RadioBanter - View Single Post - If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?

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Dave Oldridge wrote:
wrote in
oups.com:

Dave Oldridge wrote:
Slow Code wrote in news:SPYSg.4010$o71.3724
@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:

" wrote in
oups.com:

Please, don't all jump in at once with all the unproven
bragging and dozens of local weekly newspaper clippings.

Let's hear it for the mode that saved the Titanic survivors
in 1912...

Don't know about whether it saved any lives or not, but I once took a
very important NOTAM (Notice to Airman) on CW from a guy in the
Aleutians in the days following the 1964 quake and put it on the
proper teletype circuits for him.

His airport's altitude was changing so that charts and other info
were inaccurate.

--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667

PADK?

I don't remember now. Those were interesting days. And that kind of
emergency, while it can still happen, would be mitigated today by the
fact of satellite telephones, GPS and so forth that don't depend on local
power or microwave comms. Indeed, cell phones would probably have held
up in most areas if the towers were halfway decently designed and
powered....

BLASPHEMY!!!

CW on 80M still rules during EMCOMMS!

;^)

It was all the microwave dishes on towers that moved a tad that made it a
real communications emergency.

Gyro/Gimbal mounted dishes?

If I were to have to deal with one like
that today, I'd probably vote for using some digital mode, such as PSK31
or Olivia to move the traffic. But all we had back then was 850 shift
RTTY and not very much of that. It was another two years before I got
mine going (170 shift by then already!).

--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667

I think RTTY is cool, but I won't force a RTTY practical exam on anyone.