadcaster With so many large buildings in and around Toronto, CHIN 1540 was experiencing reception problems in some neighborhoods. To help listeners having trouble with the AM signal, the station set up an FM rebroadcaster in 1997 at 101.3 FM with the call sign CHIN-1-FM. On April 17, 2003, Radio 1540 Ltd. was given approval to change the frequency of CHIN-1-FM to 91.9 MHz and to increase the effective radiated power from 22 to 35 watts. On November 28, 2016, Radio 1540 Limited applied to operate a separate originating FM station under CHIN-1-FM's current technical parameters, specifically, at frequency 91.9 MHz with an average effective radiated power (ERP) of 1,850 watts (maximum ERP of 5,000 watts with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 86 metres). The CRTC approved Radio 1540 Ltd. application on May 5, 2017. On January 14, 2011, CHIN received approval to increase the effective radiated power for the CHIN-FM-1 transmitter from 161 to 1,850 watts (maximum ERP from 350 to 5,000 watts with an antenna height above average terrain of 86 metres). Programming CHIN's lineup on 1540 AM consists primarily of Cantonese & Mandarin Chinese