If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

It was before the Titanic hit the iceberg that the Titanic
CW operator told the Californian CW operator to get off the
air. He considered his normal Titanic CW message traffic to
have priority over any CW traffic that the Californian might
need to pass. Turns out the Californian's CW operator was
the only person in the world who could have saved the life
of the Titanic's CW operator.


Firstly the Californian's r/o was not told to get off the air, he was told
to "Keep out, I'm working Cape Race" while the Titanic was sending Passenger
telegram messages to Cape Race shore station. The Titanic's r/o was just fed
up with stations butting in, the "Break-Break" syndrome. The r/o on the
Californian was in-experienced and failed to prefix his message correctly,
this brought about the rebuke from the Titanic who thought he was just
chatting.

It is also thought that it was the same failure of the MV Mesaba's r/o to
correctly prefix the last ice warning message that was received by the
Titanic that meant this message was not sent straight to the bridge, rather
than being left with the other routine messages.

There is no evidence that the Californian heard any radio distress traffic
until the r/o came on watch the next morning. They did however see rockets
from the Titanic.

Regards
Jeff

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

Buck wrote:
People are listening and the word "emergency" will get attention!
Even appliance operators can answer that call. Could they answer you
if you sent a distress in CW?

In 1995 the ARRL commissioned a survey of ham radio operators licensed
in the U.S. by having passed a morse code test. (5wpm on up). 64% of the
hams responded that they NEVER used morse code. The ARRL published the
results as 36% responded that they used morse code at least occasionaly,
but the truth remains that over 10 years ago, you had a one in three
chance of the person hearing you being able to copy your message.

That's why there was an international agreed to distress call, although
at the time, radio operators were NOT obligated to listen or act upon it.
"CQD" was not a distress call per se, it was Marconi company code for
"assistance" as in "CQD CQD CQD" meaning send assistance and "CQD?" meaning
"do you need assistance".

Telefunken operators were not privy to Marconi company internal codes,
and were forbidden by company policy (and Marconi's) to answer them.
Of course nothing is secret for long and it is quite likely that most
Telefunken operators heard the CQD call from the Titanic, understood it
and listened, although none of them were going to do anything about it.

When the Titanic operator sent the new distress call (which I can't write
due to text limitations) of ...---... as one continuous string (not the letter
S followed by the letter O followed by the letter S), anyone listening
knew what they were sending. The confusion to the reader of this is because
it is written as SOS with a line on top of all three, so if I could do it,
---
it would look like: SOS but here it looks like I am underlining with.

However the Telefunken radio operator on the Californian may or may
not of heard it, but he was forbidden by company policy to reply or
tell anyone about it.

The Cape Race story and his having gone to sleep was a cover-up.

For sake of brevity, I'm not going to repeat the entire story and references
here, but you can find them in my blog entry I pointed to in a previous
post.

So while sending SOS or any other morse code signal would be a good idea
if you have a CW only radio, calling "MAYDAY" in voice would be much more
likely to be answered.

It also depends upon where you are. Here in Israel, calling anything on
CB channel 9 will probably not be heard, calling MAYDAY on 2 meters, will
get you a "roger beep" from the repeater and nothing else. You'd better
have a cell phone and know how to call for help. 911 (U.S.) and 999 (U.K,)
are not used here, 112 should work on GSM phones, but the real numbers
are 101, 102 and 103.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

" That's why there was an international agreed to distress call, although
at the time, radio operators were NOT obligated to listen or act upon it.
"CQD" was not a distress call per se, it was Marconi company code for
"assistance" as in "CQD CQD CQD" meaning send assistance and "CQD?"
meaning
"do you need assistance".

Telefunken operators were not privy to Marconi company internal codes,
and were forbidden by company policy (and Marconi's) to answer them.
Of course nothing is secret for long and it is quite likely that most
Telefunken operators heard the CQD call from the Titanic, understood it
and listened, although none of them were going to do anything about it.

When the Titanic operator sent the new distress call (which I can't write
due to text limitations) of ...---... as one continuous string (not the
letter
S followed by the letter O followed by the letter S), anyone listening
knew what they were sending. The confusion to the reader of this is
because
it is written as SOS with a line on top of all three, so if I could do it,

If you look at the radio logs you will find that Titanic only used SOS once
at 12:45am, and that was to MKC - her sister ship, the Olympic. The callsign
MKC indicating that she was also a 'Marconi' ship. The rest of the time CQD
was used.

Also to explode your theory even more at 12:15am Frankfurt DFT replied to
Titanic's CQD;
12:26 DKF (Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm) called the Titanic;
1am DDC (Cincinatti) replied to Titanic's CQD.
etc.etc

None of these were Marconi ships!!

and finally the Californian (MWL) was also a Marconi ship!!! So no
Telefunken operator to ignore any CQD's.

Regards
Jeff

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

That's why there was an international agreed to distress call, although
at the time, radio operators were NOT obligated to listen or act upon it.


I forgot to add that that is also not correct.

For British Ships at least, and I expect most other countries had similar
legislation, the Merchant Shipping Act, did and still does *require* a
vessel to render assistance to another vessel in distress; regardless of how
you find out about it.

You are confusing it with the fact there was no requirement to keep a
listening watch for distress traffic.

Regards
Jeff

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

Jeff wrote:

and finally the Californian (MWL) was also a Marconi ship!!! So no
Telefunken operator to ignore any CQD's.

Do you have any documentation of that? I carefully searched and only found
references to the Californian being a Telefunken ship. I have NOT found
any contemporary listings of ships, which company operated their radio rooms,
their callsigns, etc.

I would welcome them.

Thanks,

Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
Visit my 'blog at http://geoffstechno.livejournal.com/

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

Dirk wrote:
Ham's care more about operating appliances than knowing how to save a lives.

:-(

Many ham are American Red Cross first aid and adult CPR instructors.

That trumps CW at any speed.

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

Steve N. wrote:
Uh oh! Now a battle of the troll-o-meters...
Really cute, Bill...I love it.

73, Steve, K9DCI
P.S. I tilted my monitor and I see that this movement is a little out of
balance on the sides. End-to-end balance is ok. Carefully turn the balance
weight on the right side in a little, then it'll sit on zero regardless of
the orientation...

Press the degauss button. The needle will let go.

"R. Scott" wrote in message
...
------------ REPLY SEPARATOR ------------

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
\
TROLL-O-METER


Bill, W6WRT

There I fixed it for you

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

wrote:
Dirk wrote:
Ham's care more about operating appliances than knowing how to save a lives.

:-(

Many ham are American Red Cross first aid and adult CPR instructors.

That trumps CW at any speed.
lol thank you for that

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?
 

I think that the facts are that this whole episode was right in the time
line of the transition from the more or less official original distress
signal which was the 'CQD' cited here and in many other references, to the
'SOS'. And .. had the operator of the Titanic actually been using the
then newly 'adopted' 'SOS' distress signal, it is actually likely that the
Californian marine operator, even though he retired and went to bed
*MIGHT* have caught the call for help in time and many more lives had been
saved.



SOS had been the official distress call for about 3 years when the Titanic
went down, but CQD was the long established distress call used by the
Marconi Company. Marconi had such a strangle hold on marine radio at that
time that old habits died hard. That said everyone knew what CQD meant
regardless of the company they worked for.

I doubt that the Californian's R/O would have heard any SOS or CQD in his
sleep. At that time it was general practice to shut down the Equipment when
not on watch.The receivers needed constant attention to keep the coherers
functioning properly..

Regards
Jeff

If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?