The Washington herald., 1909-01-24
WIRELESS FLASHES MESSAGE
OminOuS &C. @. d." Heard by Operator Over the
Waves from Disabled Ship.

New York. Jan IA man sat IN his
shirt sleeves in a little room crowded
with wire coils and cboked with the bulk
Of dusty battery cases IN a little shack
down on a sand spit that points out in
the Atlantic Ocean beyond the village Of
Siasconset. on the south shore OF Nan
tucket Island He fingered q key and the
flashes OF blue light that jumped from
the hammock % wires high over his head
outside streaked the blackness OF the
window-pane This mana. II. Gilman
IS his name-was talking with the ships
out somewhere beyond where the waves
piled up on the sand pit That was his
business.
Suddenly there came break in the
measured cadence Of his tap-tspping on
the key Through the thin rubber disk OF
the telephone receiver harness ne had
ciamped around his head and over his
ears there sounded an iaterrupting chat
ter Il was this: ''Ta-a tat ta-a tat tat
tat ta-a tat ta-a tat tat"
That mean simply these three letters:
C. Q. D. On the continental Morse
code used by ships and Marconi stations
these three letters means what the col
Iision signal means on a battle ship.
Those three letters are absolutely i'm
perative.
Quickly Flashes Message
When this operator caught the sense Of
those three letters indistinctly he reached
for his key and sent rushing through the
dawn for go miles on every side OF him,
landward and seaward- message that
Travelled at the rate OF $4,000 miles
second The message read:
C O p. Here 5. c Dot G."
According to the code, these dots and
dashes that were being recorded on rub
Der diskc somewhere out beyond the surf
line and back in the navy yard az
Charlestown were interpreted 70 read;
Distress signal received at SiascOnset
wireless station. Go ahead
Then in a minute came another message
to the operator at Siasconset. It was:
we are struck by an unknown boat
engine room fIled-passengers all safe
can stay afioat-latitude 4l17. longitude
20. Republic
Must Send out Call.
Mechanically the operator took down
the message that tapped into his ear. As
soon as he had put down the final word
he reached for his key again The hard
and fast regulations OF the Marconf Wire
less Telegraph Company OF America read
that whenever an operator shall receive
the c. Q. D. signal Of q ship in distress
he shall Immediately. upon ascertaining
her locality. and the extent Of her dam
age. send out 10 every ship and station
that may be in the zone Of 200 miles
radius about his station word of her dis
tress. even though ships may have caught
themselves the original message that had
passed from the crippled ship to the
shore
So G!nman prefaced his message with
the c. Q. d. OF alarm, then carefully
repeated the message that had come 10
him from the Republic. That done he
sat back and waited
This all occurred in less time than II /
takes to read these paragraphs. From
out OF the dark at 4.10 o'clock in the
morning had come the distress signal
of the White Star liner Republic. Mediier-
ranean-bound and twenty-six miles south
Of Nantucket Hghtship. Only the time
occupied by the swift movements Of the /
operators finger at Siasconset station !
hindered the electric message on It's
fight from ship to shore. and from shore
away out again TO ali the spots on the /
moving ocean where rows OF lights |
marked ship equipped. with wireless.
ship Filling with Water.
There was ship al sea that was filing
with water Aboard her an operator
named Binns had sat and tapped a key
at the dictation of the captain. The
wires between the two masts had sput- /
tered and hummed- over forty niles
away. Gilman. the operator at Siascon-
set, on tbs sand spit, had heard, and with /
the greater force Of the batteries slowed |
away in his shack he had hurled the /
message from the cr.opied vessel out to 1
be caught by chance rescuers-
The operator at Siasconset did not have /
long to wait before messages from the 1
shoreward side and ships began to drum /
into his ears. First came messages from
Navy Yard. Newport. Bos-
ton, Vineyard Haven, and Woods Hole. I
all Of which stations caught the alarm 1
sent out from Siasconset- Woods Hole /
said that the revenue cutter Acushnet