TheBuzz
TheBuzz
KLHT AM 1040 will return to its original 10,000 watt power for the first time since the 1980s as soon as the necessary work can be done. FCC ‘boosts’
Christian businessThe Federal Communications Commission has approved the station's request to boost power from 5,000 watts, meaning increased reach for its teaching, music and commercials.
Bill Stonebraker, president of Calvary Chapel of Honolulu Inc., which runs the radio station, and pastor of Calvary Chapel of Honolulu, said the station was originally a 10,000-watt station when it bought the old KPOI AM. Insiders at the time joked that any joint AM/FM usage of the heritage call letters would be pronounced, "K-poi Amen and F-M."
The AM station's call sign was changed, as KPOI FM is still a rock station, with different ownership.
At the time of the early '80s purchase, KLHT and other stations' transmitters shared a broadcast tower on Ala Wai Boulevard where its proximity to water enhanced signal reach.
However, a lengthy dispute with the Magoon Estate, landowner and developer of high-rises near the pre-existing tower, ended in the mid 1980s with stations relocating their transmitters and the so-called "stick" being torn down.
The KLHT transmitter has been moved twice but was prohibited from boosting power; once because it relocated to another residential area, then because increased power would have interfered with the FCC's monitoring station in the Makakilo area.
This return to 10,000 watts has been approved because the station plans to again move the transmitter to the so-called KUMU AM tower at the end of Dillingham Boulevard, an industrial section of Kalihi.
Stonebraker said they'll make the upgrade "as soon as our engineers are able to get everything coordinated."
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com