KPH Today

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KPH is unique among maritime coast stations that have been shut down. Every other such station we know of has been bulldozed to make way for housing tracts and shopping malls. As a result almost all of the history and artifacts of these great stations has been lost.

These photos show what can be seen today at KPH. When the station was shut down the personnel simply locked the doors and walked away. Thus KPH became a sealed time capsule containing the equipment and documents not only of the last phase of its life but of previous phases as well.

The Point Reyes National Seashore now owns the land and buildings and all the artifacts of KPH. They are thus protected against the outrages that have been visited upon other coast stations in this country and world wide.

Ready to take a look at KPH today? Right, let's go!

This is the front or east end of Building 2 at Bolinas, now the offices of Commonweal. It is the second most historic structure on the site being built, logically enough, after Building 1. At one time the second floor of this building was full of transmitters. Later Building 2A, where the transmitters are today, was added to the west end of Building 2.

The details such as the proudly displayed company name and the red brick diamonds are typical of the buildings RCA constructed during this period. RCA stations around the world are of basically this same design.

This is the north side of Building 2A, added to the west end of Building 2 in 1959. The west end of Building 2 can just be seen near the left margin of the photo. All of the transmitters used during the last phase of KPH operations are contained in this building. All the HF transmitters are on the second floor. The MF transmitter is the only one remaining on the first floor.

Look closely and you will see the open wire antenna feed lines emerging from the little square windows near the roof and extending away to the northern and southern antenna fields via trunks supported by a series of H frames (shown on a following page).

Here is a view of the transmitter gallery on the second floor of Building 2A. Tom Horsfall is standing atop a 1950s vintage RCA H set to help with the re-routing of a coaxial line. To the right of Tom you can see the balanced line output of the H set emerging from the filter. These lines were cut when the Henry transmitters were installed. However the open wire feed lines to the antennas were retained. The two rows of Henry transmitters are visible in the background and behind them another H set. The coaxial antenna lines from the Henrys are routed to antenna tuning boxes like the one near the window to the left of Tom. You can see the balanced lines emerging from the tuning box to exit through the window and then to an antenna in the southern antenna field. Luckily, this arrangement makes it relatively easy to re-connect the classic RCA transmitters directly to the open wire feed lines as they are restored and put in service.

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