The Californian's PV

[Paul Lee]

Curiouser and curiouser....

When Leslie Reade did a search for the Californian's PV in the 1960s, he had a bit of a shock. He was shown a pile of PVs from all the ships involved in the disaster (presumably at the Marconi Company HQ), but one was missing. Guess which one it was!

 

[Paul Lee]

...and according to Oxford University's Bodleian Library, who now host the Marconi Archive, its STILL missing!

 

[Tad G. Fitch]

Very interesting Paul, looking forward to what else you might uncover regarding this.

Take care,
Tad

 

[Dave Gittins]

Could it, or a copy, be among the stuff gathered by Leslie Harrison? The same goes for Lord's log, or a copy of the relevant pages.

The PVs can reveal a lot, or very little. Carpathia's reveals how slack Cottam was during the rescue operation. No wonder Rostron sailed off with it!

 

[Samuel Halpern]

I noticed that PVs do not necessarily capture all that was necessarily transmitted. I guess it depends on what the operator decides to write in the PV. The Virginian is good example. The message sent at 04:10 NY time to the Californian was not recorded in the PV. The PV entry jumped from 02:15 to 08:30. The 08:30 entry only referred to exchanging signals and positions with Californian, Frankfurt, Parisian, and Carpathia. Too bad it didn't given more detail than that. It seems that that Californian may have given the Virginian her position at that time.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

Question from one of the "non-experts":

What's a "PV" ?

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Hi Robert. PV stands for PROCES VERBAL, the log of messages transmitted and received that is kept by a wireless operator.

 

[Robert T. Paige]

Hi Sam-

Thanks for the clarification. I suppose you would call some of my old "ham radio log books" as "PV's". I still have some of them dating back to 1956.

Regards,
Robert