KNKX FM 88.5

KNKX (88.5 MHz) is a public radio station licensed to , Washington, United States. A member of National Public Radio (NPR), it airs a jazz and news format for the Seattle metropolitan area. The station is owned by Pacific Public Media, a community-based non-profit organization. It operates from studios inside Suite 500 of the Madre Building on Western Avenue in downtown Seattle and inside the C.N. Gardner Building on Broadway in downtown . KNKX broadcasts from West Tiger Mountain in the Issaquah Alps with a power of 68,000 watts. The station originally debuted in 1966 as KPLU-FM, owned by Parkland-based Pacific Lutheran University (PLU). It became a community licensee in 2016 after a proposed sale to the University of Washington, owner of fellow NPR station KUOW-FM in Seattle, resulted in opposition from station listeners. KNKX runs jazz programs middays, evenings and overnight, and carries a variety of NPR programs in other dayparts, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and Fresh Air. The locally produced BirdNote airs every morning. == History == KNKX was the brainchild of Chris Knudzen, a regent of PLU from Burlington who, in 1951, donated the then-under construction Eastvold Chapel (now the Karen Hille Phillips Center for the Performing Arts) with a radio studio to the university under the desire of having it host a radio station. While the studio was used extensively, it took 15 years for the station to debut; the station formally signed on the air as KPLU-FM on November 16, 1966, with the inaugural broadcast featuring a short speech from President Robert Mortvedt and interviews with local community leaders. It was primarily run by university students and played jazz, blues and other music not usually heard on commercial radio stations. Originally, it broadcast from a tower on campus that was only 140 feet tall, effectively limiting its coverage area to and adjacent suburbs. Over time, the station added news programs from NPR to its schedule. It improved its coverage area, both by increasing its power and relocating to a tower that is 2,320 feet (710 meters) Height Above...