Maritime Radio Historical Society

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THE KPH PROJECT

The KPH Project

In cooperation with the Point Reyes National Seashore, part of the National Park Service, the Maritime Radio Historical Society (MRHS) has taken on the job of preserving the historic ex-RCA coast station KPH and returning it to the air.

Bob Schrader W6BNB writes:

To all of you nice MRHS people:

I hope you know how much your bringing back the sound of old KPH to those few of us who are still around from the 1930s Sparks ship days and how much it means to us. I worked KPH almost every day on six trips around the world and for a dozen or so trips over to Manila and back to SF, plus a few others trips... I even had the pleasure of seeing old Marshall and Bolinas in operation in 1932 when only a ham (althouh already with a Radiotelegraph Second license) at Central Trade School with old Fred Mangelsdorf and most of his class. While KTK was my home station for four of my six years. I almost daily received passenger messages from KPH and KFS and would also send them our TR reports.. KPH was one of the first and last stations I worked from shipboard. That was from 1933 to 1939. Real fond memories!

Thanks.

Bob Shrader "RS" W6BNB

COAST STATION KSM

Coast Station KSM

KSM is the coast station of the MRHS. Our goal is to honor and commemorate the men and women who made the profession of radiotelegrapher one honor and skill. We feel that the best way to do this is to preserve their skills and traditions through actual use at a real coast station. Somewhat to our surprise, the FCC granted our application for a full, commercial, common carrier public coast station.

Coast Station KSM

AMATEUR STATION K6KPH

K6KPH

K6KPH is the amateur station of the MRHS. Here's full information about operating times, frequencies, equipment and purpose.

Amateur Station K6KPH

MRHS PROJECTS

MRHS Projects

MRHS members are involved in other radio projects around the San Francisco Bay area as well as projects directly connected with the MRHS program. Here's information about some of these.

MRHS EVENTS

RADIO ARCHEOLOGY

Radio Archeology

The sites of historic radio stations surround us, especially along the coasts. As part of our project to record and preserve our maritime radio heritage, MRHS members try to locate these sites and document what is there now. Armed with maps, GPS navigators, historic records and, at least in one case, the plank from a shipping crate, we've had some remarkable success.

INCREDIBLE RADIO TALES

Incredible Radio Tales

When radio officers hit the beach in San Francisco they went immediately to "the Dog House", a rooming house in Powell Street that, for reasons lost to time, was the home away from home for seafaring brass pounders. There were probably similar places in every port around the country if not the world. And what must these Sparkies have talked about at table? Why radiomen, radio conditions, and radio equipment of course!

Ah! What one would give to sit in on one of those bull sessions. These were men who could coax a sweet note from a decrepit quenched gap transmitter, copy through static and interference (using their own personal Audion detector smuggled on board) and look the Radio Inspector straignt in the eye when he strode self importantly into the shack.

Our time machine is out of service at the moment due to a shorted power transformer. So we won't be able to join the boys at the Dog House tonight. But we can preserve and present some of our own radio tales, all of them true, for your enjoyment.

As you read, let the sounds of static on 600m at midnight and the dim light of glowing tubes in a dark room become real. Imagine the silence and smell the dust in the abondoned transmitter gallery of a once great station. And above all remember the men and women who came before us and made the profession of radiotelegrapher one of honor and skill.

REPORTS FROM NMO

Reports From NMO

Jeffrey Herman was a radioman at Coast Guard station NMO Hawaii during the glory days when Morse was king and 500kc was alive 24 hours a day. For the benefit of those of us who were not so fortunate as he, Jeffrey has written this account of what it was like to stand watch on 500kc, what the proper procedures were and what it was like to receive his first SOS. He has kindly agreed to allow us to post his reports here.

HISTORIC COAST STATIONS

"I'd like to get a job sending Vs"

Historic Coast Stations

During the golden age of maritime communications the globe was polulated with hundreds of coast stations, each with its own area of coverage, call sign and personality. Many of us remember tuning across the marine bands and hearing these stations, standing shoulder to shoulder with hardly any space between them, calling out for traffic or working ships. Recordings of some of these stations were preserved and are posted in the Coast Station Recordings section of this Web site. But what did these stations actually look like? We here at the MRHS have collected as many photos of these historic stations as we could find and posted them here for your enjoyment. They range from many photos showing the big, well documented to a single photo for a small station that was in operation for only a few years.

Do you have photos like these you'd like to share? Please let us know. We'd be honored to post them.

