[BVARC] From the Wayback Machine -- A little SOS History
Tom Watson
k5qb.tom at gmail.com
Mon Aug 19 13:49:47 CDT 2024
Very interesting!
On Mon, Aug 19, 2024, 8:08 AM Rick Hiller via BVARC <bvarc at bvarc.org> wrote:
> From *Historyfacts.com*
>
> “SOS” doesn’t actually stand for anything.
>
> After more than a century of use as a maritime distress signal, “SOS” has
> become shorthand for just about any emergency. You may have heard that it
> stands for “save our ship” or “save our souls,” but that’s actually a
> backronym, or an acronym made up after the fact. The letters in “SOS”
> didn’t initially stand for anything; they were originally chosen because
> they form a sequence of Morse code that can be transmitted more quickly
> than others.
>
> Morse code (named for Samuel Morse) is a way of transmitting phrases with
> light flashes or electrical pulses; each letter and numeral has its own
> sequence of between one and five short bursts (known as “dots” or “dits”)
> and long bursts (“dashes” or “dahs”). In 1901, inventor Guglielmo Marconi
> created a radio transmitter that could send Morse code signals across the
> Atlantic, allowing ships to communicate with other vessels and land-based
> stations. British operators were already using “CQ,” or “seeking you,” as a
> signal to alert all stations, so Marconi’s wireless company recommended
> “CQD,” or “seeking you, distress,” as an emergency signal. Meanwhile, the
> United States usually used “NC,” the Germans used “SOE,” and Italians used
> “SSSDDD.” But the problem with all of these is they required brief pauses
> between the letters.
>
> Delegates at the 1906 International Radiotelegraph Conference suggested a
> simpler, more standardized distress call. The letters “S” and “O” — three
> dots and three dashes, respectively — are extremely simple and easy to
> understand without any spaces, so “SOS” could be transmitted on a quick,
> continuous loop. Most countries officially adopted the code in 1908 and,
> even though the U.S. was not among them, an American ship was the first to
> use the signal when its propeller snapped. “CQD” remained popular with the
> British even after other countries had adopted “SOS,” and when the RMS
> Titanic sank in 1912, it signaled for help with both “SOS” and “CQD.” By
> that time, the backronym had already taken hold. During the British
> government inquiry on the Titanic disaster, Attorney General Rufus Isaacs
> was under the impression that “SOS” stood for “save our souls.”
>
> The year the U.S. phased out Morse code for maritime communications -- 1999
>
> Also, did you know? The distress signal “mayday” comes from a French word.
>
> In the 1920s, there was a lot of air traffic between England and France,
> and radio communication between pilots was spoken, not telegraphed. While
> “SOS” is very practical to transmit using Morse code, it can be easily
> garbled when said out loud — an “S” can sound like an “F” or even an “X.”
> The term “mayday,” coined in 1923, is a phonetic spelling of the French
> m'aidez, meaning “help me,” and was preferred for spoken communication.
> Although the observance of the May Day spring festival predates the
> “mayday” code by hundreds of years, it’s unrelated to the distress call.
>
> ===============
>
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