Sounds of the community
Low-power radio stations give voice to diversity of 'underserved' towns
By Steve Lipsher, Denver Post Mountain Bureau
SALIDA - "People-powered radio" came to town, in a literal sense, in the form of a 25-foot antenna carried by two bicyclists down Main Street.
Post / Glenn Asakawa
Jane Carpenter, left, KHEN station manager and the only paid employee, dons the mascot costume to have a little fun with Patrick Lee, one of the many volunteer disc jockeys.

Shortly after that spectacle last January, KHEN, 106.9 on the FM dial, went on the air with the clucking of a chicken, beginning a sometimes bumpy, often entertaining and always unpredictable life as a low-power community radio station.

"We've had our moments," said station manager Jane Carpenter. "Ninety percent of the people who are on the air have never been on the air before. It's interesting."

Ranging from teenage girls giggling about the latest pop songs to serious bluegrass aficionados, the quirky fare of KHEN and dozens of other low-power FM stations across the country represent somewhat of a radio revolution in a broadcast world of mostly bland commercial offerings.

The exclusively noncommercial stations were established by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000 to bring local radio to "underserved" communities and to stem the activities of pirates illegally broadcasting through backroom transmitters. The stations are restricted to a maximum of 100 watts, which covers a radius of about 3 1/2 miles. By comparison, public radio and commercial stations broadcast in the tens of thousands of watts, covering hundreds of square miles.

Schools, church groups and community organizations like the one backing KHEN applied for low-power FM licenses during five-day application "windows" opened by the FCC in each state beginning in 2000 after being closed for more than 20 years. And there is no promise of any future availability.

"I think it's less common than a blue moon," said Pete Tridish, technical director with the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project, a nonprofit organization that supports local community-radio efforts. "And it's a very difficult process."

Like most low-power FM stations, LPFMs, KHEN is a low-budget operation supported by local-business underwriters and incessant fundraisers.

"This is our shoestring production room that we put together for less than most stations spend on paper clips," said Mark Minor, one of the station's driving forces, sitting in an room with a computer at one end, an upright piano at the other and little in between.

Carpenter, the station manager and one of the founders, is the only paid staff member, collecting $500 a month in exchange for working 40 to 80 hours a week.

The rest of the work is done entirely by volunteers, including more than 100 who have gone through the on-air training - so many, it seems that that almost everyone in Salida, a town of 5,500, has a show, from the guy taking orders at the pizza parlor to the two rap-loving teens who bus the tables.

"The amazing thing to me is how many people came together to do this," said Terry Wareham, who owns a neighboring business and hosts an oldies show.

In accepting virtually anyone willing to commit to a regular show, KHEN's musical lineup defies any kind of categorization.

Linnea Mattson, a recent transplant from Santa Fe, hosts an hour-long meditation show on Sunday mornings, filled with notions of "exploring spiritual solutions to modern problems."

Minor, who restores museum furniture pieces for a living, hosts a show of pre-war blues and jazz called "Shellac Tracks" and is known to bring in a desktop Victrola to play rare recordings.

"If someone wanted to do a half-hour of Tibetan throat music, I'd take that," Carpenter said.

"Our goal is to present what is not being heard."

Marc Scott, who owns commercial station KSBV just down the street from KHEN, supports the upstart and even publicizes its fundraisers on the air.

"I think it's a great thing. It allows the community to have a radio station where they can put on a lot of different types of music and information that will not make it on commercial radio," said Scott, whose family has owned dozens of stations. "I feel the more, the merrier. I don't see that I've lost any business. I don't look at it as a competitor."

That sense of camaraderie isn't universal, as low-power FM proponents have run into roadblocks from many commercial operators, particularly in frequency- crowded urban areas, Tridish said.

Colorado currently boasts five low-power FM stations - in Ouray, Idaho Springs, Pueblo, Estes Park and Salida - in addition to several operated by the state highway department for road information.

Dozens of other groups, ranging from churches to schools to community theaters and other radio rejects, have applied for licenses, but the FCC application process, which often can take years, has dissuaded many.

"It's been a long, laborious, convoluted process," said Robert Ritschel, dean of the Steamboat Springs campus of Colorado Mountain College and an unsuccessful applicant.

Hoping to establish a station that ultimately could be used by students studying communications, the school ended up losing a head-to-head competition with the Colorado Department of Transportation for the same frequency, and officials now are hesitant to reapply, if and when the FCC ever reopens bidding.

Others see the 18-month application process as a necessary hurdle in bringing locally run radio to their towns.

Idaho Springs' KYGT - known as K-Goat, at 102.7 FM - started as a cable radio station, providing background music for channels that carried only text scrolls of local weather and events.

During one snowstorm, the cable failed, prompting station director Greg Markle to stop by to tell the collection of DJs that they weren't actually broadcasting.

"They didn't want to go home," said Markle, also the county surveyor. "They just wanted to hang around and play music. You can't pry them out of there. It's like therapy for them."

Apparently so: One man who served a short stint with the station insisted on playing only a single Grateful Dead song repeatedly and reading aloud from the Bible and "Gun and Ammo" magazine.

But that's part of the allure of radio, which has proven irresistible to the folks running Salida's KHEN.

"I think everybody has that memory of being a kid and listening to radio late at night," Minor said. "There's something magical about that whole experience."