Cecil Moore wrote:

clfe wrote:

As to the Titanic operator being a smart ass as someone alluded to in
here - maybe he was just losing his cool (very afraid) and trying
desperately to get help and felt any other signals were just going to
interfere.


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.

Ship born radio communications were controlled by communications
companies completely separate from the ship. The radio operators were
not under the command of the ship's captain. In the case of Titanic the
Marconi Radio Company controlled the radio. Californian and Carpathia
had different company control and there was a definite rivalry between
the companies. The Titanic operator was fully justified in telling the
Californian operator to close station. This was one of the direct causes
of the formation of the international radio treaties we operate under now.

Dave WD9BDZ