As far as I can see,
there is only one way that the log can end up looking the way it does. It
must have gone something like this:
Having bought O’Hare’s claim that he heard Earhart say “half hour gas
left” at 07:42, by 08:42 with no further word everybody thinks that
the plane is down in the water. Bellarts begins tuning up the tranmsitter
to call Coast Guard headquarters in San Francisco to tell them that Earhart
is down and the ship is going to go looking for her. At about 08:42 Galten
notes that he is still listening on 3105. Before he completes that line
Bellarts arrives in the radio room with orders from the captain to contact
San Francsico. Galten notes down that Bellarts is tuning up the T-16 and
logs the time at 08:44. At 08:45 he makes the first call to San Francisco
but gets no reply. He types “45-” and at that moment somebody
says something like, “Bill! Did you get that?”
Galten: “Get what?”
“Earhart! She was just back on!”
Galten: “When?”
“Couple of minutes ago!”
Galten: “What did she say? I was trying to raise
NMC.”
“I heard it clearly. She said, ‘KHAQQ to Itasca,
we are on the line 157 337. We will repeat message. Will repeat this on 6210
Kcs, wait.’ ”
Galten: “Okay, about two minutes ago? That would be 08:43. I’ll
have to change some of these times.” He juggles the times to keep
it looking chronological and makes the entry.
Somebody else: “Yeah, I heard it too. She also said something about
‘running on line north and south.’”
Galten: “That was part of that same 08:43 transmission?”
“Yeah, I can’t believe you didn’t hear it.”
Galten: “I told you, I was trying to raise San
Francisco. I’ll add in the bit about running on line but I’m going to put
a question mark on it because you don’t seem sure about exactly what she
said.”
It looks to us like none of the three radio operators heard the 08:43
transmission. The receiver that was tuned to 3105 was going out over the
speakers in the radio room and on the bridge. Galten probably missed the
08:43 transmission because he had put on his headphones to try to contact
San Francisco. O’Hare, across the radio room from Galten, totally missed
the 08:43 transmission and never does make any mention of the switch to
6210, but it was not his job to listen for Earhart and he may have been
listening for incoming administrative messages on headphones on another
frequency. Cipriani on Howland missed it because by then his batteries
were down and he was out of business.