KKUP is a non-commercial community-oriented station licensed to Cupertino. The station’s roots reach back to the late 1960s, when Palo Alto’s private Pinewood School decided to give up its FM radio station license.
Five college students who were working at the station decided to apply for the dormant license, start a station of their own in neighboring Cupertino, and call it KCUP. Their initial application, filed as the Radio Club of Cupertino, was denied because their group didn’t fit Federal Communications Commission guidelines for an educational institution.
The Assurance Science Foundation of Mountain View agreed to act as the station’s license-holder and the group re-filed its application. A construction permit was granted and the call letters KKUP were assigned in 1970.
The group then had to find studio and transmitter locations. The City of Cupertino agreed to a dollar-a-year lease of the vacant Water Department building on Pasadena Avenue. That checked the “studio” box. The transmitter site wound up near Mt. Umunhum above Los Gatos. Landowner Loren McQueen leased the site to the fledgling broadcasters for the same price they were paying for their studios: a dollar a year.
Despite the meager power of the KKUP transmitter, the elevation of the transmitter site gave the station decent coverage of the Santa Clara Valley when broadcasts began in May of 1972.
KKUP would become one of the Bay Area’s earliest non-institutional, listener-supported community radio stations. The station’s programming was then and remains an eclectic mix of musical genres plus informational and educational programming, all delivered by volunteers.
Over its first ten years on the air, KKUP would increase its power and move its transmitter to a higher-altitude site on Loma Prieta. The sweetheart lease with the City of Cupertino for studio space expired, forcing the station to move its studios and offices, eventually landing in studios on North San Jose’s Koll Circle.
Funding, once driven by car washes and small grants, primarily comes from annual memberships starting at a $25 minimum, on-air pledge drives held during special event marathons, and one-time donations, including programs for vehicle contributions that are sold to generate proceeds.
