Radio Station KTOH becomes Kauai’s First Broadcast Station

“That sounds like a stupid idea,” was the sentiment of many folks on Kauai when

The Garden Island in 1938 announced plans to construct a broadcast radio

station.

Some people laughed “Who’s going to listen; nobody has a radio.”

Others observed, “We already have two stations in Honolulu. Why do we need

more?” The last two statements were somewhat correct.

In 1938 not many

people on Kaua’i owned a radio set. The Honolulu stations, KGU and KGMB, did

offer a wide variety of programs from before sunrise to late in the

evening.Reception from Honolulu wasn’t always dependable during the day but at

night the O’ahu signals came in loud and clear.

At that time, owners of

radios on Kaua’i primarily were business people and government employees who

lived in single-family homes. But the bulk of the population living in

plantation camps and rural farming areas had none. If they wanted to listen

they’d have to visit a neighbor who could afford such a luxury.

In the face

of widespread cynicism over establishing a local station, some residents

championed it as a great idea for bringing entertainment and the latest news

right inside a person’s home rather than having to wait for the weekly Garden

Island or walk to the nearest town to see a newsreel and movie.

A few sharp

businessmen agreed with the publishing company’s board of directors. A radio

station on this island would provide much wider coverage for marketing their

goods. That, simply, was the compelling reason the decision had been made.

Charlie Fern, publisher of The Garden Island, convinced his board of directors

that owning the island’s radio station would give the company control of

virtually all advertising.

In 1939, near Lihue town, a small site was

cleared in a cane field on the road to Ahukini harbor. Today, Jack Harter’s

Helicopters’ office is on the spot where the 150-tall antenna stood.People

marveled at the sight of a communications tower reaching as high as a

fifteen-story building.

Merchants began adding more radio sets to their

inventories and featuring them in advertising. Many styles of table and console

models became available but only two kinds of portable radios existed.

Installation of the KTOH transmitter began on April 16, 1940. Power was

limited to 250 watts during the day and 100 watts after sunset. For a location

like Hawai’i and for certain frequencies, the Federal Communications Commission

restricted nighttime power. This was to make sure signals from stations in the

U.S. didn’t interfere with each other. Our having maximum power of 250 watts

was pretty good in those days. Broadcast stations now radiate in the thousands

and tens of thousands of watts.

On April 20, four days after the crew began

installing equipment, a two-week test program of music and station call letters

went on the air from 1 to 6 a.m. Because it was nighttime, reception was good.

Over the next few weeks letters came from all around the Pacific as well as

from a few limited pockets in North America.

The first report came on the

first night. Kaua’i’s Senator Charlie Rice had set his alarm clock for 1:30

a.m. Senator Rice telephoned KTOH saying that when he twisted the radio dials,

lo and behold, he could hear Hawaiian music,

When the month of May, 1940

arrived, the small staff was engrossed in developing three inaugural programs:

English, Japanese and Ilocano, as well as the future regular daily

schedule.

Station manager Dean Stewart, a kama’aina who came from a radio

station career in Honolulu; Mainlander Bob Glen was responsible for engineering

the project along with Kauai’s ingenious technician Jack Wada; Bill Parsons, a

former isle resident; and I were announcer/engineers coming from stations in

San Francisco.

To these four station members was added a one-person office

staff, Lorraine Fountain, daughter of school teacher Eva and police sergeant

Eddie Fountain.

All the selling of commercials, engineering, announcing,

programming, script and commercial development, coverage of remote events, and

the administrative work was carried out by this busy team of five early

settlers in the land of broadcast radio.

Working on the creation of the

Japanese-language program were two Garden Islanders, Chitoko Isonaga and

Shoichi Hamura. During the day they sold advertising and then for an hour each

evening, except Saturday, they brought music from the homeland along with news

and events of local interest for Japanese listeners.

Preparing for the

twice-daily Filipino program were Abe Albayalde and Leonora Currameng, editor

and assistant editor of the island’s weekly printed Filipino News. Their two

half-hour shows, in Ilocano, were broadcast at pau hana, 4:00 p.m., and early

evening at 7:30 p.m.;

Both foreign language programs showcased local ethnic

entertainers.

The big day, May 10, 1940 arrived. The world’s attention was

focused on Europe where the Nazis on that day invaded France, Belgium and

Holland and on England where Winston Churchill was named to replace Prime

Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Here on Kaua’i (probably because they hadn’t

yet heard the world news), residents gathered around radios concentrating on

hearing the first sound of their very own radio station. It was Bob Glen’s

voice saying, “This is radio station KTOH, Kauai Territory of Hawaii,

broadcasting on an assigned carrier frequency of 1500 kilocycles by authority

of the Federal Communications Commission.”

Then, for three hours, island

musicians and singers entertained in the main studio that opened onto an

outdoor covered auditorium. Some seventy-five guests had been invited but there

were many more than the 100 fold ding chairs could seat. This important event

was a formal occasion with men wearing white dinner jackets and ladies dressed

in holokus.

Annie and Benny Holt’s Kekaha Hawaiians along with the Kekaha

Parents Club brought greetings from Kauai’s Westside. There were Hawaiian songs

by Nora Chang and Margaret Kilauano’s Leinaala Glee Club as well as the Lei

Ilima Club led by Nick Koani and Keawe Aipolani.

