World History

R.M.S TITANIC = MGY & OTHER RADIO ARCANA

by Edward de Groot

CQD MGY were the letters of distress flashed from Titanic late on the night of April 14, 1912. But they were not sent in that order, they were not broadcast with ease, they were barely heard by others and, in the most potentially helpful radio shack, they were not even received at all. Yet only a very small part of all those failures can be blamed on the infancy of radio.

The letters MGY were Titanic's call sign, a registration of radio operation, like the license plates on a car. It meant simply that MGY was Titanic. If over the ether in the spring of 1912, you heard the letters MGY in Morse code, it was about Titanic, from Titanic or to Titanic. Every ship in the world with radio equipment had a specific call sign and every ship today still has one. Today the call sign is prefixed with letters of the country of registration. For England this is G but in 1912, country prefixes did not exist.

CQD was the customary distress signal until the well-known SOS got popular after the Titanic tragedy . CQD was an adaptation of the general call for attention—CQ with an added D for Danger. CQ derives from the official international postal language, French, Sécurité, (safety or, as intended here, pay attention) and not, as many still believe, "seek you". Sécurité is still a call for attention in official radio communications, used either verbally or in Morse by both professionals and ham radio operators.

Although it has often been said that SOS is much easier in Morse to recognize for both radio telegraphists and hams alike, this is untrue. First of all, SOS does not really exist at all (nor does it mean “save our souls” or “save or ship”). It is not a signal of three letters, it is a signal of nine bits or peeps, three short, three long, three short. But there is no space of separation between the short and long beeps, making it a very unusual signal, seldom heard and easily missed when first transmitted. Telegraphy protocol therefore required that it always be sent at least three times in a row.

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