KUFO sighting in Portland??

The domain name 1029kufo.com was purchased on January 15th. Rumor is: a return of the call letters to FM and something of an Active Rock format along with it.

KUFO (101.1 FM) launched as a rock-formatted station around 1990 (with the call letters changing to KUFO on January 23, 1990. It operated as an active rock outlet, playing artists like Ozzy Osbourne, Nickelback, Foo Fighters, and other hard rock/heavy metal acts. It was owned for much of its run by Infinity Broadcasting (later part of CBS Radio) and served as Portland’s main rock station for over two decades.

The station was popular in the Portland market, featuring local shows, personalities like Cort and Fatboy (a morning show that gained attention), and elements like local music support (e.g., Viva la Luna) and programs such as Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis. It was often described as a “Portland institution” for rock fans.

In August 2009, CBS Radio sold its Portland cluster (including KUFO 101.1 FM) to Alpha Broadcasting as part of a shift away from smaller markets.Under Alpha, the station struggled, and on March 15, 2011, KUFO 101.1 abruptly ended its rock format after 21 years. It went silent briefly before flipping to a conservative talk/news format (featuring hosts like Lars Larson and Glenn Beck), and the call letters were shifted to KUFO on March 22, 2011 (though the FM briefly held different calls around that time). This change was met with significant disappointment from listeners, as it left Portland without a dedicated hard rock station at the time.

The KUFO brand and calls on 101.1 ended in 2011. The frequency itself has since changed hands and formats (it later became KXJM “Jam’n 107.5” and other iterations, but not KUFO).

AM 970 in Portlandhas a more complex call letter history (starting as KQP in 1922, long known as KOIN, and using KUFO briefly in the early 2000s for a “hot talk” format before other changes). However, when people refer to “KUFO FM in Portland,” they almost always mean the rock station on 101.1 FM from 1990–2011.