Radio Equipment

[Robert T. Paige]

Hi Again, Sam-

At least in my experiences you never really know what to expect from the radio waves, so receiving Titanic's CQD/SOS in Cedar Rapids wouldn't be too far fetched.. due to the time difference it would also have been on a Sunday afternoon.:

When I was a young boy, I once built a crystal set (Quaker Oats box for the coil of course !) and had it connected to a "long wire" antenna - probably only about 50 feet long and about 10 feet off the ground. It worked very well on the broadcast band,but I often received a "ham" in Pilot Point, Texas , about 60 miles north of Dallas coming in loud and clear...and he was transmitting on the 75 meter amateur band. Too bad I wasn't in to SWL cards at the time since I don't remember the call letters. Most curious !

73 es vy best dx ,
Robert

 

[Robert T. Paige]

>>Of all the "Worst Titanic Movies" ever made, that miniature transmitter in one of the other versions is the most ridiculous. IMHO, that is.<<

I believe that was actually in the Britannic TV series.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

Just refreshing this post. It seems this this thread was last active in 2008.

Just wondering why the detector was spring wound and then had to be manually rewound ? Not being an expert or even a novice on the situation, wondering why the detector couldn't have been electrically powered by a small electric motor or even some sort of electric rewind mechanism so reception would be "live" at all times ?

The story I have heard (and there are so many "Titanic Myths") was that the reason that Officer Groves (when he dropped in to the Marconi Room on Californian while Evans was sleeping) didn't hear the Titanic's SOS when he picked up the earphones was not that the sending was so fast he couldn't make it out (as depicted in "A Night To Remember") but rather that he heard nothing since he either didn't know how to wind the detector or he failed to do so.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

I found the old post about the Titanic-Cedar Rapids connection. The fiction was that "Ben Calvert", "Rose's" future husband was sort a "wireless" enthusiast of the timr and picked up the Titanics CQD in Cedar Rapids.