[CW] KFS transmissions
D.J.J. Ring, Jr.
n1ea at arrl.net
Sun Jan 9 17:23:56 EST 2022
Yes, that's right, I just got out my Admiralty List of Radio Signals (ALRS)
book and found the QTH for KFS - which is of course their transmitter
location, 37°27'0"N 122°07'0"W and it's in Palo Alto, CA - about 20 miles
east of the receive site on the coast at Half Moon Bay, CA.
See some information below.
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine link is given for the article and
stale links have been changed to point to wayback archives of the original
articles when needed.
73
DR
https://web.archive.org/web/20160316030259/http://wikimapia.org/18873/Fomer-Maritime-and-VOA-Station-KFS-KROJ
Former Maritime and VOA Station, KFS/KROJ (Palo Alto, California)
USA / California / East Palo Alto / Palo Alto, California / East Bayshore
Road, 2501
radiocommunication
Former Maritime and VOA Station, KFS/KROJ
*History of KFS:*
The KFS story begins with the Beach Station (Ocean Beach), which was put
into operation in July 1910 by the Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph
Company. The Beach Station was located just north of the San Francisco zoo
at 48th Avenue and Noriega Street.
The Dollar Steamship company formed DOLLARADIO in 1929 (in 1930 becoming *Globe
Wireless*) to handle their ship-to-shore communications. Dollar's first
shore station was constructed at Mussel Rock about 15 miles south of San
Francisco near the north end of of Pacifica. Eventually, Globe opened their
facilities to the public and to communicate with ships of any line.
The 200 acre Half Moon Bay facility on the coast near Lobitos Creek, *"LO"*,
was constucted in 1932 by the Mackay Radio and Telegraph Co. as the receive
site for maritime radio station KFS and point-to-point station KTK. (The
transmit site for KFS and KTK, *"MX"*, was established in the Palo Alto
bayland marsh.) Operations from Ocean Beach and Mussell Rock were all moved
to the new facilities. The International Telephone and Telegraph Company
(ITT) subsequently purchased the stations and operated them for many years.
Eventually, in the early 1990s, ITT sold KFS (KTK had ceased operations) to
a group of local investors. These investors also obtained, from the
Tropical Radio and Telegraph company (TRT), station WNU near Slidell,
Louisiana and, from the United States government, the former Voice of
America sites near Dixon, California. This was the beginning of a
modernized HF network, reusing the name *Globe Wireless*.
The last commercial radiotelegraph transmission in North America was keyed
from *LO* and transmitted from *MX* at 2359 UTC on July 12, 1999. The final
words transmitted by KFS? *"What hath God wrought"*. By the turn of the
century, the Half Moon Bay facility had become the central control,
database server farm, and west coast receive site for the Globe Wireless HF
data and email network providing *GlobeEmail* and *GlobeData* services to
40,000 commercial shipping vessels from stations at 23 worldwide sites.
When Inmarsat purchased Globe Wireless in December 2013, the HF portion of
the operation was retained as Globe Wireless Radio Services.
www.balearntofly.com/links/bay-area-history.html --
<https://web.archive.org/web/20070326075412/https://www.balearntofly.com/links/bay-area-history.html>
"Well, faithful readers, the landmarks are getting a little more obscure
and harder to research, but that just makes them all the more interesting!
This month I'm going to talk about the "antenna farm", which from the air
looks like a bunch of toothpicks stuck in the middle of the marsh just
southeast of the PAO 31 runway near Highway 101. From the ground (the
facility is a very short walk from East Bayshore Rd) you realize just how
many antennas there are and how tall they are.
"On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph and the code
bearing his name, sent the first message by telegraph. "What hath God
wrought" (from Numbers 23:23) was sent along 35 miles of steel wire from
Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. Since then Morse Code has been used
extensively for long distance communication - first by wire, and then by
radio. Even when HF and VHF radios became ubiquitous in the early 1900s,
Morse Code retained its usefulness. Because the Morse Code signal is so
much simpler than voice or data, it can be sent using very little bandwidth
(using a technique called Continuous Wave, or "CW") and can be heard even
through severe atmospheric interference. It can also be heard much further
than voice using the same amount of power. These advantages together made
Morse Code the standard for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication
for nearly 100 years.