POINT TO POINT

Point to Point

It was Marconi's dream to bridge the oceans and provide intercontinental communications as a rate that undercut the cost of the undersea cables. His signals first bridged the Atlantic in 1901. Only a little more than a decade later his international system was in place and functinging - and earning money. Soon competitors followed, creating the point-to-point industry - first using giant spark and arc transmitters, then magnificent Alexanderson alternators and finally short wave tube transmitters. Often the elite point-to-point service was co-located with the marine service which often had to make do with a corner of the operating building and antennas that the point-to-point service no longer needed. Here is the story of some of these point-to-point stations.

MISCELLANEOUS AND UNKNOWN

Miscellaneous and Unknown

We at the MRHS spend a lot of time trolling flea markets and eBay for historic radio photographs. When we get extra lucky, the photos show new views of historic stations we know about. These we post in the Historic Coast Stations section of this Web site. But often the photos exist on their own, without explanation or provenance. We present a collection of these photos here - with a request. If you can provide any details about these photos please let us know. Your information will add to the the growing collection of knowledge about our maritime radio heritage.

Miscellaneous and Unknown

PERSONAL COLLECTIONS

Personal Collections

Many of us at the MRHS maintain personal collections of vintage radio gear connected with maritime radio communications. Here's a look at some of those collections.

Radiomarine CRM-R6A

COAST STATION RECORDINGS

Coast Station Recordings

Maybe you're one of those who remember. Late on a winer night night... tubes glowing in the darkened radio shack... earphones on... And one after another they rolled in, the great coast stations of the world. Maybe you listened to improve your code speed. Or maybe you listened for the thrill of it. Once the marine bands were filled end to end with the signals of coast stations from around the world. Twenty four hours a day the skilled operators at these stations carried the messages of maritime commerce. And they were there to lend immediate assistance to mariners in peril at sea. We thought it would never end. But the golden age of Morse code marine communications has passed and now the marine bands are either silent or occupied by digital transmissions. Luckily, recordings of many of that golden age exist. Listen to them here and travel back in time, a time not so long ago, when Morse was king.

Listen

Help the MHRS keep these historic treasures on the air! Your generous donations are greatly appreciated.

Reports From NMO - My First SOS at NMO

Copyright © 1994 by Jeffrey Herman – All Rights Reserved.
Permission is given to publish this piece as long as no monetary gain is to be made. Please notify me prior to publishing.

In the following true narrative the ship's name and her callsign have been changed.

As mentioned in an earlier Part 1, I always sat the 12 hour 500 kc night watch on my duty nights; I loved listening to the steady flow of calls from ships in far off waters. Even though we sat in the Central Pacific I would sometimes even copy a fluttery East Coast US shore station.

Throughout the night I would hear ghostly signals, just above the noise level, that would fade in and out from who knows where. We used a Beverage-type long wire that stretched over one mile in length, and NMO sat in a very electrically quiet region. We were able to copy any ship or shore station anywhere in the Pacific.

One evening, feeling a bit drowsy (0200 local!), I thought I was dreaming when I heard a long dash, a pause, another long dash, a pause, another long dash, a pause, ..... Like an electric shock, adrenalin flooded through me at the speed of light - OH MY GOD - SOMEONE IS SENDING AN AUTO ALARM! My eyes shot to the clock to time the dashes: 4 seconds on, 1 second off, 4 seconds on, 1 second off - those 12 long dashes almost froze me. I yelled into the intercom to the chief `Auto Alarm on 500' knowing at the same time alarm bells were ringing on board every ship scattered around the Pacific within radio range of the distressed ship.

Recall that when a shipboard operator goes off watch, ITU rules dictate he leaves a receiver tuned to 500 kc with a decoder attached - if that decoder hears at least four 4-second dashes each with 1-second seperation, relays in the decoder will clamp shut triggering alarm bells in the radio room, in the radio officer's sleeping quarters, and up on the bridge, to warn of a distress message about to be sent on 500 kc.

Now, the two-tone AA used on the voice SSB MF distress/calling freq of 2182 kc was common: Mexican fishing crews used them when they were drunk. But AA's on 500 kc are *never* sent except when a ship is in distress.

This was the first one I'd heard since my radioman school days; I can't put into words the terror I felt while sitting out the ITU-required 2 minute wait (recall that the ITU dictates every step the distressed vessel's radio officer takes: Auto Alarm, then the 2-minute wait [if possible] for off- duty ops on other ships, woken by their Auto Alarm receivers, to race to their radio shacks to copy the distress).

500 kc was now in an extended silent period. Someone started tuning up and was immediately pounced on by myself:

QRT SOS

was all I needed to send - dead silence.

