Ceremonial Morse Code Transmissions Resume Friday in Point Reyes

By Bay City News Service

A global event that has become known as the "Night of Nights" takes place today when west Marin County's Morse code station, KPH, returns to the air. Known as the "Wireless Giant of the Pacific," KPH at Point Reyes is the last of the Morse code coastal radio stations that communicated with ships at sea.

The mission of the radio pioneers who monitored the airwaves on shore and at sea was mostly maritime commerce, but when a ship was in peril, they transmitted the dynamic and electrifying letters S O S to fellow radio operators who could bring aid to the vessel in danger.

The last commercial Morse code radiogram was sent on July 12, 1999, but each year since on July 12, KPH has returned to the air for the Night of Nights.

Hundreds of listeners around the world and ships that still have Morse code capability will be waiting for KPH's signals to arc over the globe into their receivers.

Dozens of people, including Point Reyes National Seashore superintendent Cicely Muldoon, are expected to be in the RCA receiving station at 17400 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. to watch as signals are transmitted by hand with vintage telegraph keys at 5:01 p.m. today.

The station will open at 3 p.m., while Muldoon will begin the day's ceremonial activities at 1 p.m. when she turns on the transmitter at the Bolinas station at 451 Mesa Road.

Later, she will press the button at the Point Reyes station to formally dedicate the H Set Transmitter 298 that puts KPH on the air for the Night of Nights.

When the last commercial Morse code radiogram was sent 14 years ago, it was the end of an era, but on that day, the Maritime Radio Historical Society also was formed to honor the wireless communicators.

"We decided it was not going to be the end. We took the restoration of KPH as our life's work," said Richard Dillman, president of the historical society.

Officials at Point Reyes National Seashore trusted in the society's vision and gave it the go-ahead, Dillman said.

This year, a restored transmitter from the 1950s will send a salute to all of the closed coastal stations in the country, then more slowly transmit the call letters of about two dozen of those stations.

"It will be at a mournful pace, like playing 'Taps'," Dillman said. "People all around the world will be listening."

KPH in Point Reyes is open on Saturdays between noon and 4 p.m. It has a practice telegraph key and old manual typewriters that ironically have captured the interest of visitors in their early teens who are used to communicating via computer and smartphones, Dillman said.

"It was completely unexpected to us that they would bond" with the old technology, Dillman said. "We get the ultimate compliments from them.

They say it's 'awesome.' They say, 'Wow, it prints right when you press the key.'"

The U.S. Coast Guard station at Point Reyes that stopped transmitting in Morse code 10 years ago also will be back on the air this afternoon, Dillman said.

Dillman, 69, who visited KPH in the 1970s, said he never imagined that one day he would be transmitting in Morse code from the historic station.

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