"In 1910, the Federal Telegraph Company was formed in San Francisco to
build a large radio station on the beach near what is now the southern end
of the Golden Gate Bridge. That station, call sign KFS, initially consisted
of a single spark wireless transmitter for communication in Morse Code,
although additional transmitters were added rapidly. After the sinking of
the Titanic in 1912, all ships were required to have Morse Code equipment
on board and a radio operator on duty 24 hours a day. Thus started an
80-year long era of ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication. Federal
Telegraph was one of many companies that provided commercial communication
service, charging companies by the message.
"KFS was taken over by the U.S. Navy during World War I to allow
communication with U.S. battleships. The station was moved in 1921 to the
marsh just east of Palo Alto (the current "antenna farm"), and the San
Francisco station was closed in 1927. Around this time the station was also
sold to Mackay Cable & Wireless. In July, 1943, a new 50KW transmitter was
activated at KFS under the callsign KROJ and provided a relay service for
the Voice of America. This service was terminated in 1945 at the end of
World War II.
"The exact corporate history of the site after WWII is impossible to
ascertain (at least by me), but during the next 30 years it was owned by
ITT World Communications (which eventually called the site Palo Alto Radio)
and then KFS World Communications. The site still contains an old, unused
mailbox with the ITT name on it at the front gate.
"For the engineers among us, the antennas include twelve full-wave dipoles,
two inverted cones, and a loaded vertical. Seventeen transmitters were in
use for CW. KFS built a separate receive site six miles south of Half Moon
Bay. If you've ever been doing emergency landing practice in those fields
south along the coast from HAF, and noticed a whole bunch of tall antennas
near your favorite field, they are the KFS receive antennas. The receive
antennas include three log-periodic dipole arrays, several wire V-beams,
and several rhombics.
"ITT had transferred much of the Palo Alto site to the city in 1977 and
held an easement for their continued operation. In January 1994, Palo Alto
bought the easement from KFS for $370,000, thus securing one of the last
remaining large pieces of the baylands not under the city's control. There
are currently no plans to renovate or demolish the site, although in 1994
there were some rumors about turning the large radio building into a youth
hostel. Obviously this hasn't happened yet.
"In 1995, the U.S. Coast Guard officially stopped listening for Morse Code
distress calls. KFS sold the Half Moon Bay facility to Globe Wireless, a
company specializing in maritime communications (including email and
telefax) using satellite and HF communications. With the newly available
communications technology, they decommissioned all Morse Code
transmissions. The last commercial radiotelegraph transmission in North
America was made from the Palo Alto site at 2359 UTC on July 12, 1999. The
final words transmitted by KFS? "What hath God wrought"."
www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0106/t.2243.html
<https://web.archive.org/web/20080821135037/www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0106/t.2243.html>
-- Article about KFS during its VOA days.
www.voanews.com/english/portal.cfm
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
Nearby cities:
Coordinates: 37°26'41"N 122°6'45"W
On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 4:35 PM Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>
wrote:
> KFS is usually listed as being in Palo Alto. I remember seeing
> a complex of antennas there when i worked for -hp- but am not
> sure if it was KFS.
> I think Muscle Rock was KTK, a station originally belonging
> to the Robert Dollar Co and then Globe Wireless. KTK merged with
> KFS/ITT sometime in the 1960s.
> Its also possible that ITT had something at Dixon Ca. This
> was a location with stations belonging to the USN, AT&T, Voice of
> America, and others.
> KFS shows up in early call books as belonging to Federal
> Telegraph.
>
> On 1/9/2022 1:44 AM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
> > The ITU List of Coast Stations and the Admiralty List of Radio
> > Stations (ALRS) both required the coast stations to be listed by
> > their transmitter locations because if a ship ever used radio
> > direction finding on them there would be major problems. Thus
> > Ocean Gate Radio, NJ for WOO while the receiver site was in
> > Manehawkin, NJ. Bolinas RCA Radio KPH while their receiver site
> > was Inverness, KFS - I forget what their transmitter location was
> > but their receive location was Half Moon Bay, CA.
