Good morning, all.
I hope everyone managed through the last few sizzling days with a minimal amount of sweating, though I know that’s probably not how it went down. The good thing about weather like this is that it can allow you to shift your gaze for a day or two, focusing on indoor hobbies or aspirational browsing for a place to be next time a heat dome settles over your house.
I can remember when I was a kid that we sometimes spent hot summer days in my grandparents’ basement messing around with this weird multiband radio my grandfather had on a shelf that purportedly could allow us to listen to people sending shortwave radio signals from far, far away. My memory is garbled, but I remember him talking about at some point (probably when he was a kid himself) listening in on transmissions relayed by shortwave from Admiral Richard Byrd’s Little America outpost on the South Pole to receivers thousands of miles away. I like to think that these fuzzy messages helped spark his love for travel and his curiosity about the lives of distant people.
This week’s cover story by Jason Blevins helped confirm my thinking. He and photographer Andy Colwell spent a weekend in a remote corner of Park County with a group of people who still tinker with radio technology and use it to listen to the world, but also step up to help in times of community crisis.
Senior Editor
The Cover Story
Radio to the rescue!
A couple months ago, we got a dazzling treat in Colorado when the aurora borealis made a rare appearance in the northern sky, painting the horizon with dancing streaks of green and purple.
It wasn’t just the sky gazers who were thrilled. Amateur radio operators often see space weather storms acting as a sort of atmospheric reflector that can enable radio signals to reach much farther than normal. And in some locations, the solar flares from the sun that pepper light-reflecting particles in the upper atmosphere can also wreak havoc on radio signals.
Either way, it was a spicy time for ham radio operators who have been helping the federal government better understand how the most powerful geomagnetic storms in more than 20 years in May impacted communications.
Ham radio operators are always eager to help. They’ve been poised to step up for more than a century.
Last month The Colorado Sun spent a day with the technical wizards in the Rocky Mountain HAM Radio Club. In a mountain meadow far from pavement, the radio operators circled their trailers and retired satellite news trucks to create a communications command post as part of the national amateur radio field day that started in 1933.
They spent the day reaching across radio waves, making contacts far and wide as they honed technical communications skills that are essential in crises.
It could be a tornado, flood, hailstorm or wildfire. Maybe an earthquake or solar storm has knocked out satellite communication. Maybe rural emergency service folks need help with a big event, like a mountain bike or running race. Whatever the reason, there are 19,629 licensed amateur radio operators in Colorado — almost 750,000 in the U.S. — who are trained and ready to keep critical communications flowing.
“There is only so much local sheriffs can do in small towns and you will see amateur radio operators stepping in to fill the gaps as volunteers to help as a second service to our emergency management professionals,” said Desiree Baccus with the nonprofit Rocky Mountain HAM Radio club that maintains a network of radio-transmitting equipment across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Jason Blevins | Outdoors/Business Reporter
The Colorado Lens
From the farmlands to the urban centers, here is our curated visual feed created as we swung through the midsummer heat in Colorado.
Hugh Carey | Photographer
Flavor of the Week
Cool off in a river made from carpet
The heat might seem too intimidating for a visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens’ York Street location, but it’s a great time to check out indoor exhibits and the library, grab a lemonade or iced coffee at Copper Door or lunch at Offshoots Cafe.
Totally worth your time is River’s Voice, which highlights artist Alexandra Kehayoglou’s hand-tufted carpet depicting Argentina’s Paraná de las Palmas River and the wetlands surrounding it, along with several smaller works focusing on the area. Her works highlight the impacts of climate change, creating detailed depictions of the river ecosystem, which is threatened by development and agriculture. You may actually walk (in stocking feet) across the major work, which hangs from a wall and spills to the floor. (Kehayoglou has another work, a carpet made from used plastics, in the Denver Art Museum’s Biophilia exhibit.)
