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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N546, August 11, 2019
Our Final Episode in the Tragic Story of the Titanic: The Titanic Wireless Cabin
Here in Wavescan today, we come to the final episode in our mini-series of topics about the tragic events associated with the sinking of the White Star Liner, the RMS Titanic, back in April 1912. Our focus of attention today is the information that is relative to the Marconi wireless cabin aboard this majestic passenger ship.
The keel of the massive Titanic, the largest ship in the world at the time, was laid down at the ship building yards of Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Northern Ireland on March 31, 1909. This ship was launched a little more than two years later on May 31 (1911) at 12:15 pm, and 22 tons of soap and animal grease was applied to the slipway to enable a smooth launch into the nearby waterway. Less than two years later, the Titanic was completely fitted out and ready for passenger service across the Atlantic.
This ship, with two names and two wireless callsigns, was allocated the Ship Registration No. 131428 and the Flag Identification HVMP. The original identification for this famous ship was simply a mundane Yard Construction No. 401, though long before it was launched it became the Titanic.
The first wireless station callsign allocated to the Titanic was the three letters MUC. However, because the three letters MUC did not sound very appropriate for this monolith of the sea, the Marconi company in England acceded to the request from the White Star shipping company for a better sounding callsign, and they were granted instead the three letters MGY. At the time, the Titanic was the largest passenger liner in the world, and the three letter callsign MGY almost suggests the English word, mighty.
At 6:00 am on Tuesday, April 2, the Titanic was taken out for a shakedown cruise, and all went well. During this 13 hour daylight cruise, the two Marconi Wireless Operators, Jack Philips and Harold Bride, tweaked their new communication apparatus, apparatus that they themselves had installed, to ensure that it was functioning correctly.
The ship returned to Belfast at 7:00 pm, and an hour later it sailed for a 28 hour cruise to Southampton on the south coast of England where it was tugboated in to Berth 44.
After onloading passengers and cargo, the Titanic crossed the English Channel to Cherbourg in France, and from thence onward to Queenstown in Ireland. The Titanic left Queenstown at 1:30 pm on Thursday, April 11, with its new master, Captain Edward Smith, its new crew of 885, and a passenger list numbering more than 1,300. Little did anyone even consider the unthinkable possibility that the unsinkable Titanic would meet its unheralded doom during the coming weekend, just three days later.
Just before her original shakedown cruise, the Titanic was loaded with a complete set of the latest versions of wireless and radio equipment. There were two spark wireless communication transmitters and two receivers.
The main transmitter was rated at 5 kW output into a 4-wire T-type center fed antenna that was suspended between two masts at a level of 250 feet above the sea. The natural resonant wavelength of the antenna was 162.5 metres or 325 metres, though the tuning circuits gave a radiant frequency of 1,000 kHz or 500 kHz, in what we would call today the standard mediumwave and longwave bands.
Electrical power for this main transmitter was taken from the ship's electrical circuits. The signal from the main transmitter was guaranteed for 250 miles, though during the shakedown cruise it was discovered that the signal could be heard at 400 miles during the day, and 2,000 miles at night.
There was also an emergency transmitter with power taken from a set of batteries. There was one modern regular-detector crystal wireless receiver, and also one very modern valve/tube type radio receiver.
Due to the boomingly noisy signal from the hefty spark transmitter, this equipment was installed into a heavily padded room next to the operating room. This transmitter room was named, rather appropriately in the underwhelming terminology of the era, as the "Silent Room." A daily ship newspaper known as the Atlantic Daily Bulletin was assembled and printed from wireless news that was transmitted in Morse Code from Marconi-operated Coastal Wireless Stations.
The mighty Titanic sank quite rapidly, at 2:20 am local Ocean Time (MN:30 am in New York) early Monday morning, April 15, 1912, and for 73 years it lay broken, silent, and unmolested on the Atlantic floor, more than two miles down. The two major portions of the Titanic, together with its debris field, were discovered by a French and American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel and Dr. Robert Ballard in 1985.
On two separate occasions, 2001 and 2005, the cameras on an underwater robot vehicle at the site of the Titanic wreck have filmed the Marconi Room. The official report declares that the Marconi Room and the sleeping room of the operators were completely disintegrated during the sinking of the Titanic.
Dangling electrical wires hang from what had been the ceiling and the walls of the room. An electrical distribution panel hangs from its attached wires, and the two fuses show evidence that they were blown. The accumulator switching board lies face down on the sediment that covers the floor area.
The adjoining Silent Room, as it was underwhelmingly called, had previous contained the two overwhelmingly noisy spark transmitters. This room had been constructed with very thick walls as a soundproofing measure, and it largely survived the Titanic's two mile downward plunge to the Atlantic floor.
Thus the two transmitters survived remarkably intact, so much so that the glass on three of the four electrical meters remains unbroken. The AC knife switch was closed, and the knife switch on the DC side was open, indicating that the transmitter was closed down before the departure of the operator. Much of the ancillary equipment remains intact.
The wireless equipment on the Titanic was manufactured to transmit on either of two wavelengths, 300 metres (1000 kHz) and 600 metres (500 kHz). The 300 m. channel was authorized for use as the normal callup channel, and the 600 m. channel was authorized as the emergency distress channel. However, the so-called emergency channel was also in customary usage at the time for regular communications. The damaged Titanic equipment at the bottom of the ocean showed that the main 5 kW transmitter was set on 600 m. emergency at the time of the sinking.
For the basic and detailed information we have used in the compilation of these 15 topics on the story of the Titanic, we acknowledge with appreciation a multitude of sources, too many to list separately in our radio program. These open resources are available in books, contemporary and modern, radio and TV documentaries, secular magazines and newspapers, and electronic websites. We are grateful that we have been able to draw upon the extensive research of a multitude of other research personnel for our compilation of the historic wireless scene associated with the tragic sinking of the mighty Titanic.