RCA Pacific High Seas Receiving Station, KPH

 radio station, historic landmark

Guglielmo Marconi sited and commissioned the building of wireless telegraphy transmitting station in Bolinas and receiving station in Marshall, on Tomales Bay, in 1913-14. They formed the foundation for the most successful and powerful ship to shore and land station, known as “KPH”, on the Pacific Rim. The Marshall station was replaced in 1929 by a new Art Deco-designed facility at Point Reyes Beach on the “G” Ranch. Few of the succeeding generations of antennas, arranged in “farms”, remain at the two sites. However, the radio equipment, some of it dating to the World War II-era, remains intact, functional, and used for ceremonial occasions by former RCA key operators and Amateur Radio Station K6KPH. The Monterey cypress “tree tunnel” at the Point Reyes station is a signature landscape feature that evokes some of the prestige that RCA placed in this profitable, historic operation. Besides Marconi and RCA, the facilities have also been owned by GE, AT&T and MCI.

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