Flashlight got wind of a nasty rumor this month—that conservative chatterbox and oil patch apologist Rick Rydell runs his morning radio show from Outside, specifically on a cushy ranch property in Montana. The rumor turned out to be almost completely false, which naturally makes it more interesting.

The truth is that Rydell sometimes does do his show from Outside—specifically, from a home in Eastern Washington, on a property mostly tied-up with a forestry conservation easement. Some loggers “thinned it” a few years back, he says, but it’s no ranch—trees are all that’s grown there. He says the confusion might come from the fact his own family calls it “the ranch”—“My kids call it ‘the ranch’ because the word ‘property’ was a little ambiguous for them when they were younger,” Rydell says.

Rydell says a few listeners have complained, implying he might not be as prepared as he would be hosting the show from the South Anchorage studio of 650 KENI. “But my day is much the same,” Rydell says, adding he keeps up with outlets like the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU through their websites. Rydell says he and producer Mike Ortega communicate during the show on computer screens while Ortega takes phone calls from listeners and cues them up to talk on the air live. (The screen shows Rydell the name of the person up next, and stuff such as what topic they want to chat about and whether they’ve called the VIP line.) “It doesn’t matter where I am, because I am here every morning,” he says—and by ‘here’ he means on the radio in Anchorage. Rydell says the technological miracle behind all this is called an “ISDN line.” We looked it up. It’s an acronym for “Integrated Services Digital Network”—one of the technologies behind the Internet, humming away in an arena us non-geeks would just as soon not know about. Dan Fagan (an afternoon host at KFQD 750) is responsible, Rydell says, for “pioneering the technology in Anchorage” and proving to radio station managers that it can be pulled-off without a glitch (and in radio, a glitch can be a show-buster). “I really have Dan Fagan to thank for that,” Rydell says.

Rydell began the long-distance broadcasts last fall, and says most weeks he really is in Anchorage where he rents a home. But he also owns rental properties near the Washington home and they’ve needed attention recently. So he’s negotiated with his employer (the behemoth Clear Channel Communications), to do some remote hosting. So far Rydell’s performed an eviction and a drywall job, and he plans to build a 750-square-foot addition on one rental soon. And he hopes to do that without missing a single weekday morning on the radio in Anchorage.

Rydell says he’s getting ready to renegotiate with his bosses and his current contract expires in April. He says both parties seem to get what they need from the Anchorage radio show, even when he’s in Washington. “The real benefit is the commute. I get up in the morning to go to work, and I stop at the bathroom because that’s halfway there,” he says.

scott@anchoragepress.com