Shoved on a crowded thoroughfare next to a shave-ice shop and across from a Zippy's, it's easy to overlook KNDI radio, the self-proclaimed "broadcast house of the Pacific."

The relic of the radio industry is a white-framed fossil on South King Street untouched by media mergers and modern technology.

Radio personalities Venus Viloria and Byrne Munoz are the lead announcers of the KNDI studio. Both do Filipino programming, but the station also airs segments in other languages, such as Samoan. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

A kitchen table serves as the meeting room. Vinyl albums still line the shelves. Hand-written records outnumber computers. And it's a place not driven by the ratings.

Down Hawai'i's radio dial, two stations are all Japanese all the time, two are Korean, and a smattering serve the Native Hawaiian community. This old-timey station, which promises "Filipino/

Ethnic Radio" in the yellow pages, is the only one keeping up with the changing languages of changing demographics, reflecting a rapidly expanding genre of ethnic programming that is reaching the airwaves nationally.

KNDI offers Hawai'i's ethnic communities voices in nine languages, ranging from shows with a Hispanic flair to Samoan church services.

Philippine-languages radio now makes up 60 percent of the station's daily programming, serving one of the state's fastest-growing ethnic group, a Filipino community of nearly 200,000. The station has six shows weekly in Samoan and Tongan, and three times weekly in Laotian, Chinese and Vietnamese. It also makes room for shows for Okinawan and Polish audiences.

Viloria and Byrne Munoz, the lead announcers on KNDI, serve as the cultural bridges to their homeland.

Munoz, 51, known as the "Dear Abby" of local ethnic radio, sells advertising for his afternoon program "Linabag Ti Napalabas (Memories of Yesterday)," spoken in Ilocano. He acts out the letters he receives, pretending to cry when it's sad and ending mini-sermons with his own moral code.

Munoz, born in the Philippines as one of 12 children, gets the feeling that people trust him because he's speaking to them in their own language.

"For my people and for my country, it's pride for a Filipino, that we in a foreign land can do something," he said. "When I go home, they look at me as somebody who can do something."

For the station, it's more of a mission than a money-maker.

"Some of the communities don't have newspapers. They don't speak English, so they turn to us," said Shelby Henderson,

the station's director of sales and promotions. "We sometimes laugh and say we're 75 percent social workers and 25 percent broadcasters."

In recent years, Henderson has turned to grant-writing to keep the money flowing. Show topics include immigrant health programs, and radio personalities work with advertisers themselves to cater to specific ethnic groups. In paid programming, for example, immigration lawyers explain the services they provide, Viloria said: "These are the ways we serve our listeners."

Leona Jona, the station's 71-year-old matriarch, said she hopes the philosophy of serving immigrant communities remains KNDI's mission even after she retires.

"I was a refugee myself. I came from Hungary," said Jona, the station's president and general manager. "And, somehow, I feel very much for these people."

Jona is giving herself a year and a half to let go.

"I have a dream that I will be able to sell it to my employees," she said.

The dinosaur of Hawai'i's radio dial is still her baby, she said, and she wants to be sure she finds the right foster care.