[Elecraft] Titanic radio traffic link

[Nate Bargmann]

In addition to the link provided by the OP, here are a couple more
gleaned from a thread in the News forum at QRZ.com:

IEEE:

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

A short film:

http://www.youtube.com/jkilts

Look for the "Last Signals" video.  It is a movie portrayal of Jack and
Harold.

For whatever reason the Titanic's call of MGY (IEEE seems to have gotten
it incorrect as MQY in the article above) made perfect sense as it was a
UK flagged vessel.  I was reminded of mention that the "M" stood for
Marconi in a later post.  1912 was long before internationally allocated
radio prefixes.  Oops!

In response to the BBC verbalizing of the Morse messages I posted:

Nicely done!

What was left unsaid, and likely not germane to the story of the sinking
of Titanic, is that the actions of too many of the amateurs and
competing wireless companies' operators that night and in the aftermath
led directly to radio licensing. In the USA the Radio Law of 1912
established the federal government's authority over all things wireless
and banished the amateurs to a wavelength of 200 Meters. It also
required that prospective radio amateurs pass an examination and receive
an operator's and station license from the Department of Commerce. The
law had the consequence of cutting the number of amateur stations
drastically but also eliminated the free-for-all days of wireless. It
also had a few other unintended effects as well--official recognition of
amateur radio and rather than killing off amateur radio as originally
intended, it resulted in the eventual discovery of our presently known
shortwave spectrum along with the drive toward CW replacing spark as the
latter was more difficult to use on the higher frequencies.

So while I salute those earliest radio amateurs, our service as we know
it was truly born as a result of the tragic loss of the Titanic. 

73, de Nate, N0NB >>

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

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