KFIO was a radio station in Spokane, Washington, first licensed in 1923.
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KFIO at North Central High School
Under the guidance of physics teacher Arthur L. Smith, North Central High School established first a telegraphic station with the call sign 7YL in 1921 and then later a broadcast station with the call KFIO in 1923. KFIO could be considered an original non-commercial educational high school radio station. Despite some difficulty in and controversy over keeping the station on the air, many of the people who became radio broadcast professionals in Spokane and nearby communities in the early radio days got their start in radio at KFIO thanks to Mr. Smith's foresight.
Licensed as a special land station in 1921 - 7YL
In 1921, Mr. Smith saw a need to train young students in radio, an infant technology that would soon explode. He sought a Special Land Station Radio License for North Central High School, and according to the U.S. Department of Commerce's Radio Service Bulletin dated 1 July 1921, the school received such a license with the call 7YL. (Special land stations were a class of stations used by experimenters, technical and training schools, and certain amateur radio operators.) With this license students at North Central High School could now learn telegraphy and radio theory, and then apply what they learned in real life.
Licensed as a broadcast station in 1923 - KFIO
Frequently special land stations became broadcast stations after the Commerce Department created the broadcast station class in September 1921. A broadcast station is loosely defined as a licensed radio station, which had voice and music, and broadcast to an audience on a regular schedule. On 22 May 1923, North Central High School received a broadcast station license with the call letters of KFIO.
There is a possibility that, in addition to telegraphy, 7YL may have broadcast spoken word and music before KFIO came on the air on 22 May 1923. A search of archives such as North Central High School's newspapers or other contemporary documents could help resolve this mystery.
North Central High School Radio Club retained the call letters 7YL for several years and later North Central's amateur radio station became W7YL. As of this writing, the call W7YL was assigned to an amateur radio operator who lives in Hawaii.
Student Operated Station
Students who were members of NC Radio Club operated KFIO. In the history page on North Central High's website, KFIO was said to have broadcast features such as NC News, entertainment that included concerts by the school band and orchestra (live from the auditorium) and sports events, in particular games between North Central High and Lewis and Clark High in 1924 and 1925.
In addition to Friday evening programs, the station also broadcast during school time Monday to Friday and occasionally on Sunday evenings.
D. Windsor Hunt, who worked at the station as a student beginning in 1927, related his experiences at the station and talked about what kind of programming the station broadcast. He noted that, among other things, he was responsible for reading the news, playing records, announcing school athletic events, and proms. The station had a library of records, all 78 RPM, mostly from the 1910s, but they also were able to get a hold of more recent hits of the time. Hunt noted that they obtained a copy of the record "Sweet Hearts on Parade" when it was still number one on the hit parade. Hunt also related they would read the news verbatim from the Spokesman-Review and the Spokane Chronicle, but they gave no credit to the original sources. As they read the articles they had to be careful to avoid mentioning divorce, sex, or bootlegging as those topics were considered taboo!
Crowded Quarters
The studio was in crowded quarters in an upper floor in the south end of the high school building. The only description that the author has been able to find is the account related by D. Windsor Hunt for the Early Days of Spokane Radio.
"... The [transmitter] was in a closet about 8' X 16', between the physics lab and classroom, on the south side of the 3rd floor. ...
"... The transmitter took up about six square feet and a two-foot passage alongside led to the studio. This was the back of the room with one window to an airwell. It was about 8' X 12'. ...
"On the right side was the "console" - a bench about two feet wide with one turntable mounted on it. Later we got a variable speed job, but we didn't have LP (long play, not liquid petroleum) records so we never used it in my time. ...
"Someone loaned Mr. A. L. Smith a mechanical song bird from Europe - a wind up dealy in a big brass cage. Every 15 minutes it sang a line in a very beautiful realistic bird song. On the hour it sang a longer trill. It not only warned us of the time but often added a nice touch to the announcements. ..."