The owner of the broadcast license for KDEB 1470 AM  Estes Park has decided to call it quits. The license was turned in to the FCC on January 14th, 2014 and was promptly canceled by the FCC. Apparently Vic Michaels of Kona Coast Radio came to the conclusion that the station would not be viable and decided that it would be better to relinquish the license than go through with the renewal. Here is a copy of the letter to the FCC.

This means that the license cannot be renewed or acquired by a new owner. As a result, it is very unlikely that there will ever again be a radio station operating on 1470 AM in Estes Park (or probably on any other AM frequency). We are very sorry to see the end of AM broadcasting in Estes Park, especially since in its heydey, 1470 AM was one of the best sounding small town stations anywhere.

We will keep the memory of KSIR 1470 going here on our tribute web site and welcome contributions from former staff members and listeners alike. Don't forget, we also have a KSIR 1470 Facebook page where you can interact with several of the on-air talent.

It appears that the current owner, Kona Coast Radio (a/k/a Victor Michael) waited until the very last moment to get the station back on the air. Here is the link to the FCC Special Temporary Authorization for KDEB to operate at 30 watts with a temporary dipole antenna up on Prospect Mountain. Here is the notice of Resumption of Operations for KDEB which took place on September 19, 2013. It went silent (the last time) on September 20, 2012. This was really the last call for Michael and Kona Coast; if they had not gotten the station back on the air on the this date, they would have lost the license permanently. Most likely, it would have been very difficult to apply for a new license for 1470 AM at Estes Park.

What are your thoughts? Are you glad that the license was saved even though the station is essentially providing almost no service to the community because of the weak signal? Can you hear the station where you live? How far away have you been able to pick them up?

It remains to be seen what the intention of Kona Coast is for the station. Is AM radio still viable in a small town? Or do people mainly listen to FM (or something else)? Wouldn't it be great if a group of local businessmen got together to buy the license and bring the station back to full operation? Or do you think this is a "pipe dream"?

Have you been wondering what's happening on 1470 AM in Estes Park lately? Well, we have too! Here's what we've been able to piece together.

The station went silent (off the air) on October 16, 2011.  It was sold to Kona Coast Radio, owned by Victor Michael, Jr. of Loveland, CO (the application was granted on December 29, 2011). Here is a copy of the FCC Ownership Report.

As far as we are able to determine, the station remained off the air throughout most of 2012. It appears that it signed back on for a couple of days beginning on September 18, 2012 (see the Resumption of Operations Notice). If the station had not signed back on, the license would have been cancelled after the special temporary authority (STA) allowing it to go silent had expired.

But then, apparently it went off the air again, as the owner filed a Request for Extension of the authority to remain silent on September 20, 2012. The reason given was the loss of the lease for the tower site at Mary's Lake. Kona Coast was given until March 24th, 2013 to bring the station back on the air. 

Well, Kona didn't get it back on. Instead, on April 29, 2013 Victor Michael filed another Request for Extension to allow the station to remain silent for another 180 days. This is a game that people often play, and unfortunately the FCC lets them get away with it..

Fast forward to July 2013-- where do things stand? As far as we know, the FCC never granted the above mentioned Request for Extension and the previous authorization to remain silent expired. However, the FCC Media Bureau records still show the station as "Licensed and Silent". As far as we know the station is still in "limbo". It is off the air, but the license has not been canceled. It remains to be seen if the FCC will act on the Request for Extension, or whether Kona Coast will succeed in getting the station back on the air by the end of July, 2013. We are doubtful.

On the one hand, we are not confident that Kona Coast is serious about getting the station back on the air. On the other hand, it would be a shame to lose the license. It would be ideal if a local Estes Park group would step up and buy the license from Kona and do something with it. Maybe something is going on behind the scenes, but we are not aware of it.

What are your thoughts on the future of 1470 AM radio in Estes Park? Do you think the station will eventually come back on the air? How important is it to the community? Back in the 1970's and 1980's, AM radio was much more important than it is today. At that time, KSIR was the dominant radio signal in Estes Park, but it was a daytime-only station. There were only a couple of weak FM translators of Denver stations. AM stations from Denver and the Front Range communities of Loveland and Fort Collins could be heard, but they were weak. Everyone in Estes Park listened to KSIR because it had great programming and because the station had the best signal.

If there is any group in Estes Park that believes it is important to once again have a locally-owned full-power commercial AM station in the town, this would be a good time to contact the current owner and discuss buying the license before it is lost. Once the station's license expires or is transferred elsewhere, it is very questionable whether Estes Park could ever get another allocation. 

Some background info: Kona Coast applied to the FCC to renew the station's license on December 5, 2012. Here is the Renewal Application. Meanwhile, a group of former KRBR station employees filed an Informal Objection to the transfer of ownership, but they apparently failed to submit it properly and the FCC was unaware of the objection until later. They treated it as a Petition for Reconsideration and denied it. Even if the objection to the transfer of ownership had been filed in a timely and proper manner, it is unlikely that it would have been granted. The FCC rarely grants informal petitions of any kind. In this case, the informal objection also relied on various unsubstantiated opinions, which even if valid would carry no legal weight.

We regret that we haven't had any new material to share with you for more than a year. No photos, no stories, and no sound files. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to maintain interest in a web site without fresh content.

What are your thoughts about this web site? Do you enjoy it? Do you want to see it continue? Or is it time to let it simply disappear, like the station itself?

To save some money, we are thinking about deleting the domain and archiving the site on a subdomain of the owner's personal web site. This would likely happen in September, 2013. You would still be able to access the site, if you could find it. We expect that this move would significantly decrease our visibility on search engines.

If you care about this site, please let us know your thoughts.