Owned by the Hawaii Public Television Foundation, the station maintains studios on Sand Island Access Road in Honolulu,[3] and its main transmitter is located on Palehua Ridge, north of Makakilo.

[4] The station's signal is relayed across the rest of the state outside Oahu and metropolitan Honolulu on full-powered satellite KMEB (channel 10) in Wailuku on Maui (with transmitter at Ulupalakua) and through a network of low-power translators on the other Hawaiian Islands.

KHET signed on the air for the first time on April 15, 1966; KMEB followed on six months later on September 22 of that year.

PBS Hawaii had remained one of the few remaining American television stations that continued to sign off during the overnight hours, years after most PBS member stations had transitioned to a 24-hour schedule; until July 14, 2019, its over-the-air broadcast signals transmitted from 5 a.m. to midnight daily, although beginning on July 1, 1996, PBS Hawaii maintained a separate 24-hour-a-day cable feed containing programming from the PBS Satellite Service during the over-the-air signals’ overnight dark period (from midnight to 5 a.m.).

Original materials from PBS Hawaii have also been contributed to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.