The KTRT studio at TwispWorks has been more quiet than usual, but owner Don Ashford is still rocking over the airwaves.
COVID can’t squelch community-based radio station
The airways are alive and well at KTRT “The Root,” the Methow Valley’s own community radio station.
Since the onset of coronavirus protocols earlier this year, the station has continued to broadcast 24/7 — Even though KTRT has been closed to the public, and DJs have been asked to produce their shows from home.
“With COVOD I don’t think we can reliably clean [the station] between DJs,” said station owner Don Ashford. “I don’t know what the waiting period between letting people share microphones is.”
That hasn’t kept Ashford from keeping the music going. Last week, as the first snow of the season fell, Ashford sat in front of a microphone at the station, queuing up songs and playing intros. Working from home would create a lag in production: “I can’t say, ‘look, it’s snowing’ in real-time.”
Which is why the 70-year-old station manager, who’s also a DJ, can still be found in the studio spinning music. With well-worn Levis and tats, Ashford looks like a rock radio DJ, and he certainly has the energy for it. At one point, he jumped up from his desk to pantomime “shredding” on an air guitar while talking about Neil Young.
Community resource
The KTRT space at TwispWorks is markedly quieter than normal, but Ashford is dedicated to the station’s role a source of community information.
“It’s like 2014, when we had our first big fire. It was really personal,” said Ashford. “I was in here 24 hours a day, there was breaking news all over the place, and we came up with this way to stay on top of things.”
During the fires, Ashford recalled, cars were parked along Glover Street in Twisp, with their doors open blasting the station, which was broadcasting up-to-the-minute reports on the fire.
“It was like a giant walkie-talkie system,” Ashford said. “It established this sense that we’re a community station, like we’re all in this together.”
KTRT has been on the air since 2006, after Ashford petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the use of the frequency the station broadcasts on, 97.5, in 2002. The process took time, as well as money. After a petition is submitted, the FCC puts the requested frequency up for auction, and in the case of 97.5, a couple of radio-station conglomerates took interest.
“In order for us to compete, and come up with that kind of dough, we needed support,” said Ashford. “And just sort of spontaneously we had people come forward.”
Through a couple of personal loans from friends in the Methow, Ashford was able to raise the funds needed to secure the station.
Format parameters
Apart from controlling available FM signals, the FCC dictates how much broadcast power a station is allowed, with one of the determining factors being how close the station is to the Canadian border. For KTRT, it’s pretty close.
“When you live this close to the border it is a problem,” said Ashford. And for KTRT’s signal, it became a limiting factor.
“It ended up being a very local endeavor,” said Ashford. “The proximity to the [US-Canadian] border means that our area of coverage is the Methow Valley.”
The broadcast restrictions lend themselves to a hyper-local format., which is what Ashford was looking for when he launched KTRT.
“It’s Methow-centric,” said Ashford, who looks at the station as an art project. “Being local like this has worked. It also means there is no normal business plan.”
What there is for Ashford, is freedom.
“You can play whatever you want. [This morning] I found this kickass poem, kind of a spoken word thing, and I put it on the radio,” said Ashford. “Tuning into KTRT, you don’t really know what exactly you’re going to hear.”
“There are two approaches to making radio: play the music that you think people will like, or play the music that you like,” said Ashford. Ashford knows music, but in the goal of curating an eclectic station, he is also quick to acknowledge where he has gaps.
“I’ve broadened my listening habits, and taste in music, but I realize I will never know what like, really good classical is,” said Ashford.
Which is, in part, what the station’s DJs bring to the table. KTRT’s heavy metal show, produced by local artist Vblast, aka Vern White, is the perfect example of the station’s mission to provide a variety of sounds. It’s a show that Ashford could not create. It’s also generated phone calls to the station from upset listeners.
“It sounds offensive, but I need to hear that,” said Ashford. “I mean I don’t make a daily diet of it, but it is important.”
New projects
Ashford is always looking to broaden the station’s offerings. The change in the station’s programming in reaction to COVID restrictions has given Ashford a chance to tackle new projects. He’s now working on creating podcast series, focusing on interviews that he plans to have available for streaming on the station’s website, after being aired on the radio. Currently, he’s creating a series with Bluebird Grain Farms about farming in the Methow.
“I miss the normal operation, and I expect it to go back it,” said Ashford. “But for now, I like doing the interview style, I’ve got the facilities here … it’s a nice fill-in. The biggest loss for the station is that the induvial DJs don’t get to come in and do their live shows.”
Another loss: the station can’t broadcast live music from festivals or in-studio performances.
“I really feel for all the festivals, and all of their directors, and all the musicians; it’s one of the hardest-hit professions right now,” said Ashford, who thinks one of the toughest parts about weathering the storm is that no one knows when things will go back to normal.
Throughout all of it though, KTRT continues, on-air, 24-hours-a-day, playing around 400 songs each day.
“The thing I really like about radio,” said Ashford, “is it never goes out of style.”
