On October 22, 1926, at 8 p.m., President Louis Borno inaugurated HHK, Haiti's first radio station, at the Palais des ministères in Port-au-Prince, Le Nouvelliste recalls in a series marking the centenary of radio in Haiti. Borno spoke in French, English and Spanish.

After weeks of preparation, the broadcast was followed on the Champ-de-Mars and in a few well-off homes in the capital. But the receiver set up on the Champ-de-Mars broke down that evening, so only a handful of wealthy households could hear the concert properly.

The station cost the state about $40,000. It was acquired on the decision of the American occupation authorities and was presented as a tool for teaching farming techniques, a plan that drew criticism even before the first broadcast. At the time, the first American station, KDKA, had been on the air for less than six years.

For most of its life, HHK offered little more than one concert a week. Eleven years after its launch it went silent, worn down by breakdowns, a lack of money, unpaid artists and competition from private stations.