Hawaii Public Radio Inc. will soon restore radio service to the Kau district of Hawaii island and this week will begin broadcasting its HPR-2 program stream across Kauai.
HPR received Federal Communications Commission approval Aug. 6 to take over the license of KAHU-FM 91.7 in Pahala on Hawaii island, and the paperwork was finalized between HPR and Ka‘u Community Radio Inc. on Monday in Honolulu. HPR bought the station for $20,000.
The greatest concern, said HPR President and General Manager Michael Titterton, is to get radio service restored for the broadcast of emergency information for residents from the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, as well as other emergency management agencies.
The area had largely been veiled in broadcast silence for generations due to terrain-shielding until KAHU went on the air in June 2010.
The station has been off the air since April 17 when its electricity was shut off as the nonprofit operator, which went through leadership transitions, was unable to consistently raise enough funding to keep the station running.
Sunday morning’s earthquakes were the most recent case of the district’s residents being left in the dark.
They "already feel like the red-headed stepchild of the island," said Christine Kaehuaea, president of Ka‘u Community Radio. The loss of the radio station meant going back to the days of an information vacuum and not knowing "why the sirens are going off or why aren’t the sirens going off and things are happening around them," she said.
"Most of the news they see on TV is (about) Oahu," whereas the radio station offered information more locally relevant to the Kau district, she said.
The sale represents the lifting of a huge burden for Kaehuaea, who was drawn into the nonprofit broadcast operation by her father, Wendell. "I told Michael, it is the strangest thing to be put into the position of being so excited to pay bills," Kaehuaea said.
KAHU should be back on the air within "a few weeks — three or four, I would imagine," Titterton said.
DOWN THE LINE, HPR will apply with the FCC for modifications of the station’s broadcasting authority to expand its area of reach "to cover the eastern part of the island of Hawaii including Hilo, South Point and Ocean View," and as far to the southwest as Milolii, though Waiohinu still might not be able to receive a clear signal, he said.
Meanwhile, HPR-2 officially will launch its broadcasts Friday morning on KIPL-FM 89.9 in Lihue.
The station is owned by Calvary Chapel Kauai, which has an agreement with HPR to provide the programming.
The official launch of HPR-2 on KIPL will come during "The Conversation," which airs from 8 to 9 a.m. weekdays.
The signal might not be quite so strong on the northern part of Kauai, "but otherwise we should cover the island pretty well," Titterton said.
Between the addition of HPR-2 on Kauai and the restoration of radio service to the bottom half of the Big Island, "that’ll be the final piece of the puzzle as far as getting statewide coverage for both streams" of Hawaii Public Radio, Titterton said.
