For decades, Morse code keys clicked in West Marin, providing communications with ships at sea under the iconic call sign KPH, but the keys fell silent in 1997. Though the Maritime Radio Historical Society restored the famous station and operates it under a new call sign, this Saturday, Oct. 8, the famous KPH call sign will return to its ancestral home in Bolinas and Point Reyes in a public ceremony attended by many original personnel.
West Marin was a cradle of cutting-edge communications technology from 1914, when the Marconi trans-Pacific stations went into service with a transmitter in Bolinas and receivers in Marshall, until 1997, when the final Morse message was tapped out on Point Reyes. The story began in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1905, when station PH—Palace Hotel, get it?—went on the air. But 1906 was not a good year for radio stations, or anything else in San Francisco. After the earthquake, the station moved to Green Street, and then to Hillcrest above Daly City. Along the way it gained the K, for United States, that until this day forms one of the most famous radio call signs in history: KPH.
The station moved to Marin in 1920, joining the Marconi trans-Pacific station in Bolinas and Marshall. In 1930, the trans-Pacific receive site was built on Point Reyes. After the war, in 1946, KPH moved into that building, with it transmitters still in Bolinas.
Though the end of Morse code was predicted for years, KPH soldiered on, providing reliable service to ships across the globe. The drone of that famous call sign in the earphones of ship radio officers gave them comfort, knowing that the best operators in the world were waiting in Marin to respond to the slightest touch on their Morse key.
Finally, on June 30, 1997, Ray Smith tapped out “we wish you fair winds and following seas… goodbye… KPH.” With that, the keys at Point Reyes fell silent and the transmitters in Bolinas were allowed to grow cold after decades of continuous service. Normally, that would have been the end. At every other station—and there were dozens in the United States and hundreds around the world—the bulldozers were waiting to start up as soon as the transmitters were switched off. You don’t need a crazy old radio station at these seaside locations; you need condominiums and golf courses. But KPH survived because the stations were part of the Point Reyes National Seashore.
I was a continuous visitor to KPH from the early 1970s onward. When the station closed, I didn’t lose my job or my career, like all the folks who worked there did. Yet I could not bring myself to return, because I knew what I would find: a gutted room where the great Morse operators once worked, nothing but a broken chair and one shoe and wires sticking out of the walls. But, two years later, I mustered the courage to
return.
I talked my way past the guard at the door and walked down the long hallway to the operating room, knowing what I would find. But before I made the last turn into that hallowed room, I heard static… and Morse code… and ships calling. I walked in, and it was as if the operators had left 20 minutes ago. Keys and coffee cups were still on the desks. When they walked away, turned out the lights and locked the doors in 1997, they had intentionally left the receivers on, keeping a symbolic watch over the airwaves. The ears in Point Reyes still lived. The voice in Bolinas was dark and cold, but intact.
It’s not often that you get your life’s work handed to you in such a way. But the Maritime Radio Historical Society understood it was our mission to protect, preserve and restore this precious artifact. All we had to do was convince the Point Reyes National Seashore that it was a worthwhile project and that we were the guys to do it. Amazingly, they bought that story, and we have been on the job since 1999. Without the park service’s trust and vision, none of this could have happened.
This Saturday will witness a solemn ceremony as the transmitters in Bolinas are returned to the original KPH frequencies and a ceremonial message will be tapped out from the Point Reyes receive site—we hope sent by Ray Smith himself! The first transmission will take place at noon at the RCA receive site (17400 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, at the tree tunnel). Doors will open at 11 a.m. Questions? Contact me at (415) 990.7090 or [email protected].
Richard Dillman is the transmitter wrangler for KWMR and the communications engineer for the West Marin Disaster Council. He lives in Inverness with Katherine, his bride of one year, Luigi, the scruffy white dog, and Tony T. Cat.