Some may know this, some may not...
11:40 PM, Ship's time. April 14, 1912.
RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
Shortly after midnight, Captain E. J. Smith orders the wireless operators to send out a distress signal.
They send out CQD, and not SOS.
They originally sent out: CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD DE MGY (or some semblance thereof, accounts differ)
If the Morse code were translated to "words", it would have looked something like this:
CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD
FROM TITANIC
CQD basically means, "All Stations: Distress". In other words, "to anyone listening: distress"
DE translates roughly to "from", and MGY was Titanic's call letters.
It wasn't until later in the calls for help that they started interspersing SOS into the distress calls.
Tidbit: SOS as an "official" distress signal does not actually exist. The letters S, and O exist in morse code, but to tap out an actual SOS, would require tapping out an S, a quick pause, then the O, another quick pause, then the S, or something like this:
... --- ...
Whereas, the "distress signal" that we know as SOS is actually this:
...--... (note the lack of space between the dots and dashes).
At least I think all that is right...
11:40 PM, Ship's time. April 14, 1912.
RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
Shortly after midnight, Captain E. J. Smith orders the wireless operators to send out a distress signal.
They send out CQD, and not SOS.
They originally sent out: CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD DE MGY (or some semblance thereof, accounts differ)
If the Morse code were translated to "words", it would have looked something like this:
CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD
FROM TITANIC
CQD basically means, "All Stations: Distress". In other words, "to anyone listening: distress"
DE translates roughly to "from", and MGY was Titanic's call letters.
It wasn't until later in the calls for help that they started interspersing SOS into the distress calls.
Tidbit: SOS as an "official" distress signal does not actually exist. The letters S, and O exist in morse code, but to tap out an actual SOS, would require tapping out an S, a quick pause, then the O, another quick pause, then the S, or something like this:
... --- ...
Whereas, the "distress signal" that we know as SOS is actually this:
...--... (note the lack of space between the dots and dashes).
At least I think all that is right...
Comment