Amateur radio heard SOS in Welsh town 2,000 miles away

[Encyclopedia Titanica]

Titanic: Amateur radio heard SOS in Welsh town 2,000 miles away

Artie Moore's homemade station picked up the ship's distress signals - but nobody believed him.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Steven Christian]

I've read about him picking up Titanic's signals before. But didn't know about all the other things he accomplished/invented. An interesting guy. Would have liked to have met/talked to him.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

A very interesting link with very interesting information. I wonder what Julian Atkins - who is a south Welshman himself and has an interest in the Titanic related wireless messages - will think of this.

I recall reading in a book - I am almost certain it was the "Backwash Ashore" chapter of Wyn Craig Wade's Titanic: End Of A Dream - about an amateur operator on top of a New York building who also claimed to have picked up a few of the ship's distress calls. I don't have my copy to hand at this time, but perhaps one of the others can help?

Of course, New York was a lot closer to the sinking Titanic than Blackwood, Wales.

 

[Steven Christian]

A very interesting link with very interesting information. I wonder what Julian Atkins - who is a south Welshman himself and has an interest in the Titanic related wireless messages - will think of this.

I recall reading in a book - I am almost certain it was the "Backwash Ashore" chapter of Wyn Craig Wade's Titanic: End Of A Dream - about an amateur operator on top of a New York building who also claimed to have picked up a few of the ship's distress calls. I don't have my copy to hand at this time, but perhaps one of the others can help?

Of course, New York was a lot closer to the sinking Titanic than Blackwood, Wales.

I think your probably referring to David Sarnoff.

Radio to the Rescue: David Sarnoff and the Titanic Disaster | The Sarnoff Collection

David Sarnoff - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Arun Vajpey]

Thanks! You are almost certainly right.

I confess that the name David Sarnoff did not ring a bell (I am getting to an age where I sometimes cannot hear those bells as well as I used to ) but the Wanamaker Department Store certainly did. I recall that the operator I mentioned was on the top floor of the store late at night. If you Steven - or anyone else reading this - has a copy of Wade's book to hand, could you please check and let me know? I think it is in the "Backwash Ashore" chapter of the book.

 

[Steven Christian]

I don't have that book but yes that's how the story goes. Actually I have read that the radio station was on top of the roof. Wanamaker had wireless stations on several of his stores and were some of the most powerful transmitters around. Sarnoff was there and was able to hear messages that the other stations in New York couldn't pick up. He heard the first message from Olympic 1400 miles away that sent the message that Titanic had sunk. Him and 2 other operators worked the station for 3 days continuously getting info from Cape Race, other stations and ships mainly to get survivors names and any news they could. Many say he embellished the story of what they did. But one thing is certain, they provided a lot of info when New York and the rest of world was scrambling to find out what happened. He later became one of the titans of radio, television and films. He founded RCA and RKO studios. As a movie buff yourself I'm sure your familiar with them. They made some great old movies. IMO of course. Cheers
P.S...found this article if that helps.

The Titanic and the New York Wanamaker Station (1912)

 

[Julian Atkins]

Artie Moore lived a couple of miles from me at Gelligroes Mill. The BBC article referenced contains quite a few errors unfortunately. The Wikipedia entry is much better. He didn't cycle to Caerphilly police station (some distance away) but made his way to Ynysddu (where I live) to the police station there. Pretty much all of The South Wales Valley villages and towns had a police station by then.

He didn't make a model steam locomotive but a small horizontal steam engine.

In my opinion he must have been using the Ty Llwyd farm set up above Ynysddu, as Gelligroes Mill is at the bottom of the Sirhowy Valley and even today has very poor reception. My car radio gets a very poor signal as I drive past Gelligroes Mill.

 

[Steven Christian]

Artie Moore lived a couple of miles from me at Gelligroes Mill. The BBC article referenced contains quite a few errors unfortunately. The Wikipedia entry is much better. He didn't cycle to Caerphilly police station (some distance away) but made his way to Ynysddu (where I live) to the police station there. Pretty much all of The South Wales Valley villages and towns had a police station by then.

He didn't make a model steam locomotive but a small horizontal steam engine.

In my opinion he must have been using the Ty Llwyd farm set up above Ynysddu, as Gelligroes Mill is at the bottom of the Sirhowy Valley and even today has very poor reception. My car radio gets a very poor signal as I drive past Gelligroes Mill.

Thanks for the info. I read the Wiki article on him. If it's true I guess I need to thank him when I warm up my coffee in the microwave. Cheers.

 

[Julian Atkins]

I think that all that is online about Artie Moore comes from his obituary published in the newspapers at the time in 1949. Some of that may be inaccurate. But I can vouch for the 1909 award at the Model Engineering exhibition as I’ve read the Model Engineer article on that.

I’ve a week off next week so shall endeavour to access the original 1912 newspaper accounts on all this at the Gwent Archives. If someone has access to the newspaper archives online, they might save me a search! Arthur Moore of Gelligroes Mill Monmouthshire near Pontllanfraith and Ynysddu. In a map I have of 1921, Gelligroes is spelt “Gellygroes”.

