Spring Trip 2009: Sedona, Cottonwood, and Prescott, Arizona

Part of the Spring Trip 2009 series.

There are two ways to get from Flagstaff to Phoenix: the boring way, which involves driving south on I-17 for 135 miles, or the interesting way, on Arizona (formerly US) 89A through Sedona, Cottonwood, the old mining town of Jerome, Prescott Valley, and finally Prescott. From Prescott one can either follow Route 89 (old US 89) to Wickenburg and then take US 60 east into Phoenix, or take the shortcut through Dewey and Mayer back to I-17. Since the sun was nearly set by the time I reached Prescott on Tuesday afternoon, I took the shorter route, passing by some present (Dewey-Humboldt, Mayer) and future (Cordes Lakes) communities of license for Phoenix rimshot FMs. (Some of these stations are located in the Bradshaw Mountains near the gold-mining ghost town of Crown King, which also has its own LPFM, KCWG-LP 100.3.) One of these days, somebody needs to find an excuse to license something to Bumble Bee.

These days, Flagstaff, Sedona, and Prescott are considered one big radio market (number 137 by Arbitron's reckoning), although the Flagstaff stations are not audible in Prescott, and vice versa. Some of that has been broken down by translators, boosters, and simulcasts (Prescott Valley's KPPV has a translator in Flagstaff, and Flagstaff's KPUB has a full-power satellite in Prescott, among others), but the ratings show an odd combination of Flagstaff stations, Prescott stations, and even Phoenix stations (which pull substantial audiences in southern Yavapai County but are inaudible up in Flagstaff). Sedona's two FMs, KQST (102.9C, Yavapai) and KSED (107.5C, Grenax), are both effectively Flagstaff stations, transmitting from the same Mormon Mountain site as Flagstaff-licensed KAFF-FM (92.9C, Guyann) and KNAU (88.7C). Sedona, Cottonwood, Prescott Valley, and Prescott all have AMs (although only Sedona's has protected night service, a relatively recent class-B operation on 780 kHz, moved there from 1470 in 1982).

Unsurprisingly, the Flagstaff-Prescott market has been the target of Phoenix move-in operators for some time. KVNA-FM (97.5C Flagstaff) became KMVA (97.5C Dewey-Humboldt) in 2006; KKFR (98.3C Mayer) was KKLD (98.3C2 Prescott Valley) until 2007. KKFR wasn't even the first station to be moved to Mayer: KFMR (95.1C Winslow, fifty miles east of Flagstaff), now KVIB, was officially moved to Mayer in 1999, but the channel was reallocated to Sun City West in 2002 while the station was still operating under its Mayer construction permit. All three stations operate as Phoenix rimshots from Crown King.