Musical greetings from

around the island continued with Billy Waialeale’s Aloha Hawaiians from the

Koloa side. Joe Rapozo’s Lihue Hawaiian Serenaders, Sam Peahu’s Transco

Hawaiian Serenaders, Henry Sheldon’s Kapaa Chorus, and the Latter Day Saints

Choir directed by Louise Sheldon represented the Eastside. From the North Shore

came Jacob Maka’s Hanalei Singers. And Eddie Kanoho’s C.C.C. Rangers traveled

all the way down from Kokee to make the grand opening an island-wide

celebration.

During the moments that musical groups were exchanging places

in the main studio, KTOH staff members were introduced. Politicians, plantation

managers, private businessmen, County and Territorial officials, and other

dignitaries welcomed the new era in communication.

Beloved kamaaina, Dora

Isenberg, paid tribute to those who had brought a vital service and family

entertainment to the residents of the island. Kauai’s chief librarian Thelma

Hadley, whose father, K.C. Hopper, had once saved The Garden Island newspaper

from bankruptcy, was honored. A.H. Case, secretary of the publishing company

described the steps, beginning in 1936, that led to the creation of the fourth

radio station in all of the Territory of Hawaii. (Besides the two in Honolulu,

Station KHBC was on the air in Hilo.)

Regular daily broadcasts began the

next morning. On the next two evenings, grand inaugural festivities introduced

KTOH Radio to Japanese and Filip ino audiences.

The KTOH evening world news

was picked up each afternoon in Morse code from a United Press Mainland

short-wave transmission. The rapid stream of dots and dashes was deciphered by

radio operators Herman Loebel and Frank Westlake at the wireless station atop

Mount Ka Lepa above Hanamaulu. J.C. Plews, Garden Island Motors manager, an

avid short-wave listener, often called in to KTOH with news of significant

world events, sometimes hours before United Press and the Honolulu radio

stations carried story.

Within a week after going on the air, the station

gave its first on-site coverage of a crisis. A cloudburst hanging motionless

over the East Side for half a day brought the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.

Lihue Mauka Camp 9 recorded 24.43 inches of rain pouring down from stationary

dark, black clouds. Rivers in the Lihue and Kapaa areas reached heights never

before seen.

KTOH covered the disaster using the telephone from M.S.

Carvalho Store in Kapaia. The telephone line from the store was patched in to

the station’s control panel. Reporters struggled through the torrential rain

getting stones to relate to radio listeners.

Breathlessly they described

rushing water over Wailua. Falls Road near Kapaia rising from three inches to

three feet in a matter of minutes. Houses were lifted and floated away from

foundations. An automobile and boat had a collision. A car, from which three

men had jumped at the last minute, was swept to the edge of a precipice where

it teetered and fell. The flash flood bulldozed its way through a road leaving

a gorge 150-feet and 75-feet deep

The destruction was a catastrophe for

many Kauaians. For radio listeners in other parts of the island the broadcast

was a live news event with excitement that a newspaper story can’t

reproduce.

In future years the drama of flash floods in Waimea, Hanapepe

and the North Shore also were brought directly into homes through KTOH’s use of

a homemade, tiny leather-bound amplifier. The box was built so that a

normal-sounding microphone could be used to send the audio to KTOH rather than

a poor-quality telephone instrument.

This little magic box took us all

around the island. We’d broadcast political rallies, Board of Supervisors’

meetings, store grand openings, and the twice-weekly departures of the

interisland steamer from Nawiliwili. Here on the pier, as musicians sang

Hawaiian music, travelers were interviewed about why they were making a trip to

Honolulu.

There was live coverage of all kinds of sports played at

plantation and high school gymnasiums and athletic fields: football, boxing,

wrestling, basketball, and baseball.

Horse racing on July 4 always brought

huge crowds to the Wailua Racetrack. Now the events were being enjoyed by those

not able to attend. At our first Independence Day racing coverage, one horse in

the Kauai Derby, the main event, didn’t take off with the rest of the local

thoroughbreds. When it was over, the jockey explained to KTOH fans that he was

asleep when the starting signal was given.

At Hanapepe Baseball Park one

Sunday, Charlie Fern and I arrived early-his job to make ready the team lineups

and mine to set up equipment and drum up color stories to fill the time between

innings. We spent the entire afternoon describing this important game play by

play. Only nobody heard it. The connection to the telephone line had come loose

and we hadn’t noticed it.

The phone circuit we used in those days was

one-way traffic only. Before going on the air with a remote program, the phone

line was connected to the little amplifier and we’d hear whatever KTOH was

broadcasting. Then we’d wait for the cue: “We now take you to the Hanapepe

ballpark where Charlie Fern and Mike Ashman are waiting to bring you…etc.” The

engineer at the studio would throw a switch and then it was our turn-we were on

the air.

This time however, one of my connections had jiggled loose shortly

after we started and frustrated sports fans were treated to several hours of

phonograph records while waiting for the play-by-play report to begin. The

studio announcer had no idea what went wrong and didn’t know what to say

except, “Stand by.”

All during the year there were dance band remotes at

plantation and high school gyms on Saturday nights. People were interviewed at

community carnivals and the E.K. Fernandez Circuses.

On June 28, 1940, the

first prominent international entertainer on Kauai since 1924 gave a onenight

concert at the Roxy Theater ‘in Kapaa. She was the celebrated Metropolitan

Opera star Marian Anderson. This wasn’t just a rinky-dink affair. Tickets for

the program, sponsored by the East and West Kauai Lion’s Clubs, went for

$4.40-a monumental price at a theater where movies were enjoyed for 450.