The station was founded in the 1970s by Dalmatian Enterprises, Inc., which also owned KSYC-AM 1490, the original country music station in Siskiyou County. The new station was given the call lettersKYRE and licensed to operate at frequency 97.7 FM. It signed on the air on June 1, 1983 and played the pop/rock format with George Calvin Booth as the station's program director and main on-air talent. In the latter years of KYRE, it was promoted as "Hot Hits Y98". Y98 later became an affiliate of AT40 with Casey Kasem on August 24th, 1985. The station was purchased in 1995 by Siskiyou Radio Partners, Inc., and the call letters were changed to KSYC-FM as a way of moving the country music format over to the FM band and make way for the fast-growing news/talk format on the AM station. The frequency was also moved from FM 97.7 to FM 103.9 that same year. The station's program director became Kevin Sponsler, who was PD of the AM station before the switch. KSYC-FM quickly replaced rival KWHO-FM as the county's only country music station when that station was sold to Huth Broadcasting in 1997 and KWHO's music format changed from country to hot adult contemporary. KSYC-FM was sold to Four Rivers Broadcasting in 2000, as was KSYC, KMJC, and KMJC-FM and later KWHO in 2001. It was then sold to Jamison-Wolf Broadcasting in 2008 along with sister station KNTK. The station's general manager is Lee Jamison and program director is once again Kevin Sponsler, who served that position previously from 1995 to 2003. Local news is featured hourly in the mornings with news director longtime news veteran Corky Small anchoring. The station was nearly sold to Jefferson Public Radio in the fall of 2010 in hopes of improving its signal in the Yreka area. When rumors of the pending purchase were confirmed, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted against the sale and JPR withdrew its offer. The station was then acquired on March 1, 2011, by local and longtime residents of Siskiyou County, Mark and Cindy Baird, to continue that long-standing tradition of excellence in broadcasting. The company is known as Buffalo Broadcasting, LLC.
Local sports
KSYC has been the flagship station for Yreka High School football and basketball since the very beginning. They featured 30-plus-year veteran announcer Mark McAllister on the play-by-play and the late Al Reichenbach on the color commentary during the early 2000s. McAllister has since retired and Reichenbach has since died.
