There are some changes. This info comes from the MRHS web site.
KPH:
Transmit: 426 500 4247.0 6477.5 8642.0 12808.5 17016.8 22477.5
QSX: All ships can call on 500 kHz and ITU Channel 3 all bands.
Channel 3 freqs: 4184.0 6276.0 8368.0 12552.0 16736.0 22280.5kc
The KPH/K6KPH receive/operation site is open to the public beginning at 3 PM Pacific (5 minutes ago). Tours to the transmitter site are available for true believers in the benevolent god RF. This building has plenty of that. The transmitter site is remote controlled and quite distant from the receive.
KFS:
Transmit: 12695.5 17026.0
QSX 500 and Channel 3, same as KPH
12695.5 will be on a 1940s vintage Press Wireless PW-15, formerly at the KFS transmitter site in Palo Alto, CA and one of the transmitters on the air on 12 July 1999. 17026.0 will be on a Henry transmitter [commercial grade, and no slouch either].
KSM:
Transmit: 426 500 6474 8438.3 12993
QSX: 500 and Channel 3, same as KPH
(see KPH listing for frequencies).
QSL for KPH, KFS, and KSM:
Ms. DA Stoops
P.O. Box 381
Bolinas CA 94924-0381
USA
Denice is an ace telegrapher who worked at KPH in its heyday.
WLO:
Transmit: 4343.0 8658.0 12992.0 16968.5
QSX: 500 and Channel 3 (same as KPH)
(No 2 MHz this year.)
WLO is the ShipCom station in Mobile, AL. It still handles HF commercial ship traffic, though not in CW.
WLO QSL:
WLO Radio
7700 RINLA AVENUE
MOBILE, ALABAMA 36619
USA
KLB:
Transmit: 488 500 (A1 & A2), 8582.5 (A1A)
QSX: 500 8368.0
KLB is the ShipCom station in the Seattle area. QSL is same address as WLO.
KKUI:
WWII Victory ship SS AMERICAN VICTORY will be on the air attempting contact will all the coast stations above. They'll use the best calling frequency for the prevailing propagation at the time but they usually call KSM on 12552.0.
K6KPH:
Amateur station K6KPH will transmit and listen on 3550, 7050 14050 and 21050 for KPH, KFS and KSM reception reports.
Professional operators will be at the key and commercial procedures [see below] will be used. But please don't hesitate to call, no matter what your code speed or experience level may be. We look forward to your call.
[They switch to usual amateur procedure if there's a pileup, which there often is. There's more on the web site.]
QSL: Same as KPH.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
It's Night of Nights Time!
It seems like a long time ago that commercial Morse code vanished in the United States, but even so I can't believe that this is the 11th one of these. Yes, Night of Nights XI is here.
Night of Nights came from the original defiance of a group of skilled Morse telegraphers and maritime radio people who decided they'd be damned before the most perfect communication system ever invented was going to vanish with all the other forgotten technologies. And now it's #11.
It seems almost beyond belief that the grand-daddy of West Coast stations, RCA's KPH, is back on the air, even one night a year. It is now part of the Pt. Reyes National Seashore, and the incredible dedication of these people have made its window-rattling Morse code audible again. (The rest of the year, the call belongs to Globe Wireless at another site, where the only on-air ID is a distinct hex code that can only be copied with special software.)
Every ham dreams of suddenly getting access to a rhombic farm and receive site with miles of antennas. Here is a group that actually did it.
MRHS:
Freqs & QSL info in the next post!
Night of Nights came from the original defiance of a group of skilled Morse telegraphers and maritime radio people who decided they'd be damned before the most perfect communication system ever invented was going to vanish with all the other forgotten technologies. And now it's #11.
It seems almost beyond belief that the grand-daddy of West Coast stations, RCA's KPH, is back on the air, even one night a year. It is now part of the Pt. Reyes National Seashore, and the incredible dedication of these people have made its window-rattling Morse code audible again. (The rest of the year, the call belongs to Globe Wireless at another site, where the only on-air ID is a distinct hex code that can only be copied with special software.)
Every ham dreams of suddenly getting access to a rhombic farm and receive site with miles of antennas. Here is a group that actually did it.
MRHS:
Each year on 12 July the MRHS holds its Night of Nights event on the anniversary of the supposed last commercial Morse message sent in the US. On that night historic stations KPH and KFS return to the air along with our own KSM. Listen on the air or join us at the receive site in Point Reyes, CA.
While MRHS station KSM is on the air every Saturday, on Night of Nights we originate stations KPH and KFS in addition to KSM. We will joined on the air by KLB, WLO and KKUI. See below [next post -Hugh] for details.
You can participate by listening or by visiting the ex-RCA receive site to see the action in person. If you'd like to operate K6KPH just bring your key. No license required!
