On Sunday, I went to San Francisco to visit Jess. I was also interested in visiting a unique radio site, the Coast Station KPH (formerly KSM) station at Point Reyes, in Marin County. My brother-in-law, Jim told me about it because he had been there on a trip with his motorcycle gang. Jess and I enjoy road trips together and Point Reyes is a pretty area a couple of hours north of San Francisco. We had been to Point Reyes as a family a couple of years ago, but at that time, I wasn’t a ham radio operator. I still would have been interested if I had known about it at the time.

Although the station is normally open only on Saturdays, one web site I checked said it was also open on Sunday. I thought it would be a good idea to check, so I contacted them. I heard back promptly from the Founding Member and Chief Operator, Richard Dillman, W6AWO, who lives nearby. He let me know that the site is not open on Sundays, but he was willing to meet us there to give us a tour. Because of my tight schedule, Jess met me at the airport and we headed directly to Point Reyes.

Richard was waiting for us there and he had fired up most of the gear.

 

 

 

 

When we walked in, a teletype was running, and I could hear Morse code in the background from a couple of the radios.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The call sign of the radio station is KPH, which was the call sign of San Francisco’s first radio station. The history of the station and this site is very interesting and goes right back to Marconi, the inventor of the radio. The station provided commercial point-to-point overseas communications, as well as ship-to-shore communications. Rather than try to explain it myself, I’m linking the website of the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (<-click), which gives a short history of Marconi, the site and the station. Although the site is Point Reyes National Seashore property, it is maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers, the Maritime Radio Historical Society, and their website  goes into much more detail with lots of photos. (If you get that far, look at the photos as a slide show, because they have captions with more detailed descriptions.)  For my history buff friends and my radio buff friends, I really urge you to explore the MRHS site. MHRS also created several videos which are on YouTube.

This is a closer shot of the main operating position. Besides the Coast Radio station, the installation includes an amateur radio station, K6KPH.

 

 

 

There are several operating positions at the site. Here is another one, shown next to a carousel holding outgoing messages waiting to be sent.

 

 

This is a paper tape keyer which sends Morse code punched into the tape by another machine. Here, they’re sending an endless loop identifying the station and letting ships and other stations know that they are waiting to receive contacts.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a closeup of the punched tape. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a “Klienschmidt” machine used to punch the paper tapes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A rare vintage teletype terminal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bank of newer automated teletype machines.

 

 

 

 

Richard took us into the “Treasure Room,” where the real vintage and more fragile equipment is stored. Here are some examples.

 

 

And the Crown Jewel

 

Before we left, Richard gave me QSO (contact) cards for all the station ID’s, KPH, KFS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and K6KFS.

 

 

 

 

 

I made a donation to support the MRHS, and got my own mug.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside, we could view the antenna field. The frequencies used by the Maritime service were very low, so the wavelengths and the antennas have to be very long!

 

Here is a view of the art deco building at sunset, as we left.

If you will be in the San Francisco area, it is definitely worth the drive to Point Reyes National Seashore for the scenery alone, but if you are interested in radio, make sure you schedule your trip during the Saturday operating hours of KPH!