History

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A Brief History of Radio Cadena

By Gabriel Martinez, Station Manager

The purpose of this brief history of Radio Cadena is to give you a historical note on how KDNA got started and its purpose. On September 1^st 1975, a small radio studio was constructed in Lynden, Washington. The purpose of the studio was to pre-produce taped Spanish language public service announcements, public affairs programs and educational radio services to the Texas migrant and seasonal agriculture workers. A committee of grass-root organizers called Northwest Chicano Concilio (NCC) also looked into developing a Tri-State Subsidiary Communications Authority (SCA) radio project. The committee contacted FM radio stations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho to present the project and discuss leasing of SCA sub-channels.

In 1976 NCC formed Northwest Chicano Radio Network (NCRN) and was officially incorporated. That same year NCRN entered into its first contract with KRAB FM to lease an SCA sub-carrier. KRAB was a Seattle public radio station located in an old fire station. A radio broadcast studio was constructed for the project which also served as a training center for volunteers to learn radio communications and production. NCRN began programming news and cultural music programs 18 hours daily. The first SCA broadcast by NCRN was on July 7^th, 1976 at 10:00pm. One Hundred and Fifty SCA receivers were rented out to subscribers in the Seattle and surrounding communities.

Another of NCRN's original ideas was to have public radio stations in the Pacific Northwest, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. During this time NCRN submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit to build a non-commercial educational FM radio station. After realizing the cost for calling from Seattle to Granger to send news feeds was expensive and because the Yakima Valley was the home of many farm workers NCRN decided the station should be in Eastern Washington.

In 1977, NCRN requested facility space from Northwest Rural Opportunities (NRO) a not for profit organization set up to provide career training to low income people. In December of 1977 NRO and NCRN signed a training agreement to train farm workers in radio broadcasting. Three radio broadcast studios were then built in the north end of the center. NCRN also applied for a FCC license for a full time FM radio station and on March 13, 1978 NCRN was assigned the official call letters KDNA from the FCC. KDNA "Cadena" in English translates to chain which was to represent the chain of radio stations to be built.

During the winter of 1979 NCRN/KDNA began testing the transmission and Radio Frequency (RF) equipment for broadcasting. And on October 29^th, 1979 the FCC granted NCRN the license for operating radio KDNA 91.9 FM. At 12:00 noon, December 19^th, 1979 in a small radio studio in Granger, Washington the staff and volunteers of KDNA went on the air.

The first major event that KDNA covered was the eruption of Mount. St. Helens on May 18^th, 1980 at 8:32am (PST) triggered by 5.1 earthquake.