• 1415GMT: Earhart voice heard, but cannot make out information.
• 1515GMT: Earhart states that she will listen on hour and half hour on 3105 kHz.
• 1623GMT: Earhart states "Partly Cloudy"
• 1744GMT: Earhart wants a bearing on 3105 kHz on the hour, will whistle in microphone, about 200 miles out approximately, now whistling.
• 1811GMT: Earhart requests: "Please take bearing on us and report in half hour. I will make noise in mic -- about 100 miles out."
• 1912GMT: KHAQQ calling Itasca we must be on you but cannot see you but gas is running low been unable to reach you by radio we are flying at 1000 feet". Another radioman states "Earhart on now says running out of gas only 1/2 hour left can't hear us at all."
• 1928GMT: "KHAQQ calling Itasca we are circling [?] but cannot hear you go ahead on 7500 with a long count either now or on the schedule time on 1/2 hour"
• 1930GMT: "KHAQQ calling Itasca we received your signals but unable to get a minimum. Please take bearing on us and answer 3105 with voice." Another radioman reports this message as: "Amelia on again at 0800 [local time] says hears us on 7.5 megs go ahead on 7500 again."

The three radio transcripts were maintained by the Itasca radiomen, headed by Radioman First Class Leo G. Bellarts, assisted by Radiomen Third Class Gilbert E. Thompson, Thomas J. O’Hare, and William L. Galten, and Radioman Second Class Frank Cipriani, who was on loan from the USCGV Taney for this specific cruise. Bellarts assigned responsibility for radio duties as follows: Bellarts to handle all plane communications and logging of information, interface with Commander and Officer of the Deck. Cipriani to man the high frequency direction finder ashore, use transmitter to communicate with the ship, keep a log of frequencies and bearings obtained from the plane; O’Hare to handle normal point-to-point communications with Navy and CG radio stations; Galten to handle ship’s direction finder and to listen to 500 kHz when plane is within 1000 miles of the Itasca, and Thompson to act as relief operator. In reality, these responsibilities were scrambled during the last few hours of the flight. According to the radio transcript logs, here are the watch standing hours for Station 1 (point-to-point, referred to as Itasca1), Station 2 (communications with plane, referred to as Bellarts for raw log and Itasca2 as smooth log), and Howland Island, beginning just before 0000GMT, July 2.

This concludes the third flight segment chronology. To summarize, Earhart is getting closer to Howland, eventually arriving at what she thinks is the approximate location, but due to a lack of two-way communication, cannot get a bearing on Itasca nor can she get the Itasca to get a bearing on her and transmit that information back. The Itasca radiomen have abandoned all resemblance of a radio schedule, as does Earhart, to a lesser degree. Earhart’s message content does not indicate she is frantic yet, but indicates a growing concern that she cannot hear the Itasca.

Let us review for a moment the intended radio schedules. Earhart states that she will broadcast at quarter past the hour, using GMT time zone. She broadcast at times 1415, 1515, 1623, 1744, 1822, 1912, 1928, and 1930GMT. Only three broadcasts were out of schedule: 1744, 1928 and 1930GMT, with the last two as an attempt by Earhart to get Itasca’s attention prior to their scheduled broadcast. The 1744GMT message requested a bearing on her at approximately 200 miles range. Curiously, what is missing is a 1715GMT transmission. Both Itasca1 and Bellarts indicate both radio stations are listening on 3105 kHz, and that no transmissions from the Itasca were being made. This suggests that at 1715GMT, Earhart may have been at a distance without a bounce path off the ionosphere for radio transmission at 3105 kHz, presuming that she did transmit.

The radio schedule for Itasca was for them to transmit letter A, call sign, position on 7500 kHz on the hour and half hour, and to provide voice on 3105 kHz either upon request or when Earhart is within range. By 1415GMT, Itasca has begun to send weather information on 3105 kHz, in addition to letter As on 7500 kHz. According to the records, the times of transmission varied from 2 minutes before to 6 minutes after the hour, sometime continuously, sometimes not during the early hours. By 1800GMT, Itasca begins transmitting either on 7500 and/or 3105 kHz nearly continuously, sometimes interfering with its own ability to listen on 3105 kHz. Further, the radiomen are using more and more Morse code on 3105 kHz, in the (correct) belief that reception should improve at the airplane using code vs. voice. Apparently, they believe Earhart can interpret Morse Code at the nominal 10 words per minute rate previously provided to the Shoshone during the March flight. We do know that Capt. Manning was quite proficient in Morse Code, and that Earhart and Noonan were not proficient.