> >
> > Tuckerton, NJ radio, WSC became West Creek, NJ radio when the
> > transmitter was located at the receive site in West Creek on
> > Murphy Drive: https://goo.gl/maps/ZBSWoxt9HBmHbhMo9
> > <https://goo.gl/maps/ZBSWoxt9HBmHbhMo9> There's a radio station
> > there still but not a CW station!
> >
> > 73
> > DR
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 1:52 AM Richard Knoppow
> > <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>> wrote:
> >
> > I suspect this is the station. Algoa is near Galveston.
> > Sometimes the call books don't give exact locations plus coastal
> > stations usually had more than one site, one for transmitting
> > and
> > one for receiving and sometimes separate locations for HF and
> > MF.
> > I heard it on HF, could be heard pretty much 24 hours a day, it
> > was very strong and steady. I don't remember which band I mostly
> > heard it on.
> > I know I will never be as good as the good commercial or
> > coast guard operators but its a goal to pursue.
> >
> > On 1/8/2022 6:51 PM, Walter - K5EST wrote:
> > > Never saw the ITT station in Galveston, but I did get to
> > see the
> > > station at ITT McKay, Algoa, TX (south of Houston on Hwy
> > 6). I
> > > was fresh out of the Brown Water Navy on the rivers of
> > Vietnam,
> > > APL 55/YRBM 18 was home water base.
> > >
> > > David, is sure correct, Joe - N0MU is a first class CW
> > operator.
> > > Only wish I could be that good :-)
> > >
> > > 73,
> > >
> > > Walter Dufrain - K5EST - QRPcw
> > > https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est> <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est>>
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Jan 8, 2022, 19:47 Richard Knoppow
> > > <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>
> > <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
> > <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>>> wrote:
> > >
> > > KLC probably. KLC always came booming in to Los
> > Angeles,
> > > much
> > > stronger than the RCA station at Port Arthur WPA. The old
> > > records show that prior to WW-2 MacKay (ITT) had
> > another call,
> > > WGV in Galveston. I don't know the story behind this
> > other than
> > > coast stations were taken over by the government
> > during the war
> > > and some of the old calls were discontinued later.
> > Possible
> > > David
> > > Ring knows.
> > > If you got to visit the station I envy you.
> > >
> > > On 1/8/2022 5:36 PM, Walter - K5EST wrote:
> > > > I miss the CW ship/shore stations. Knew several ITT CW
> > > operators
> > > > when I lived at Galveston, TX.
> > > >
> > > > Once had the opportunity to be the logger for N0MU at
> > > field day
> > > > in Missouri. Eight hours at the FD circuit was
> > nothing but
> > > pure
> > > > pleasure.
> > > >
> > > > https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU> <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU>>
> > > <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU> <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/N0MU>>>
> > > >
> > > > 73,
> > > > Walter Dufrain - K5EST - QRPcw
> > > > https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est>
> > > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est>> <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est>
> > > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est
> > <https://www.qrz.com/db/k5est>>>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Jan 8, 2022, 16:08 Darrel Emerson
> > > <demerson2718 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com>
> > <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com>>
> > > > <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com>
> > > <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com
> > <mailto:demerson2718 at gmail.com>>>> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > KFS -B is booming into Tucson, AZ this
> > afternoon, on
> > > 12695.5
> > > > kHz. About
> > > > S9+30 dB all the time. Inviting replies on HF
> > ch 3,
> > > which I
> > > > think would
> > > > be 12552.0 kHz. Sadly, no replies to KFS so far.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Darrel, aa7fv.
> > > >
> > >
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> > > >
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> > > --
> > > Richard Knoppow
> > > 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>
> > <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>>
> > > WB6KBL
> > >
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> > --
> > Richard Knoppow
> > 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com <mailto:1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com>
> > WB6KBL
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> --
> Richard Knoppow
> 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
> WB6KBL
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