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." Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
