KPLU is the region's pre-eminent Public Radio station, presenting NPR news, jazz and blues.
We've come a long way since KPLU hit the air in November 1966 as a 10 watt radio station broadcasting classical music to students on the Pacific Lutheran University campus in Parkland, Washington. Potential audience for the student-run station increased significantly when its wattage jumped to 40,000 in 1972.
Early in 1980 KPLU moved its transmitter site off-campus to a 420 foot tower near Port Orchard once owned by Burlington Northern Railroad. Power was upped again to a round 100,000 watts, and in February the station added National Public Radio news and information to its program mix.
In 1983 KPLU switched from classical to jazz and NPR news and by 1985 was broadcasting 24 hours a day. The mid-80s and early 90s also saw an increase in KPLU's geographical coverage as the station installed a network of seven "translators" to relay its signal all over western Washington.
KPLU moved its main transmitter to its present location on West Tiger Mountain in 1989, bringing even wider coverage and a clearer signal. KPLU employs a staff of more than 30 full time professionals serving a weekly audience of a-quarter-million listeners through-out Western Washington, lower British Columbia and Northern Oregon.
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