KBPS (1450 AM) is a high school radio station in Portland, Oregon, owned by Portland Public Schools, and run by Benson Polytechnic High School students enrolled in its radio broadcasting program. From its founding the station has been based on the Benson campus and staffed by its students. As part of its standard transmission, KBPS broadcasts in AM Stereo. History In May 1921, the Benson Polytechnic School received a government license to operate a "Technical and Training School" station with the call sign 7YK. This station utilized a spark transmitter, which was limited to Morse code dot-and-dash transmissions. In the early 1920s broadcasting was introduced, and arrangements were made to establish a school station. Equipment previously used by a short-lived station, KYG, was purchased by the student body in March 1923, and an application filed for a new broadcasting station to be operated by the students under the direction of teacher Fred Brainard. The first broadcasting station license, with the call letters KFIF, was issued on March 23, 1923 to the Benson Polytechnic Institute. Equipment tests were begun in April, followed by an informal debut broadcast at 6:00 p.m. on May 4, 1923. A more formal station introduction, coinciding with the start of the fifth annual Benson Technical Show, was broadcast from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m on May 9th, with scheduled addresses by school director W. F. Woodward, Benson principal C. E. Cleveland, and student body president Bill Norvell, plus singing by Marguerite Carney. KFIF's initial assignment was for broadcasting on a wavelength of 360 meters (833 kHz), a shared "entertainment" wavelength that required allocating timeslots to individual stations in order to avoid interference. In late 1924 KFIF was reassigned to 1210 kHz, which was followed by assignments to 1400 kHz in 1927, and to 1310 kHz in early 1928. On November 11, 1928, under the provision of the Federal Radio Commission's General Order 40, KFIF moved to a "local" frequency of 1420 kHz. The school's original application requested reassignment of the KYG call letters, however the station was instead randomly assigned KFIF from an alphabetical roster of available call signs. In March 1930 the call letters were changed to KBPS (for Benson Polytechnic School), with the station's William Allingham explaining that "the letters KFIF were difficult to utter over the radio... and they were harder still to understand". During the 1933-1934 school year, programming was added intended for local