SS AMERICAN VICTORY/KKUI Radio Console. Click on the Photo for More Information.

True Believers who have attended past Night of Nights events in person or on the air know that we end the event by sending a solemn benediction giving thanks that we have been able to preserve this wonderful facility and asking that we be worthy of the great responsibility that comes with our project. 

Each year by tradition this benediction has been sent by our beloved Denice Stoops.  This year Denice is still recovering from her stroke and will be unable to wield her famous chrome Vibroplex.  But the benediction will of course be sent.  For those who might not be able to receive this moving message when it's sent we include the text below: 

MRHS visitors are often amazed to see that we're actually operating a commercial class 1A common carrier Morse code public coast station.  Frankly, so are we!  Here's the story of how KSM came to be.

The coast stations of the world, great and small, were in constant competition for the business of high seas shipping.  Each message handled meant "revenue for the company" as former KPH station manager Frank Geisel famously said.

The big competitor to KPH was Globe Wireless station KFS, located south of San Francisco.  It was always a question of which station would buy out the other.  In the end it was Globe Wireless that purchased the KPH license.

When we began our restoration project we wanted to replicate KPH operations as closely as possible.  The first thought was to move some KPH transmitters to amateur frequencies under the call K6KPH.  That would be good - but we thought it wouldn't adequately represent KPH on the air.

Of course we thought about applying for our own coast station license.  But that seemed such an extraordinary idea, something that hadn't been done in forty years at least, that we were sure "heads would explode" (as we constantly said) at the FCC.

But after a year of dithering we finally decided we had nothing to lose and, with the assistance of a very helpful person at the FCC, we filed our Form 601... and waited.

We made it as easy for the FCC as possible by applying for HF 8Mc and 12Mc frequencies listed in Part 80 of the Rules but unassigned to US stations.  For MF we applied for 500kc and 426kc (since the ex-KPH MF transmitter at Bolinas was already on these frequencies).  Globe Wireless, the new owners of the KPH license, graciously agreed to a waiver for us to use 426kc on a non interference basis.  Since KPH no longer used 426kc this was not a real problem.

And after a while there it was - a license for a brand new Morse code commercial coast station!

Ironically, the call sign chosen by the FCC, KSM, was the call sign of a Globe Wireless station of the 1920s located in Cypress, southern California! 

After we had the license we were able to add frequencies one by one until we had Morse channels in all the HF bands and RTTY channels in the 6Mc, 8Mc and 12Mc bands.  The licensed power level for all frequencies is 5kW, the same as it was for KPH (the K6KPH transmitters are throttled back to 1.5kW).

By the way, we don't consider KSM to be a museum station or a "heritage" or anything else but what it actually is: a fully operational commercial class 1A common carried public coast station!  And that's the way we operate it.

KSM Info

 

MIKE PAYNE'S REPORT

  

   Mike Copies Traffic on the Mill at KSM