KPH History
The station we now know as KPH began life in 1905 as station PH of the United Wireless Company. The PH derived from the location of the station, the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. 1906 was not a good year for San Francisco and the Palace Hotel and much of the city was destroyed in the great earthquake and fire. The station moved to a location on Green Street in San Francisco but the noise of the rotary spark gap transmitter was too much for a residential neighborhood. When United Wireless failed its assets, including PH, were acquired by the Marconi Wireless Company of America. They moved the station to Hillcrest above Daly City (south of San Francisco). During that period international regulations were adopted assigning call sign prefixes to the countries of the world. As a result PH became KPH, the call sign it retains to this day. The assets of the Marconi Wireless Company of America were acquired by the newly formed Radio Corporation of America. In 1920 KPH was moved to the already existing point to point station in Marin County, north of San Francisco, with the transmit site at Bolinas, CA and the receive site at Marshall, CA. Like all communications facilities, control of KPH was assumed by the military at the beginning of US involvement in WWII. Post war KPH moved again, this time with the receivers at the point to point receive site built in 1930 at Point Reyes. The transmitters remained in Bolinas. In an economy move, KPH controlled sister station WCC (Cape Cod, MA) remotely, making all the WCC operators redundant. As traffic levels declined after the Viet Nam war KPH was purchased by Globe Wireless, operators of KFS and long time KPH competitors. On 30 June 1997 operations ceased at KPH Bolinas/Point Reyes as circuits were transferred to the Globe Wireless facilities. But KPH rose from the dead! See “KPH Today” for that story.
