Radio, upgraded

“It was like going from an old VW bus to a brand-new Cadillac,” said Rick Anderson, general manager of KZFR, Chico’s community radio station. He meant a bit of a miracle recently occurred with the local station’s creation of a “really well appointed” new studio on the Waterland-Breslauer building’s fourth floor in downtown Chico.

The Fourth and Broadway building for many years housed a much smaller studio that Anderson compared to an “average walk-in closet in an average Chico apartment.” Despite the restricted size of the former studio, KZFR has continued to grow in popularity and program offerings since its inception nearly 20 years ago.

Underwriting sales director Shelly Mariposa explained that in the beginning volunteers didn’t even have a studio—they had to walk up to a ridgetop in Magalia and send their recorded programs over a transmitter.

A Chico location was established on 20th Street in the early ’90s, and the station moved to downtown Chico after that. “We had a cramped little studio, but we made it work,” Mariposa said.

With the help of listeners and underwriters, Mariposa explained, KZFR finally realized its long-held dream of a new studio. Drawing on diverse volunteer efforts, the station remodeled the former Stonewall Alliance office. The year-long project, costing around $20,000, wrapped up last month. “It’s a fabulous broadcast facility that rivals anything in Chico,” Mariposa said, adding the studio’s creation has been “a labor of love” and that the Chico community “has been so behind it all.”

An aroma of fresh paint lingers as visitors enter the new studio, just down the hall from the old location (also on the fourth floor). The large green room includes tall windows, allowing light into the expansive space of neutral tones. A bulletin board full of programming information adorns one wall. A few tools lying around indicate some finishing touches are still being applied.

Off to the side, programmers Steve Scarborough and Washington Quezada sit behind the glass window of the air studio, dialoguing on Scarborough’s It’s Just Jazz, using recently acquired new broadcast equipment. At the far end of the room, a programmer works with obvious concentration behind the glass window of the production studio.

In a side room, an impressive music library of hundreds of CDs line shelves newly built by Chico carpenter Bob Speer (not to be confused with the editor of this paper). Anderson lauded Speer’s countless volunteer hours dedicated to the remodeling of the new studio, adding that many other volunteers put in monumental efforts as well. And while many underwriters have contributed to the effort, Anderson said Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. has been “incredibly generous” in helping make the new studio a reality.

Anderson noted that in choosing to remain in the Waterland-Breslauer building, KZFR made “a 10-year commitment to being downtown.” The station is the “heart” of downtown Chico, he said—“That’s the reason we’re here.”

KZFR’s technical director, Mojohito Richerson von Tchudi, said the station now enjoys the really great position of having state-of-the-art facilities. “We had a lot of technical problems in the previous studio,” he said. “In the new studio, the technical quality of the on-air sound is much improved, and programmers and staff have renewed enthusiasm, which really helps morale. We feel we’re really making progress in our mission to further public radio.”

Anderson said some people say the new studio is “the nicest” one in Chico. The station plans to hold a reception for its new digs sometime early next year. Having been in radio “since Led Zepplin was cutting albums in the ’70s,” he tries to impress on KZFR’s volunteers and programmers that “radio is fun—if we’re having fun on the air, then it’s fun to listen to.”