Here are the details of the event:
Date: 12 July 2011 Pacific time, 13 July gmt
Doors open: 3:00pm Pacific time
On air time: 5:01pm Pacific time, 0001 gmt
Freqs & QSL info in the next post!
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Bletchley Park WWII archive to go online
From BBC News:
Bletchley Park WWII archive to go online
By Dhruti Shah
BBC News
Millions of documents stored at the World War II code-breaking centre, Bletchley Park, are set to be digitised and made available online.
Electronics company Hewlett-Packard has donated a number of scanners to the centre in Milton Keynes so volunteers can begin the ground-breaking task.
...
The centre hopes that once the work starts, previously untold stories about the role Bletchley Park played in the war, will be revealed.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Getting to Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park, as most utility people already know, is a museum at the preserved historical site where ENIGMA and other German encryption schemes were broken. This truly inspired work, which among other things involved the first true modern computer (Colossus) using 1500 vacuum tubes ("valves"), is said to have shortened World War II in Europe by 1-3 years.
Directions in a recent Monitoring Times (not MY column!) on how to get there from London appear to be erroneous. Long time contributor Ken Maltz writes about how he made a recent trip:
My own visit to London, including a day trip to Bletchley, is a few weeks off. Research has confirmed that Ken's directions do seem to be accurate. There are something like four trains per hour, one of which is an express and stops only at Milton Keynes, so you change trains. Either way, you end up at a station very close to Bletchley.
There's a lot there. More after I see it!
Directions in a recent Monitoring Times (not MY column!) on how to get there from London appear to be erroneous. Long time contributor Ken Maltz writes about how he made a recent trip:
... coming up from London, Bletchley is a local stop on the National Rail system. Either take a local train to Bletchley or take an Express train to Milton Keynes and then a local train southbound for just one stop to Bletchley. Once you get to the Bletchley station, there are signs directing you to Bletchley Park; less than a 5-minute walk.
My own visit to London, including a day trip to Bletchley, is a few weeks off. Research has confirmed that Ken's directions do seem to be accurate. There are something like four trains per hour, one of which is an express and stops only at Milton Keynes, so you change trains. Either way, you end up at a station very close to Bletchley.
There's a lot there. More after I see it!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Google Earth Pt. Reyes Tour Ends
What you want to do now is zoom Google Earth out to a high altitude. 50 miles should do it. This puts you in space, and you qualify for astronaut wings, but that's not relevant here.
Get Point Reyes in the middle of the screen so you can see it all. Notice the large line etched in the ground in such a manner as to separate the point from the land to its east. This line starts down south around Bolinas and Stinson Beach at 37 degrees 54 minutes 23 seconds North Latitude by 122 40 33 West Longitude. It heads out to sea on the north end of Tomales Bay, at about 38 degrees 14 minutes 46 seconds North by 122 59 01 West.
This is California's notorious San Andreas Fault. Point Reyes National Seashore is on a plate tectonic boundary, and the motion on this long strike-slip fault will eventually break it away from the rest of California, creating an island. Tomales Bay is where this has already happened.
While of course this is a geologic process requiring millions of years, about 20 feet of this motion happened all at once on a stretch from here clear to Cape Mendocino. This event is better known as the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Now go part way up Tomales Bay to a spot on its east shore:
38° 8'39.22"N 122°52'40.99"W
This puts you in a rather picturesque shoreside complex with one big old building and several smaller cottages. This is the Marshall receiving station originally built by Marconi after the earthquake destroyed the original KPH in the Palace Hotel down in San Francisco.
As with other Marconi Hotels in the world, the Marconi company created a very attractive and comfortable, not to mention highly self-sufficient complex where the staff lived. This was necessary, given the remote locations of the stations. To the left of the main hotel with its veranda, were cottages for the station manager and chief engineer.
Various white objects in the large clearings to the north and east suggest possible former antenna locations. Some equipment remains on exhibit at the site, and I believe there may still be landlines in existence enabling remote operation of KPH from there.
When Marconi Wireless left the United States not altogether voluntarily after World War I, the subsequent Radio Corporation of America (RCA) owned the property. KPH did not move until after World War II. RCA eventually sold to a series of other owners, including the Synanon program. It was ultimately confiscated by the IRS, and then abandoned. Now it is park service property. It is being restored, and made available as a conference center.
The transmitters were in the old "power house" at the Bolinas facility, which we've already looked at.
Marshall is the VERY small town to the north, on the little inlet and former marina type thing called Marconi Cove. I believe it's all ranch land now. There's really not much in the way of habitation at all.
The Maritime Radio Historical Society has sought to do remote KPH operations from Marshall.
