The station is powered at 5,000 watts by day, but reduces power to 1,000 watts at night to avoid interfering with other stations on AM 1470. It uses a non-directional antenna at all times. The studios, offices and transmitter are on South Gold Street in Centralia.[3]
In the 1960s, the power was boosted to the current 5,000 watts in the daytime while keeping KELA's 1,000-watt nighttime power. As network programming moved to TV, KELA began airing a full service, middle of the road music format with news updates from Mutual. On August 24, 1965, it put an FM station on the air, 102.9 KELA-FM (now KZTM).[6] KELA-FM ran an automatedcountry music format, while carrying some of KELA's newscasts.
Over time, 1470 KELA added more talk shows and reduced the music until it was a full-time talk station. It became an ABC Radio News affiliate. KELA-FM switched its call sign to KMNT but remained a country station. In 1996, Jacor Communications bought KELA and KMNT for $4 million.[7] Jacor was acquired by Clear Channel Communications.
During the 1996 flood in the Chehalis Valley, KELA went off the air when the waters inundated the building.[8] The station operated out of portable trailers for a time after additional floodwaters in 2007 submerged the area.[9] In 2007, Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia) spun off KELA to Bicoastal Media but retained the FM station, which had changed its call letters to KNBQ.[10]KMNT's call letters and programming moved to 104.3 FM, also owned by Bicoastal.