The Itasca radiomen are also beginning to become confused as to time zones. Our interpretation is that they have forgotten or ignored Earhart's request to maintain GMT time zones, and are instead using the half-hour time zone, a remnant from their base in Honolulu, which is on +10.5 time zone.

A couple of odd discrepancies appear from the content of Earhart’s messages. First, at 1744GMT, Earhart reports that she is approximately 200 miles out from Howland, and at 1811GMT, reports that she is only 100 miles out from Howland. The time interval of 27 minutes to fly 100 nautical or statue miles seems unreasonable. Many previous Earhart researchers have speculated that she had extremely powerful engines installed beyond her Pratt & Whitney R1340 power plants. It is more likely that the positions provided did not correspond exactly to the times of the information provided, but were positions sometime in the recent past. This concurs with our analysis of the Oakland to Honolulu leg, and will be discussed later on. Also, between the two time periods, it is probable that Earhart experienced the sunrise, whereby Fred Noonan could obtain a sun-line and correct his longitude estimates accordingly, accounting for the possible discrepancy of distance.

Another odd discrepancy is the report at 1912GMT that Earhart had only a half hour of gas left. Only one radio operator stated this; the other stated that gas was running low. We doubt the literal interpretation of only 30 minutes of gas remaining, as Earhart is still on the air at 2013GMT, nearly one hour later. It is more likely that she is referring to the fact that gas is running low relative to her reserve fuel. Lt. Cooper stated that a reserve of 20% is usually required. Earhart stated in Last Flight that during her trip from Oakland to Honolulu, “...we arrived in Hawaii with more than four hours’ supply of gasoline remaining, which would have given us over 600 miles of additional flying, a satisfactory safety margin.” Based upon Kelly Johnson’s fuel consumption figures applied to Earhart’s fuel load of 1100 gallons, the plane would have a nominal endurance of 24 hours, 9 minutes. Given a reserve capacity of 152 gallons, at 38 gallons/hour consumption rate, or four hours of reserve time, or 20 hours, 9 minutes of non-reserve flight time. Thus, at 1912GMT, Earhart would begin to become concerned about using her reserve fuel. Interestingly, Thompson states that “The Army Air Corps report computes her reserve gasoline as 7% or about 160 miles (one hour) flying.”² While this figure is inaccurate and misleading, if Thompson believed it at the time, then it is another reason for him to leave Howland long before the 24 hours of total flight time endurance for Earhart.

Weather: During this segment of the flight, weather information is more timely and plentiful, albeit from a restricted area: around Howland and Baker Islands, and to a limited degree around the USS Swan. Since the Swan was located between Howland and Honolulu, she was actually above the meteorological equator, so that wind direction and speed has no bearing on winds below the equator, due to the Coriolus Force acting at the Earth's surface. However, her sea state condition can be used as an indication of storms at sea from any direction, as can the Itasca’s measurements. The primary source of weather information remains the Itasca bridge logs, the weather reports sent by the Itasca radiomen to Earhart while she was approaching Howland. Any the early morning wind measurements aloft made at Howland no longer survive or were not made. According to the Itasca bridge logs, winds were consistently out of the east from 1330 to 2030GMT, mostly at force 2, except from 1830 to 1930GMT, when the winds were force 1. Using the USCG Beaufort scale for bridge entries, force 1 winds are 7 knots or less, and force 2 winds are 11.3 knots. During this period of time, visibility ranged from somewhat less than 20 miles to unlimited visibility, and cloud cover ranged from 20 to 40%. Seas were calm and slight, with a moderate swell from the ENE, indicating a fairly distant storm or consistent winds in that direction. The Swan was experiencing swell from the NE, sea conditions ranging from moderate to heavy swell, indicating that the Swan was in closer proximity to a storm than Itasca.

Bellarts saved the weather broadcasts he sent to Earhart, and for the time following 1400GMT, here is the information the Itasca sent to Earhart:

At 1950GMT, Fleet Air Base, Pearl Harbor a weather forecast was sent to the Itasca and Earhart, but it consisted entirely of information regarding the weather around Hawaii.³

In summary, the weather for Earhart's approach to Howland indicates good visibility, winds aloft probably about 10 knots from the east, well below the 20 knots forecast the previous day by the Fleet Air Base. The actual conditions surrounding Howland were described by Commander Thompson of the Itasca some days after as unlimited visibility, with a cloud bank to the NW quadrant, possibly 30 to 40 miles away.