Historic California Posts, Camps, Stations and Airfields

Communication Area Master Station Pacific, Point Reyes

Communication Area Master Station Pacific (CAMSPAC) in Point Reyes, California, which is involved in handling all ship-to-shore communications with Coast Guard vessels operating in the Pacific. The CAMSPAC receiver site near Abbott’s Lagoon, along with its transmitter site in Bolinas, remotely control similar sites in Honolulu, Guam, and Kodiak, Alaska. Together, they handle communications for military and civilian vessels throughout the Pacific.

 

The Point Reyes Receiver Site and the Bolinas Transmitter Site together employ 105 people. The Point Reyes facility has doubled in size since 1997. It controls 53 medium- and high-frequency receivers and 12 antennas at the CAMSPAC Point Reyes Operations and Receiver Site and CAMSPAC Bolinas Transmitter Site. Broadcasting is another main task of CAMSPAC. Twenty high-frequency transmitters in Bolinas, along with others in Honolulu and Guam, form a network that relays more than 20,000 annual broadcasts throughout the Pacific. Weather data, hydrographic information, and "Notices to Mariners" are aired. Broadcasts originate at the Point Reyes facility and are sent to Bolinas via a microwave relay station above the Point Reyes lighthouse. Over the course of 1999, CAMSPAC Point Reyes became one of two Local Control Centers (LCC) for a new Defense Message System.

 

Along with CAMSPAC Point Reyes, the Coast Guard has a search-and-rescue station in Bodega Bay, a training center in Petaluma [Two Rock], and a housing site in Point Reyes Station. The 37-acre Point Reyes Housing Site consists mainly of 36 family housing units plus offices for engineering and supply staffs.

 

The Point Reyes Peninsula, which juts into the Pacific Ocean just north of the Golden Gate, has long been treacherous for ships traveling to and from San Francisco. One of America’s greatest coastlines, Point Reyes National Seashore comprises over 71,000 acres, including 32,000 acres of wilderness area. Estuaries, windswept beaches, coastal grasslands, salt marshes, and coniferous forests combine to create a haven of 80 miles of unspoiled and undeveloped coastline. Point Reyes National Seashore contains unique elements of biological and historical interest in a spectacularly scenic panorama of thunderous ocean breakers, open grasslands, bushy hillsides and forested ridges. Native land mammals number about 37 species and marine mammals augment this total by another dozen species. The biological diversity stems from a favorable location in the middle of California and the natural occurrence of many distinct habitats. Nearly 20% of the State's flowering plant species are represented on the peninsula and over 45% of the bird species in North America have been sighted. The Point Reyes National Seashore was established by President John F. Kennedy on September 13, 1962.

 

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Updated 23 June 2017