One of the Australian shore stations was sending a CQ at the same time the AA went out - he must have heard the AA through his CQ for he stopped in mid broadcast. Nothing but an occasional static crash - dead silence. Throughout my brief 500kc career there had never been a silence like this I thought. Then it came:

SOS SOS SOS CQ DE DJNK DJNK DJNK SOS BT MV PANAMA TRADER HULL CRACKED IN HEAVY SEAS MAJOR FLOODING 42-27N 42-27N 178-51W 178-51W NOW ABANDONING SHIP SOS BT MASTER AR K

Then came the 10 second-long dash (ITU: for direction finding). I was first - in A2 I sent:

SOS DJNK DJND DJNK DE NMO NMO NMO RRR SOS

and after me 500 kc was flooded with ships and shore stations sending sending the ITU response:

SOS DJNK DJNK DJNK DE NMC NMC NMC RRR SOS (San Francisco)

SOS DJNK DJNK DJNK DE NOJ NOJ NOJ RRR SOS (Alaska)

SOS DJNK DJNK DJNK DE NMQ NMQ NMQ RRR SOS (Long Beach, CA)

SOS DJNK DJNK DJNK DE KPH KPH KPH RRR SOS (San Fran.)

along with KFS in California, NRV in Guam, a couple Japan shore stations; the radio operator aboard DJNK must have breathed a sigh of relief and taken some comfort knowing his message was heard by so many.

Once the RRR SOS replies ceased NMO took control; I asked the standard questions for situations such as this:

SOS DJNK DE NMO BT NEED FOLLOWING INFO NR OF POB (number of persons on board) CSE (course) HULL ES SS COLOR (hull and superstructure colors) NR OF BOATS (number of lifeboats) BOAT RADIO FREQS, EPIRB WX, WIND SPD ES DIR, SWELL HT ES DIRECTION, CURRENT (weather and sea data) BT SOS K

and DJNK patiently answered each.

After getting these important answers I had the uncomfortable task of asking:

SOS DJNK DE NMO BT OM PSE CL KEY BEFORE U LV OK? K

SOS NMO DE DJNK WILL DO OM

Every shipboard telegraph key has a switch which, when closed, will continuously cause the ship's radio to transmit. This enables rescue aircraft to home in on the distressed vessel using their direction finding equipment. I had asked the op to close his key switch before he leaves the ship.

At the same time our AMVER computer was generating a printout of the locations of ships transiting the North Pacific: No ships were in DJNK's area! At least no AMVER reporting ships; it's possible there was a ship close to DJNK that wasn't sending us his AMVER position reports. A very slim possibility but a chance we couldn't ignore.

I was ordered by our Rescue Center to send the DDD SOS, i.e. to relay DJNK's distress message from our 10 kW transmitter. In A2 I sent:

AUTO ALARM (12 four second dashes with a one second pauses) then with my hand shaking, clenching the key: DDD SOS SOS SOS DDD CQ DE NMO NMO NMO SOS BT (DJNK's message) BT ANY SHIPS IN AREA DIVERT AND ASSIST SIGNED US COAST GUARD AR DDD SOS K

Dead silence reigned for minutes that seemed like hours. An awful, awful feeling of helplessness overcame me as I sat in that chair with the entire NMO crew standing in silence - all of us knowing at that very moment men were perishing in an icy ocean... Already we had aircraft in the air heading to DJNK's position so I notified him:

SOS DJNK DJNK DE NMO NMO BT USCG AIRCRAFT LAUNCHED TO UR POSN ETA 3 HRS BT HOWS UR COND? K

SOS NMO DE DJNK HV TO LEAVE SHIP NOW TU OM FER

His transmitter had emitted a - a scream - it actually screamed! I turned to the Chief asking ``Is that...?'' ``Yes, the ocean water just flooded his radio room shorting out his transmitter and batteries.'' I couldn't accept this - the man at that key couldn't have just perished! I sent:

SOS DJNK DE NMO SOS DJNK DJNK DE NMO

At this point the Chief put his hand on my shoulder and only said ``He can't answer you - he's gone.'' Throughout the night at 15 minute intervals I continued to send the Auto Alarm and the DDD SOS to no avail.

At daybreak our aircraft reported seeing only debris: bales of hay, which was the cargo of DJNK; no lifeboats, no bodies, only debris. Even to this day I sometimes hear, in my sleep, the scream DJNK's transmitter emitted that terrifying and horrible night. I pray the crew of that ship rest in peace.