Across the hall at the botanic gardens, check out photographer Elliot Ross’ Geography of Hope featuring large-scale photos of Glen Canyon, where the West’s years of drought have revealed canyons of the past.
And if you can take the heat, check out the gardens at 1007 York St. They’re open most days from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sandra Fish | Data Journalist
SunLit: Sneak Peek
A struggling middle-aged woman takes to the highway in “Three Keys”
EXCERPT: Ammalie Brinks is in crisis mode, much like the world around her. The frazzled protagonist of “Three Keys,” award-winning author Laura Pritchett’s latest novel, has hit the road in search of equilibrium, herself and maybe even love — of an unexpected nature. This slice of narrative introduces a character whose adventures take her across the country, and beyond, with the help of keys that provide her unauthorized access to accommodations along the way.
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: The backstory to Pritchett’s novel is a great peek into the creative process, and she goes on to touch on some of the themes that emerge throughout the narrative. Here’s a portion of her Q&A:
SunLit: Your protagonist, Ammalie Brinks, is wrestling with middle age and a world that no longer conforms to the norms she used to observe. Did you construct this character from whole cloth, or is she more of a composite?
Pritchett: Like me, Ammalie is going through the transformation into middle age — and confronting the accompanying invisibility situation. And it’s true that our culture does a fine job of erasing older women — an impulse that must be met with resistance, of course. How satisfying, then, to be playing around with the idea of anonymity and the exact opposite, which is really being seen as the manifested, powerful, perfect self we are.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH LAURA PRITCHETT
LISTEN TO A PODCAST FEATURING THE AUTHOR
Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
🌞 One day Nederland voted down a plan to build a pump track in Chipeta Park. A few weeks later, a bunch of mad dads were carving a simple course from the dirt on privately owned lot where kids can have fun and learn how to handle their bikes — for free. Tracy Ross reports on the issue that frames up the challenges of governing in a small town that serves a much bigger community.
🌞 A nonprofit that started out as a mechanism to fund Gov. Jared Polis’ transition team in 2019 but morphed into a big-spending advocacy group violated a law (signed by Polis) governing when political groups must disclose their donors. Sandra Fish reports the terms of a settlement with Boldly Forward Colorado.
🌞 In other political news, the state Senate Ethics Committee found Sen. Faith Winter violated the chamber’s ethics policy when she appeared to be intoxicated when she attended a community meeting in Northglenn. Data shows that 70% of motorists opted out of paying $29 attached to their license plate renewals to pay for state parks, but the program still met its budget goals. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet joined the chorus of Democrats concerned that President Joe Biden can’t win his re-election bid. Attorney General Phil Weiser went to the town of San Luis to learn more about the fight over a high fence keeping people allowed onto privately owned Cielo Vista Ranch from accessing their century-old right. Colorado Dems are heading into the November election with supermajority on their minds. Hitting the goal may be tough.
🌞 Xcel Energy has been slow rolling rules for hooking up rooftop and community solar systems to the grid. Regulators and consumer advocates are so mad about it that they’re asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to force the utility to get going, Mark Jaffe reports.
🌞 Yes, fire season is a year-round condition now. But it’s hot out and fires keep popping up, which got us wondering where those expensive Firehawk helicopters the state bought to drop water on wildfires are. Olivia Prentzel found out one $30 million craft is ready to fly, but it might not show up at the next Colorado fire.
🌞 Speaking of climate disasters, it’s getting harder for people to maintain their home and vehicle insurance in Colorado. Michael Booth explains what’s going on. And he convened a panel to talk about it in detail, which you can watch on our YouTube channel.
🌞 This story by Jennifer Brown is particularly evocative as she describes what it was like to attend a large and busy reunion at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind. Oh, and for the first time in the school’s history, the top leader is deaf.
Dana Coffield | Senior Editor
That’s a wrap, friends. We’ll see you back here next beautiful Colorado Sunday. If you’d like to invite a friend to join the party, please share this link with them: coloradosun.com/join. And, as always, we appreciate your support!
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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