Jack Martini's Journals

Sept. 17, 1970

Hopefully, the exchange of medical messages will help the ship's captain or another officer on board with the treatment of the injured or ill seaman. If the onboard treatment is unsuccessful, the captain may call for further assistance to the Coast Guard AMVER (automated maritime vessel emergency response system) computer center. The AMVER center determines if there are nearby vessels with a doctor aboard. If so, that vessel is diverted to assist. If not, an air evacuation by helicopter or paramedic parachute mission may be ordered if the illness or injury is life threatening. Of secondary importance is the handling of ship's business radiograms such as: ship itineraries, loading and discharge ports, crew allotments, mechanical malfunctions, and commercial weather warning and routing messages.

Hundreds of these messages pass through a coast station daily to and from all parts of the world from nearly every maritime country and foreign and domestic flag vessel in the world. Messages from American ships have the same priority of handling as a message originated aboard a Liberian flag vessel. Radiograms have no nationality. KPH is an international operation and holds no political prejudices, no racial biases, no nationalistic attitudes, and this makes it important because it communicates in a world that lacks communication between peoples.

Where did KPH begin its operation? The call letters contain a clue. Drop the K and the letters PH remain. These two letters were assigned to a radio station in San Francisco in 1904 located in the old Palace Hotel. There, the station, owned by the American DeForest Co., remained until the 1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed the Palace Hotel. Following the earthquake, United Wireless Telegraph Co rebuillt KPH on Russian Hill, then relocated the station at Hillcrest in Daly City.

In 1912 the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America acquired the United Wireless Company and moved the station transmitting operation to Bolinas, Ca., and the receiving site to Marshall Ca. There, the stations continued commercial operation until the United States entered World War I in 1917 at which time the U.S.. Navy took over operations of all nongovernmental radio stations until after the war.

End Part 2

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