KBCS 91.3 FM Community Radio

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Our Mission
KBCS-FM is a listener supported, non-commercial, community radio station, operated as a public service of Bellevue Community College in Washington State. Our purpose is to entertain, educate and involve a diverse community of listeners with a variety of music, cultural and public affairs programs.

Our Programming
Our djs are community volunteers. Our programming takes you on a musical exploration from jazz, blues, and folk to modern global hip hop, electronica, reggae, and dub. We present Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio News and other cultural and public affairs programs. KBCS is the only station in the Greater Seattle Area that offers ongoing training opportunities.

History and Broadcast Range
KBCS 91.3 FM is the only non-commercial community radio station in the Seattle metro market. We are licensed to Bellevue Community College in Bellevue, Washington. KBCS began broadcasting in February 1973 as a 10 watt, student-run media training center. We increased power to 1,000 watts in the late 1980s and expanded beyond the student body to become a full-time community radio station.
Other milestones followed: we increased power to 8,000 watts in 1990; we installed a new omnidirectional antenna in 2001; and we moved into new studios and offices in Factoria in June, 2002. Today, the signal is heard as far east as Fall City in the Cascade foothills, as far south as Tacoma, as far west as Poulsbo on the Kitsap Peninsula and as far north as Everett.

Series


Latest Pieces

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Washington has many places to visit, and for today’s Unmute the Commute, we’re taking you to one of the unlikely places you can get to by bus. Tran...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2017
  • Length: 06:13
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We go outside to talk about the life force of trees. The circulation of tons of fluid in them called the Cambium layer. KBCS’s Yuko Kodama speaks...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2017
  • Length: 03:52
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We take you out to an owl vometorium. The place owls go to do their daily duty of sitting on the throne and coughing up the remains of the night b...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2017
  • Length: 05:03
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Public health officials have called the opiate epidemic the worst drug crisis in American history – with overdose deaths nearly tripling since 1999...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2017
  • Length: 07:11
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On today’s Unmute the Commute, join us for a ferry ride between two worlds – the busy, bustling streets of Seattle’s Downtown, to the peaceful, idy...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2017
  • Length: 05:13
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We ride buses so easily today that we may forget our nation’s history just 60 years ago. Today on Unmute the Commute, join us on a Freedom Ride. Pr...

  • Added: Apr 20, 2017
  • Length: 06:43
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We explore our region’s original commutes along the water highways of the Salish Sea and Pacific Coast. Listen in on interviews with the late Quile...

  • Added: Apr 18, 2017
  • Length: 06:05
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In Tacoma, detainees at the immigration detention center are continuing their hunger strike. They’ve stopped working at the facility, making phone ...

  • Added: Apr 13, 2017
  • Length: 08:32
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KBCS’s Yuko Kodama recently took a walk with Seward Park Audubon Center Lead Naturalist, Ed Dominguez. Find out which traits are unique to this fam...

  • Added: Apr 11, 2017
  • Length: 04:07
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The difficulties of being a female prison inmate don’t end when your time is served. KBCS’s Jim Cantu spoke with several women and a local film pro...

  • Added: Mar 22, 2017
  • Length: 03:13