Ernest Underwood – KHJ radio’s 1927 technical supervisor

• Posted By: Scott Harrison
• Posted On: 12:25 a.m. | September 21, 2012

KHJ radio technical supervisor Ernest G. Underwood, surrounded by 1927 radio equipment,  poses for a portrait by a Times photographer.

A story in the June 12, 1927, The Times reported:

Last Friday Ernest G. Underwood completed his second year at KHJ as technical supervisor and operator for the 500-watt station. He operates his amateur set 6ES at his home in Inglewood and has a governmental commercial license, extra first-class.

Underwood is one of the two or three Pacific Coast broadcast station operators who hold a “pink ticket.” Most “ops” hold the commercial first- or second-class rating and but few hold licenses with the “extra” clause.

This land operator has sea experience to his credit with eight years in the Navy, including a stretch of two years at the Asiatic station during which time he had charge of radios on the flagship Huron for a half-year and for the same length aboard the destroyer Smith Thompson.

For upward of a year he was on the Black Hawk in charge of radio and electrical repair work with the Asiatic destroyer squadron of eighteen craft and in 1917 he was one of the operators at the Inglewood Navy station, (now dismantled,) when it was taken over by the Navy Department. At that time the station broke all transoceanic records on the Pacific with one tube reception and no amplification.

This image and the above profile story was published in the Sunday Times “radio activities” page – forerunner of the post-World War II Sunday newspaper TV section. The “radio activities” page included news items, program listings, station call letters and frequencies.

According to the June 12, 1927, Times radio activities page, KHJ broadcast on a frequency of 405.2. Today KHJ, now known as La Ranchera, a Spanish-language entertainment station, broadcasts on 930 KHZ.

KHJ was heavily promoted on the Sunday radio activities page – it was then owned by the Los Angeles Times.