[SFDXA] Titanic: Amateur radio heard SOS in Welsh town 3, 000 miles away

[Bill]

  Titanic: Amateur radio heard SOS in Welsh town 3,000 miles away

Artie MooreImage source, National Library of Wales
Image caption,
Artie Moore was looked at as "oddball" but picked up the distress 
signals of the Titanic from thousands of miles away

By Neil Prior
BBC News

*When the Titanic hit an iceberg while crossing the Atlantic in 1912, 
its telegraphers desperately sent out distress calls hoping somebody, 
somewhere might hear them.*

But among the first to respond was an amateur radio operator some 3,000 
miles (4,800km) away in south Wales.

Self-taught Arthur Moore received the signal at his homemade station in 
Blackwood, Caerphilly county.

He rushed to the local police station, but was met with incredulity.

The first full-size digital scan of the famous shipwreck was recently 
revealed <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65602182>, 
enabling it to be seen without water for the first time.

And while the radio enthusiast could do nothing to help those onboard 
the Titanic, he went on to pioneer an early form of sonar technology 
which helped discover its resting place decades later.

Watch: Take a 3D tour of the Titanic

"Artie", as he was known to locals, had already hit the headlines for 
his radio equipment a year before the Titanic sunk.

In 1911, he had intercepted the Italian government's declaration of war 
on Libya - a feat which saw him featured on the front page of British 
tabloid newspaper the Daily Sketch.

*https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65602182*


Born in 1887, Artie and his brother took over the running of a mill from 
their father and were entrepreneurs and pioneers.

The water mill at GelligroesImage source, National Library of Wales
Image caption,
Before there was electricity in the area, Artie Moore used the 
waterwheel to charge local farmers' batteries


Lyn Pask, chair of Blackwood's history society, said the brothers owned 
"some of the earliest motorcars in the Gwent region", developed machines 
for local farmers, and gave the area its "first access to electricity 
through charging batteries from the generator they'd created, powered by 
the mill's waterwheel".

But Artie's love of engineering had come about through a tragedy, after 
he lost a leg in an accident at the mill as a youngster.

This only inspired him to his first invention, a counterbalance on his 
bicycle which allowed him to ride by pushing down with his one good foot.

His scale model of a steam locomotive from the lathe at the mill won a 
magazine competition.

His prize was a book called Modern Views of Magnetism and Electricity 
which sparked his interest in radio telegraphy.

Amateur radio enthusiast Billy Crofts, who now lives in London but 
originally hails from Llantrisant, said that at the time Artie was 
looked at as something of an oddball.

"He strung up all these aerials made from thin strands of copper wire 
from the Gelligroes mill, over the nearby River Sirhowy and slung 
between trees up the hillside to an old barn," Mr Crofts said.

As a result, he explained, Artie could receive radio messages from 
further away than anyone had managed or even thought possible before.

The TitanicImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,
More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic sank in 1912

"People thought he was off his head, and that believing he could 
intercept signals through bits of wire was something akin to paranormal 
psychology."

That was certainly the reaction of the Caerphilly police, when in the 
early hours of 15 April 1912, Artie pedalled to the station to report 
the Titanic's SOS calls.

"Righty-ho", they are said to have mocked him. "We'll take a look. Just 
you get yourself back to bed now, and don't bother yourself anymore."

Though Mr Pask said that outside of south Wales, Artie was taken very 
seriously indeed.

"Soon enough, newspaper reports came through and they corroborated every 
single detail of what Artie had told the police, even down to the 
Titanic's use of the recently adopted SOS distress signal," he said.

"In Blackwood it might have been thought of as black magic, but to those 
who knew and understood, wireless telegraphy was the internet of its day."

Arthur "Artie" Moore outside his wireless shed at Gelligroes Mill near 
Pontllanfraith in October 1911Image source, National Library of Wales
Image caption,
Artie Moore was also well known for intercepting the Italian 
government's declaration of war on Libya in September 1911

Mr Pask said Artie's "brilliance" was soon noticed by some "highly 
important people".

Amongst them was Guglielmo Marconi, a radio telegraphy inventor.

He had originally predicted that radio signals could pass 2,000 miles 
(3,200km), but Artie had received them over 3,000 miles (4,800km) off.

Within a year, Marconi had signed-up the amateur to his wireless company.

As Marconi's apprentice, he designed the first communications which 
could reach between Britain and the Falkland Islands during World War One.

In World War Two, he pioneered an early form of sonar - a technique that 
uses sound to navigate, measure distances and communicate with objects 
in water. This helped to guide Allied ships around German U-boats in the 
North Atlantic.

Radio stationImage source, National Library of Wales
Image caption,
Artie Moore began his radio work from a shed in his garden, but soon 
moved on to bigger things

Artie retired to Jamaica in 1947, but shortly after developed leukaemia 
and returned to Bristol for treatment, where he died a year later.

In 1985, 73 years after his amateur radio picked up the passenger 
liners' calls for help, it was the sonar technology he pioneered that 
was used in discovering its final resting place on the Atlantic seabed.
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