Most people recognize Kim Neaton by her voice. For some, it is the familiar sound that rings out from an open second-story window of a putty-colored Victorian house on a side street in Manchester, Vt. For others, it is the voice that comes across the radio during the workday when the dial is turned to 102.7 FM.

That voice — sweet enough to be your kid sister, but with a hint of rasp best described as stoner-chic — is part of the backbone that forms WEQX, one of the few remaining independent commercial radio stations in the Capital Region. The station went live at 10:27 a.m. on Nov. 14, 1984, and has been a fixture in the Capital Region music scene ever since.

WEQX is known for its irreverent blend of alternative music that spans genres and styles, ranging from heavy, driving bass lines of Red Hot Chili Pepper's latest single, "Dark Necessities," to funky head-bobbing vibes of Vulfpeck's "Back Pocket." The music — selected and chosen by the WEQX staff — displays the passion that imbues every aspect of station operations.

Passion wasn't always the root of the station, however. When Brooks Brown, a lanky Texan with sandy hair, first moved to Manchester and discovered there was no radio station in town, he set out to put his childhood interest in radio to work and start his own. The choice to play alternative rock was more a business decision to fill a void in the on-air soundscape than one based on musical preference. Brown was more James Brown than Jesus and Mary Chain in his tastes, but it didn't prevent the local airwaves from filling with the post-punk sounds of the mid-1980s.

Brown was given many offers to sell the station in an era marked by corporate giants gobbling up smaller stations, but the decision to remain independent was more important than the income from the sale. Even in lean times and with the death of Brown in 2013, the station still operates much the same as it did in the early years.

A staff of four core members, with a half dozen part-time DJs and an overnight sound engineer, operate from the Elm Street Victorian that Brown converted into studios. (Mimi Brown, his widow and current station manager, says he wore mostly suits in the 1980s, but by the mid-1990s she would have to remind him to take off his Carhartts and toolbelt.) A 50,000 watt antenna on top of Mount Equinox (the tallest peak in the Taconic range) broadcasts tunes across four states, from Killington, Vt., to Woodstock, N.Y., and as far west as Cooperstown.

Jeff Morad, program director and morning drive host, attributes this success to the personal connection the station and its personalities make with the listeners. The only metric used for gauging that connection is the interaction with the listeners online and in person. A Listener Advisory Board allows the audience to rank and review new songs, and Morad's "Bandwidth" segment features a new song suggested by listeners.

"If you don't like one song we're playing, the next one is completely different," says Neaton, and that variety of music, unheard of on most mainstream stations, is the core of EQX's brand.

Morad estimates that he, Neaton and production director and afternoon drive host Jason Keller collectively attend 500 concerts a year, which helps give the station a public face. The internet has also strengthened the brand, and the station is active on Spotify and YouTube.

EQX House Sessions is the forward-looking foray into video production and deeper audience engagement. The new Studio BB, a former office space in the building remodeled by Neaton's boyfriend Chris Jordan into a live performance space, is the setting for these sessions.

"Albany is a warm-up town" and many bands start their tours here before moving to bigger cities, says Morad. EQX capitalizes on the deference many passing-through bands and artists have for the station by having them perform stripped-down songs to share with WEQX's fans.

"Artists know about this station," says Keller, and performing in the House Sessions is a way to pay respect to the station's role in building a band's career. The studio itself is like a museum of WEQXs history, built from the talismans, ephemera and oddities left behind by Brown's packrat tendencies. Holding live sessions to air online connects the rich history of the station with the forward momentum that propels it into the next chapter of radio and music.

Despite what has and might change for WEQX ("I'm not a DJ anymore, I'm a MP3-J," jokes Morad), Brown's advice to staff remains the guiding principle: Just keep doing what you do really well.

If one song could sum-up the pillars of WEQX's radio philosophy, Neaton says it would be "The Distance," by Cake. As the song suggests, "reckless and wild, they pour through the turns. Their prowess is potent and secretly stern," no offer to buy the station, no change in guard, and no devastating loss of equipment will diminish the soul of what WEQX does, which is simply to have passion for good music. Thankfully, passion is still transmittable on FM radio.

Deanna Fox is a frequent contributor to the Times Union. www.deannafox.org @DeannaNFox