Sidebar by Rayna Bailey
Media – April 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
As long-time Wet Mountain Valley cattle rancher Bet Kettle tells it, 30 years ago about the only radio programming locals picked up in the Westcliffe area was emergency relays, some weather warnings and limited news using short wave radios.
If you wanted to hear music your choices were to turn on the record player or sing to yourself. Unless, Kettle said, you were in the right spot and the weather cooperated then “we used to get a honky tonk western station out of Cañon City.”
The lack of radio availability in the Valley began changing in the summer of 1985 when KRCC 88.5 FM installed a repeater on Deer Peak southeast of Westcliffe just over the Huerfano County line, according to station manager Mario Valdez.
Based at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, KRCC delivered National Public Radio programming, including its variety of music, world and national news, and other informational programs, to Westcliffe and surrounding areas.
With a transmitter on Mt. Princeton northwest of Westcliffe, Salida-based KBVC Eagle Country 104.1 FM’s signal reaches the Wet Mountain Valley “very well,” said the station’s general manager, Mike Kerrigan.
Kerrigan noted that KVRH 92.3 FM and 1340 AM, which have been broadcasting since the late 1940s, have a transmitter on Methodist Mountain outside of Salida but “the signal never reaches Westcliffe.”
In 2000 KTLF 91.9 FM installed a translator on one of the ski lift support poles at Horn Creek Ranch in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains west of Westcliffe. Since then the Colorado Springs-based Christian station has been broadcasting a mix of light inspirational music for Westcliffe listeners.
I recently tested my own radios — there are four of them in four different rooms of my house — to see exactly what programming I could pick up. My home is located about eight miles north of Westcliffe and has an unobstructed view of the Valley and Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The old Sony Dream Machine in my downstairs guest room took the prize. It didn’t pick up any AM signals but even without an antenna the Sony played four stations clearly: KRCC and KTLF, both with translators here; KCCY, a Pueblo country station; and LITE 95.3, a station that broadcasts light rock from Alamosa.
The radios in my downstairs family room, a 36-year-old Sansui Stereo Amplifier, and in my upstairs kitchen, a new Timex AM-FM Digital, didn’t fare so well; neither radio picked up anything but static. Fortunately, both radios have CD players so I can still have music to relax or wash dishes by.
My fourth radio, the one in my upstairs bedroom, picks up just one station so I wake up each morning to the news on KRCC.
If I’m really desperate to listen to something on the radio and am determined to have variety I go for a drive in my Toyota 4-Runner. It’s amazing what the radio in that SUV can pick up.
During a recent drive up to Alpine Lodge, located in the Sangres about 16 miles southwest of my house, I set my radio to AM and hit the scan button. Starting at 590 and moving across the dial to 1660 signals from at least two dozen stations, including a couple broadcasting in Spanish, came in and faded out as I drove across the Valley and climbed into the mountains.
Scanning the FM dial didn’t pick up as many stations but at least ten came in, playing everything from classical to gospel, country and rock. Like the AM stations, the reception was erratic, clear then full of static depending on where I was along the road.
So even with today’s technology, what you can listen to on your radio in the Wet Mountain Valley usually depends on where you are in your car or what room you’re in at home and what mountain sits between you and the different radio station translators. The same can be said for television reception and cell phone service, but those are stories for another time.