Vinyl records sit on shelves at KMUN.

On April 17, 1983, KMUN hit the airwaves of the North Coast. Now, the community radio station is celebrating its 40th anniversary and its evolution over the decades.

KMUN began when another community radio station, KBOO, based in Portland, wanted to start a station in the Astoria area. KBOO sent Harriet Baskas, KMUN’s first station manager, to organize the new station, which included securing space in Astoria’s Gunderson Building and coordinating volunteers.

Among those volunteers was Doug Sweet, who then lived in Cannon Beach and operated a coffeehouse. He also had a background in electronics from his time serving in the U.S. Navy.

Sweet remembers the early days of KMUN, when he assisted in building the air room for the station, building furniture and ordering equipment. “It was great,” Sweet said. “We had a lot of volunteers, (and) a lot of people wanted to get involved from the area.

“People were coming in and saying, ‘teach me how to do radio.’ And that’s what the idea was, that it was a radio station in which the community came in and learned how to be radio people,” he added.

Several months after KMUN’s launch, Baskas left the area and Sweet became the new station manager, a position he would hold for more than 16 years.

The station relocated during Sweet’s tenure, after being gifted a Victorian home by Helen Hill. KMUN named the home “Tillicum House,” and began operating out of the new space in 1987. Sweet was also able to obtain a foreclosed Victorian home next to Tillicum House, adding that it was helpful to be next door to his work when volunteers wouldn’t be able to make it into the station to record their shows. During those times, Sweet would fill in.

Susan Peterson, KMUN’s current station manager, estimates that the station reaches around 90,000 people. Each week, approximately 25,000 listeners tune in across its platforms.

“We broadcast up onto the peninsula, you can hear us in Raymond and Ocean Park, down to Tillamook and out to Cape Meares,” Peterson said. “When the clouds are right, you can hear us in Pacific City.”

Peterson added that KMUN’s volunteers are incredibly valuable, as the station would not be able to operate without their support. About 100 people volunteer at the radio station. Many volunteers, Peterson said, are programmers who bring music or create content for the radio.

Original programming on KMUN includes a variety of topics — poetry lovers might enjoy tuning into “Poems for Company,” hosted by Brian Dillon, who reads poems and provides commentary over the air. Home cooking aficionados might want to listen to Linda Perkins and Merianne Myers’ “Food Talk,” a twice-monthly show about “all things delicious.”

Unique to Astoria, and KMUN, is The Ship Report, airing each weekday morning. The show, which started in 2003, is hosted by Joanne Rideout.

Rideout first became involved with KMUN in 2002 as a volunteer, reading children’s bedtime stories on the air. She soon became a reporter, and The Ship Report began when she started her new job.

A self-described “maritime-oriented person,” Rideout became inspired to create The Ship Report after watching ships and pilot boats on the Columbia River from the KMUN station.

Rideout began speaking with Capt. Thron Riggs, a Columbia River Bar Pilot. She was able to learn more about Riggs’ job, the ships on the Columbia and what they carried.

“It started me on a 20-year odyssey, really, of learning about the river,” she said. “So the pilots, the bar pilots, were extremely helpful to me and kind of mentored me into this situation that I’m in now, where I just have learned a great deal about the river over 20 years.”

For Rideout, The Ship Report is important as Astoria is a maritime region and the show’s focus is very local. “There’s something really magical about these ships as they go by,” she added.

In the two decades of producing The Ship Report, Rideout said she has never run out of anything to talk about due to the broad subject matter. She also enjoys researching for the show and making maritime topics accessible to listeners.

Rideout added she is grateful to the community for their support, as well as the support and trust of professional mariners who have spoken with her over the years. “Without the people who are willing to talk to me over the years, I would not know anywhere near as much about the local area here as I do,” she said.