[GreenKeys] The Last Active Morse Code Station in the US - KPH Radio Station - YouTube

[Richard Dillman]

On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 11:57 AM Duncan Brown <duncanancy at earthlink.net>
wrote:

Yes, it  was interesting to see a young lady so passionate about radio & CW!
>
> One of the M28s at the Pt. Reyes Receive station is an order wire to a
> M15 at the Bolinas transmitter site.
>
> Although KPH just used CW to communicate with ships at sea, there was
> RTTY communications there, also.  RCA and/or MCI had point-to-point RTTY
> service from there at one time.
>
> KPH/KFS was transmitting on RTTY during their normal operating times on
> Saturdays. But it is temporarily off the air due to antenna problems.
> (They have a huge antenna farm with lots of old antennas needing repair,
> which is expensive!)
>
> Have fun,
>
> Duncan
> K2OEQ
>

Hi Duncan.  Thanks for your comments.

It's true that KPH was primarily a CW station for most of its life.
Straight Baudot RTTY was tried for comms with ships but without error
correction that didn't work well and was abandoned.  But with the advent of
error correcting SITOR that all changed and email over radio of a sorts to
and from ships became a practical reality.  The first version of the system
was a manual torn tape system.  But that evolved into a completely
automated system in which ships could log on, check for messages, send
messages and log off - all without operator intervention.  During that
period KPH remote controlled WCC on Cape Cod for both STIOR and CW via A T1
line.  Even with all those terminals in the SITOR room only one or two
operators were required to be on duty.  Of course KPH wasn't alone in
this.  All the major coast stations and the USCG installed SITOR.  It's
considered a legacy system today although the USCG still used SITOR FEC for
weather broadcasts and notices to mariners and one can still hear SITOR
markers from stations like XSG, TAH, etc.

There are some good shots of the SITOR operation in this video:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/18/the-last-radio-station/

And yes, the M28KSR at the receive site is one end of the TTY order wire to
the transmit site.  When the transmit site end was installed all the
original Jones plugs, wiring and patch panel connections were discovered
and used.

VY 73,

RD

=========================
Richard Dillman, Chief Operator
Maritime Radio Historical Society
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