A blind guy’s vision for folk music radio

Mountain Streams Radio's programming helps brand Keyser, West Virginia

“Radio has always been particularly attractive to blind people,” said Ed McDonald, founder and manager of Mountain Streams Radio, WKYW 102.9 in Keyser, WV, where he and his wife Karen hosted me in their turn-of-the-last-century home. “We take in most of our information through our ears. Growing up, everybody wanted to be a hotshot morning DJ. But only a few of us got to be on-air.”

I have to admit, before my first job in community radio, it did not occur to me the special relationship that blind folks might have with radio. I got an inkling of it during my first radio jobs: at WORT in Madison, WI, a blind volunteer hosted a show called Radio Literature. At Pacifica, I got to know a blind volunteer at KPFA who produced public affairs segments.

There’s a long history here. A century ago, newspaper stories proclaimed that radio would be a godsend for the blind. Radio reading services proliferated on side bands of main frequencies. They read the news of the day, narrated books of various genres, and even hosted movie screenings with voice descriptions of the shot-by-shot action of each film.

Blind people have also worked as on-air talent at a number of radio stations. Perhaps most famously, Ed Walker helped launch WAMU in 1950 when he was the first blind student at American University. He became good friends and co-hosted entertainment programs with Willard Scott, then continued to be a staple of DC radio for the rest of his life.

My host Ed McDonald also started a station in his youth, though it was a pirate one. He was a residential student at the School for the Blind in Romney, WV from kindergarten through 12th grade. In junior high, he set up a kit AM transmitter and attached an antenna that was far larger than legally allowed. For Ed and his friends, the most important thing was that the signal could reach the girls’ dorm from the boys’ dorm.

Ed went on to a series of non-commercial radio gigs over the years. College radio while a student at Bethany College. A production and hosting gig at Ohio University’s public station. Several years broadcasting folk music from WNKU to the Cincinnati market.

Eventually, Ed returned to West Virginia, re-met Karen (who had been a classmate in Romney), and settled back in Keyser. He went about producing a syndicated radio show for two decades called “Sidetracks.” Airing on WV Public Broadcasting and a dozen other stations, it featured folk, bluegrass, and traditional music.

Ed’s home studio includes thousands of records and CDs that were the source material for Sidetracks. Each one is labeled with a braille label that Ed printed with slate & stylus tools on dymo tape.

In 2017, Ed started his second radio station, this time with a proper FCC license.

Mountain Streams Radio took the concept of Sidetracks Radio and turned it into a round-the-clock low-power FM radio station in Keyser. Ed’s vision was to build a local radio station like what local stations did when he was a kid. “It was an opportunity to do local announcements, news, weather, and so on built around this body of music,” said Ed.

The music selections are really good, ranging from early Pete Seeger to Hazel Dickens to American Patchwork Quartet. There’s a strong emphasis on West Virginian and Appalachian artists. Originally licensed to the Mineral County Historical Society, the station is now licensed to the Mineral County Convention & Visitors Bureau. (Ed serves on the boards of both organizations.)

There isn’t any live broadcast programming. Instead, songs, shows, and interstitial spots are managed by automation software called Station Playlist, which has good accessibility features for blind users.

Ed’s home studio is set up for recording voice tracks. The CVB also donates a room that’s available for recording interviews and voice tracks. And WVU Potomac State donates a transmitter room, internet connection, and antenna site in Catamount Place. Conveniently, these three sites are all located very close to one another.

While Mountain Streams plays excellent music, Ed is not satisfied that his vision his been realized. He hasn’t organized much of a team around the station yet, and those local voices and announcements have only happened occasionally. “People around here sometimes refer to it as ‘Ed’s radio station.’ I need to make it more of a real community station, not just a souce for good music,” said Ed. “I want this to be sustainable for the longer term.”

During my visit, Ed and I got his station registered with Amazon Echo smart speakers, so listeners can now just say, “Alexa, play Mountain Streams Radio” to hear it. Ed tells me that the weekend left him with a renewed feeling of optimism about the future of Mountain Streams.

What’s next for Nathan’s travels?

I’m writing this from Morgantown, where I’m seeing old friends and visiting U92 at West Virginia University. If there’s an origin story to my career in this curious industry, which sometimes feels weird to even call an “industry,” that origin story begins here.