Brief by Central Staff
Media – April 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Chaffee County came close to losing its signal from KUNC-FM, a public radio station at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley that comes in at 89.9 mhz.
The problem wasn’t a technical issue with the repeater on Mt. Princeton.
It was a university issue — the university trustees wanted to sell the station to Denver’s KCFR for $1.9 million. KCFR, which also bills itself as “Colorado Public Radio,” planned to switch its own network of repeaters to all classical music, and use KUNC’s network for 24-hour National Public Radio programming.
But in February, the university’s trustees responded to public pressure, and gave the “Friends of KUNC” until Feb. 28 to match the KCFR offer.
Frantic fund-raising followed, but they came up with enough money, and on March 1, the university trustees agreed to sell to Friends — thereby preserving the station’s Colorado news operation and its “diverse and eclectic music.”
KCFR already reaches into Central Colorado with a repeater at 103.9 for Leadville and at 89.1 for Gunnison.
Much of our area is also served by KRCC, the public radio station owned by Colorado College in Colorado Springs, with its repeaters at 88.5 for Westcliffe and Gardner, and 95.7 for Chaffee and Saguache counties.
Round-the-clock classical music is now available in Salida via translator from another Colorado Springs public-radio station, KCME, which comes in at 89.5.
Plus there are several commercial stations now available (we can remember when KVRH in mono was the only signal on the FM dial) — who’d have ever thought, even a couple of years ago, that we’d ever be in danger of running out of presets on the office FM receiver?