Get Point Reyes in the middle of the screen so you can see it all. Notice the large line etched in the ground in such a manner as to separate the point from the land to its east. This line starts down south around Bolinas and Stinson Beach at 37 degrees 54 minutes 23 seconds North Latitude by 122 40 33 West Longitude. It heads out to sea on the north end of Tomales Bay, at about 38 degrees 14 minutes 46 seconds North by 122 59 01 West.
This is California's notorious San Andreas Fault. Point Reyes National Seashore is on a plate tectonic boundary, and the motion on this long strike-slip fault will eventually break it away from the rest of California, creating an island. Tomales Bay is where this has already happened.
While of course this is a geologic process requiring millions of years, about 20 feet of this motion happened all at once on a stretch from here clear to Cape Mendocino. This event is better known as the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Now go part way up Tomales Bay to a spot on its east shore:
38° 8'39.22"N 122°52'40.99"W
This puts you in a rather picturesque shoreside complex with one big old building and several smaller cottages. This is the Marshall receiving station originally built by Marconi after the earthquake destroyed the original KPH in the Palace Hotel down in San Francisco.
As with other Marconi Hotels in the world, the Marconi company created a very attractive and comfortable, not to mention highly self-sufficient complex where the staff lived. This was necessary, given the remote locations of the stations. To the left of the main hotel with its veranda, were cottages for the station manager and chief engineer.
Various white objects in the large clearings to the north and east suggest possible former antenna locations. Some equipment remains on exhibit at the site, and I believe there may still be landlines in existence enabling remote operation of KPH from there.
When Marconi Wireless left the United States not altogether voluntarily after World War I, the subsequent Radio Corporation of America (RCA) owned the property. KPH did not move until after World War II. RCA eventually sold to a series of other owners, including the Synanon program. It was ultimately confiscated by the IRS, and then abandoned. Now it is park service property. It is being restored, and made available as a conference center.
The transmitters were in the old "power house" at the Bolinas facility, which we've already looked at.
Marshall is the VERY small town to the north, on the little inlet and former marina type thing called Marconi Cove. I believe it's all ranch land now. There's really not much in the way of habitation at all.
The Maritime Radio Historical Society has sought to do remote KPH operations from Marshall.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Good YouTube Video on VOA Delano
This is a 10-minute video that tells the history of the place, with lots of pictures of truly awesome antennas and transmitters. There's also interesting footage of political figures as diverse as Cesar Chavez ("Delano Grape Strike") and Ronald Reagan (Radio Free Europe). It tells the story of short wave broadcasting in the post-WWII United States, and why we would be crazy to get rid of it, as we seem determined to do.
Directing style is about as old-skool as you can get, looking like an old newsreel, but this works with the subject matter. The video is available as a nice clear MP4 or the smaller YouTube flv type of file.
The Delano site has somehow miraculously survived the US Government's determination to blow up, chop down, and level all things VOA SWBC inside the CONUS. Delano carried RFE and Radio Marti, and it didn't close until about a year ago. My understanding is that the monumental world-class antenna farm is still extant, for now anyway.
A good case is made that Internet, with its government-controlled filters and firewalls, cannot replace international broadcasting. This is, of course, true. I'm pessimistic in the short term, since the Cold War paradigm of huge, government-funded, world-reaching broadcasters is undoubtedly dead forever, even if the Cold War may not be. In the long term, however, I'm optimistic that short wave will eventually come back in a newer, more relevant paradigm.
Of course, this all depends on whether powerline communications technology destroys SWBC listening in populated areas, as it surely will in its current implementation. Even if this is only a phase, once the public has been driven completely away, it won't be inclined to come back any time soon.
It appears that now is the time to come to the defense of short wave broadcasting.
The video is here.
Directing style is about as old-skool as you can get, looking like an old newsreel, but this works with the subject matter. The video is available as a nice clear MP4 or the smaller YouTube flv type of file.
The Delano site has somehow miraculously survived the US Government's determination to blow up, chop down, and level all things VOA SWBC inside the CONUS. Delano carried RFE and Radio Marti, and it didn't close until about a year ago. My understanding is that the monumental world-class antenna farm is still extant, for now anyway.
A good case is made that Internet, with its government-controlled filters and firewalls, cannot replace international broadcasting. This is, of course, true. I'm pessimistic in the short term, since the Cold War paradigm of huge, government-funded, world-reaching broadcasters is undoubtedly dead forever, even if the Cold War may not be. In the long term, however, I'm optimistic that short wave will eventually come back in a newer, more relevant paradigm.
Of course, this all depends on whether powerline communications technology destroys SWBC listening in populated areas, as it surely will in its current implementation. Even if this is only a phase, once the public has been driven completely away, it won't be inclined to come back any time soon.
It appears that now is the time to come to the defense of short wave broadcasting.
The video is here.
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