The sinking of the Titanic

An interesting article from the AP about the meteorologic aspects of the disaster:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=150437215

 

Terrific show. But there were some earlier uses of SOS, not that it matters much in the context of this story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS

Saw an excellent British show on TV about the engineers of the Titanic. They did everything they could to keep radio and light power on as long as possible. None of the officers, and few of the men, in this group got out alive. All the electricians stayed at their posts to the end too.

 

The computer generated voices depersonalized the story...I really would have thought the BBC would have done a much better job, like they used to do before all the budget cutting. It wasn't computers and disembodied voices that saved the survivors, but rather it was the hands and minds of two young CW operators. This is a much better dramatization.of the events...Look for the Last Signals video

http://www.youtube.com/jkilts

Cheers
Doc

 

A most compelling rendition of the events that happened 100 hundred years ago. Earlier in the day my family and I visited the National Science Museum in Ottawa , Canada where a replica of the Titanic was on display along with a working Spark Gap Transmitter . Listening to this device broadcast its CQD and SOS message brought this story back to life for me . I hope other Amateurs will get a chance to see this display and then listen to this historic rendition of the events as they unfolded so many years ago.

Larry,VE3EDY

 

The sinking of the Titantic, utterly tragic even a century later, has had indirect but profound impact on the world since.

Wireless was, in 1912, still a struggling field , controlled by Marconi, that had its emphasis on wireless messaging. And it was somewhere between miserable and horrible: the reliability of the few links that Marconi had up was fair to poor, because of propagation and equipment we would consider, to be charitable, insensitive. Cable messaging was, in contrast, far more reliable and still preferred at that time.

Marconi perceived the value of having wireless on the Titantic and lobbied for it—essentially installing it for the PR value. Think about it—millionaires on a maiden cruise of the largest ship in the world, messaging back their ‘important’ business matters while in the lap of luxury. Yeh! The ship was assigned the call MGY. That’s ‘M’ as in ‘Marconi’.

You know the story at that point—the ‘two Harolds’ as heros; junior Marconi employee David Sarnoff claiming picking up the distress signal (legend but not true; he was one of several ops working the key in NYC). No pun intended, wireless equipped shipping became a legally required ‘killer app’ for Marconi.

What ensued was a company that rocketed in 1912-1913, much like, say, Facebook today. There was even a MAJOR scandal in the UK over insider info and trading of Marconi stock, that is very famous in the UK, but unknown here.

Titanic is where Marconi the amateur and scientist became Marconi the FORCE. Marconi the tycoon. The rest of the story is even more important—broadcast; transformation to RCA; the Armstrong patents and war; and so on, but that’s a later post someday.

73,
Chip W1YW

 

http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/the-titanics-role-in-radio-reform

Radio has improved some since then too.

73, JP, K8AG

 

If the Marconi operators had listened to the radio op aboard the Californian, just a few miles away, when he attempted to warn them about ice bergs instead of telling him to stop interfering with their transmission to Cape Race, Newfoundland on behalf of the Titanic passengers, a lot more passengers would have been saved. After being chastised by the Titanic radio ops, the op aboard the Californian turned off his wireless and went to bed, thus never hearing the Titanic distress call. The Californian could have been on site in short order.

 

Did the Californian also employ a Marconi Wireless operator? I ask because a lot of commentary notes that if another ship did not employ an op of the same company, they were routinely ignored or, worse, jammed. Competing ops considered the traffic from the other companies to be interference at best. The op on the Californian may have had safety of life at sea as his intent, but the primary mission of the Marconi ops on the Titanic was to pass messages for the passengers (most likely a tidy revenue stream for Marconi Wireless) which turned to safety of life at sea after being ordered to do so by the captain. I don't think judgment should be passed on Messrs Phillips and Bride unless the messages sent by the Californian were not written down or, if they were, were not passed to the bridge. I have read conflicting accounts of the fate of the ice messages.

 

I have known a couple of old time technitions. This story has come up in conversation more than once. According to these gentlemen the "spark" was real cw. What us young whipper snappers use is MCW modulated cw. Cannot imagine sitting listening to that raspy arc hour upon hour. After a long session of that they would probably find me sitting the corner playing with dolls.

 

Probably not. Here's why:

The wireless operators didn't run the ship.

Prior to telling the Californian to shut up, Titanic's operators had received and delivered to the captain and bridge no less than 6 warnings of icebergs ahead. The Captain's response was to order the lookouts to be extra vigilant - but he did not order reduced speed.

Would a 7th ice warning have made any difference? We don't know.

Californian's operator wanted to go to bed - that's why he tried to break into Titanic's QSO with the shore station at Cape Race. They had a big backlog of messages to send ("a full hook", as we traffic men used to say) and it was their job to get them sent. Marconi Company was a for-profit business, and those messages on the hook were from paying customers.

Let's suppose Titanic's operators reacted differently. Suppose they'd asked Cape Race to stand by, and copied Californian's ice warning message. As soon as the message was acknowledged, Californian's op would have gone to bed anyway.

Would a 7th ice warning have made any difference? Would it even have been delivered to the bridge in time? We'll never know.

The crew of Californian saw the flares (rockets) that Titanic sent off, but they didn't bother to wake up the operator, fire up the wireless and ask what they meant.

73 de Jim, N2EY

 

Might be because the Titantic ops had told him to shut up;-)

 

You know the story at that point—the ‘two Harolds’ as heros;

Thank you for the reference.
I would be highly priveliged and hounoured if you would take a look at or indeed listen out for and contact either my self or my local club as we operate a station in respect for one of the HERO HAROLD'S Here in His Home Town using the sign

GB0HLT

CW & voice on 20, 40 & 80 (conditions allowing) as well as possibly all day PSK on 20m

All info available and will be updated every 30 mins here on QRZ.COM page GB0HLT on the 15/4/12

Regards Chris

 

No, it wasn't. Old urban legend. Look up the wreck of the SS Slavonia (a Cunard ship) in June 1909, almost three years before Titanic.

Not really. SOS had been around, and used, for several years. It was introduced in 1905. Titanic was not the first to use it, nor the first use of wireless for a distress call.

What was new was that the Marconi company had recently made it their standard. But there were other wireless companies (such as Telefunken) in operation at the time. Plus operating methods were still being standardized in 1912.


73 de Jim, N2EY

 

Couldn't hear anything.

 

You forgot to wind up the detector.

73 de Jim, N2EY