[CW] Re: [NoGaQRP] Fwd: [BrassPounders] Interesting subject!!

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/11/06 9:54:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, n1ea at arrl.net 
writes:


> In one of the opening scenes of the "Titanic" movie, there is a bearded 
> tech
> who explains the rivets popped from the ship's side "like Morse Code."


As I recall it, he was explaining that the gash in the side was like that - 
not one continuous hole, but a bunch of smaller ones.

> 
> Right then, I knew it was going to be "anti-Radio".
> 

Well, I've seen that film a few times, and it didn't seem "anti" anything. My
biggest complaint is that it left so much good history out in favor of a 
fictional
love story. 


> I can't prove it, but I have a feeling that it was intentional - there was
> at the time the movie came out a big push by EXXON and Royal Shell
> (Netherlands) Oil Companies to get rid of the Radio Officers and their hated
> morse code.
> 

??

The film came out in 1997. IIRC, the regulations requiring Morse-capable 
radio
on ships were changed years earlier, with the mandatory requirement 
eliminated at the end of 1997. 

There was no reason to make a movie pushing a change that had already been
set in place.


> The problem with Wireless Telegraphy (WT) was that it worked very well, and
> up until the time the problems with satellite systems could be overcome,
> there was no mode that could be relied upon "all the time" except WT.
> (Remember ships had radiotelegraphy before continous wave, so we called it
> WT and not CW.)  Radiotelephone didn't work as well, satellites would drop
> out of communications but 500 kHz (below the AM broadcast band) had a
> ship-to-ship range of over 1200 miles during the daytime and much longer at
> night.  See http://www.qsl.net/n1ea/sos.htm for more information on this
> subject.
> 

Of course!

The problem was that radio operators cost the shipowners considerable money. 
By eliminating the mandatory Morse capability, they saved some money, which is 
the name of their game. 

Unless I'm mistaken, the only big passenger-carrying ocean-going ships today 
are the cruise liners. Their number is tiny compared to the container ships, 
oil tankers, etc. 

In 1912 the Morgans, Astors, Ismays and such traveled by ship whenever there 
was water to be crossed. On land they traveled by railroad. Today they travel 
by jet aircraft. 



> If attention had been given to the job that radiotelegraphy had and
> continued to do, then the powers that be probably wouldn't have been able to
> get rid of Morse at sea.

How many of the powers that be travel by ship or rail today?

73 de Jim, N2EY