Radio Goldfield coming to Beatty

Beatty residents will be able to receive another radio station sometime in the near future.

At its Jan. 13 meeting, the Beatty Town Advisory Board approved up to $2,500 for work on the town’s translators to enable reception of KGFN, Radio Goldfield.

Carl Brownfield, creator of the station, was present to explain something about its history, nature and status.

“We’re an all-volunteer, nonprofit,” said Brownfield, who described the station’s content as “all over the place—nostalgic Americana, a lot of bluegrass, in-house comedy, and celebrating the history of local areas.” He also said that a community calendar was broadcast four times a day.

Brownfield said that the station streams on the Internet 24/7 at KFGN.org, and that it has listeners, so far, in 28 countries.

He said they would like to find someone in Beatty to do a program on the history of Beatty and Rhyolite, and would like to establish a satellite studio in Beatty so that some programs could originate there.

How soon the work on the translator, which includes the installation of an antenna mast, can be completed is uncertain. The ground at the translator site is frozen solid this time of year.

In other action, the advisory board approved a second $2,500 for Beatty High School’s Close Up program, which takes students to Washington, D.C. to learn firsthand about government and history.

Steven Sullivan, school sponsor for the program, said that the Amargosa Town Board had donated $10,000 for Close Up. The majority of the students attending Close Up this year are from Amargosa.

As an advisory board, the most the Beatty board can expend at one time without getting approval from the Board of County Commissioners is $2,500.

Station expansion

Radio Goldfield also expanded its reach to Tonopah a the end of 2019. The station, known as “Your Voice of the Old West,” completed a power upgrade to 1,000-watt output on its new tower and antenna array last year.

The station previously did broadcasts at 150 watts.

In a Dec. 27 report in the Pahrump Valley Times, Brownfield said, a recent upgrade included “a new set of infrastructure, including a tower, new transmitter and new antennas.”

Richard Stephens is a freelance reporter living in Beatty.

Interim editor Jeffrey Meehan contributed to this report.