KFIO (defunct)

KFIO was a radio station in Spokane, Washington, first licensed in 1923.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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