KFTS (channel 22) in Klamath Falls operates as a full-time satellite of KSYS; this station's transmitter is located atop Stukel Mountain.

OEB intended to make channel 8 the third station in its television network, which at that time included flagship KOAC-TV in Corvallis and KOAP-TV (now KOPB-TV) in Portland.

[5] Liberty and Siskiyou, however, were impeded from building the channel due to continued objections from KOBI (the former KTVM); the final petition for reconsideration from that station was denied in March 1971.

[7] The owners of the two commercial stations in the area—Bill Smullin of KOBI and Ray Johnson of KMED-TV (now KTVL)—helped a new non-profit corporation, Southern Oregon Educational Company, buy the channel 8 construction permit from Liberty.

Getting the funds to buy necessary equipment proved more difficult than expected, presumably because the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) balked at donating to a non-profit that was backed by two commercial broadcasters.

With the FCC permit about to run out, KSYS went on the air on January 17, 1977, from a transmitter on the Jackson–Josephine county line with the strongest signal of any station in the region, at 191,000 watts.

In 1986, SOEC (later renamed Southern Oregon Public Television, Inc.) immediately applied for another full-power station to cover the Klamath Valley.