In 1912 the road from Gelligroes to Ynysddu the B4251 as now is didn’t exist. It was a very old tram road dating back to 1826. Artie would have had to have used the old road which is quite high of gradients as it runs higher up The Valley from the bottom of The Valley where Gelligroes Mill is located on the river. A one legged man on his adapted bike or on foot? I have a recollection from somewhere that he encountered the Ynysddu policeman on this old road and provided the report to this policeman of matters relating to Titanic.

I don’t understand how Artie could have received the Titanic signals as Gelligroes Mill is situated in a considerable dip in the landscape of valleys. Including in the direction of any signals from Titanic.

 

[Steven Christian]

I think that all that is online about Artie Moore comes from his obituary published in the newspapers at the time in 1949. Some of that may be inaccurate. But I can vouch for the 1909 award at the Model Engineering exhibition as I’ve read the Model Engineer article on that.

I’ve a week off next week so shall endeavour to access the original 1912 newspaper accounts on all this at the Gwent Archives. If someone has access to the newspaper archives online, they might save me a search! Arthur Moore of Gelligroes Mill Monmouthshire near Pontllanfraith and Ynysddu. In a map I have of 1921, Gelligroes is spelt “Gellygroes”.

In 1912 the road from Gelligroes to Ynysddu the B4251 as now is didn’t exist. It was a very old tram road dating back to 1826. Artie would have had to have used the old road which is quite high of gradients as it runs higher up The Valley from the bottom of The Valley where Gelligroes Mill is located on the river. A one legged man on his adapted bike or on foot? I have a recollection from somewhere that he encountered the Ynysddu policeman on this old road and provided the report to this policeman of matters relating to Titanic.

I don’t understand how Artie could have received the Titanic signals as Gelligroes Mill is situated in a considerable dip in the landscape of valleys. Including in the direction of any signals from Titanic.

I would like to hear from some of the radio guys on this board on that. I think it would be possible for him to recieve the signals if things were lined up just right. The way radio signals propagate off the ionosphere. But I could wrong about that. Not sure about the spark gap type signals. Only experience I have is on CB radio's. When skip was involved. I could here people talking from 1000 miles away. But if I moved 50 yards down the road I would lose them.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

I think it would be possible for him to receive the signals if things were lined up just right. The way radio signals propagate off the ionosphere

You could be right. I don't know much about how radio signals work but have read a well researched and AFAIK authentic story about how in 1929 Boris Begichev, a Russian signaler based in Franz Josef Land near the North Pole exchanged brief greetings with John Tenner, an American working in the Antarctic at the time. I have heard other stories about signals being received in unlikely places, probably due to freak atmospheric conditions.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Everyone does realize that when Titanic first started transmitting distress messages it was about 3:30am in the UK, and when they stopped transmitting, it was about 5am in the UK.

 

[Gordon Mooneyhan]

I think your probably referring to David Sarnoff.

Radio to the Rescue: David Sarnoff and the Titanic Disaster | The Sarnoff Collection

David Sarnoff - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are a couple of problems with "The General," as Sarnoff liked to be called. April 14, 1912, was a Sunday, and Wannamakers was closed. Sarnoff's station was low power, and there was fear that it would interfere with the more powerful stations at Cape Cod, Cape Race, and one in New Jersey. IIRC, Sarnoff was ordered to keep his station off the air until after the Carpathia docked. There is considerable evidence that Sarnoff created this story after the fact to satisfy his own ego, to make himself part of the history of that night.

 

[Julian Atkins]

Done a bit more digging online. There is an ‘Artie Moore’ Facebook thingy with a number of pics that apparently date from 1911 and the negative plates found many years later in Barry, South Wales.

Now, I have some problems or questions with these pics. One is described as Artie’s wireless shack at the Mill ie Gelligroes Mill, but his wooden shed has in the background a building that has a roof nothing like that of Gelligroes Mill either at the turn of the last century or 1911 or now. No building near Gelligroes Mill had a roof like that!

The pic of Richard Jenkins at apparently Ty Llywed farm of his ‘wireless shack’ shows someone quite a bit older than Moore - Moore was 25 in 1912. It does show quite a tall mast pretty much on top of the mountain. Which suggests this was possibly the place Moore might have heard any signals as I previously commented on. How Moore got up to Ty Llywed farm on his one good leg from the Mill a few miles away and up footpaths and tracks from the old road to very high up with a very stiff climb is beyond my comprehension!

I don’t think it plausible that Moore could have run a cable from Ty Llywed farm to Gelligroes Mill some miles away. And presumably our electric experts will have something to say about the practicalities of this and quality of signal on his set if this was at Gelligroes Mill. And such a cable would have had to been laid over the Moggeridge Estate possibly also the Penllwyn Estate.

Lots of stuff here that doesn’t add up.

Also from the 1911 Facebook pics I couldn’t see any aerial mast at all at Gelligroes Mill, and the pic of Artie Moore up a tree looks rather contrived. A man with one leg up a high ladder in a tree putting up a wireless cable for a transmitting or receiving aerial?

 

[Julian Atkins]

Here are the Facebook pics