So, what Brandenburg’s tide reconstruction suggests to me is that, at the least, some of the narrative that has taken root from reading Betty’s notes and from her later recollections is inconsistent with conditions at the Electra at the time Betty was listening to her radio. A few possibilities for how to explain this discrepancy have already posted here.
A few scattered thoughts, which are the only ones I seem to have these days...One other possibility not mentioned yet is that the date of Betty's receptions may not have been July 5th. Bob Brandenburg stated in his
paper, "Betty heard signals from 4:30 PM to 6:15 PM local time, but did not recall the date on which she heard the signals. So,
computer simulation runs were conducted for the time period of interest on each day from July 2nd through July 9th, 1937." Looking at the numbers I can see how one might make an educated guess as to which date she had the best chance of hearing at the clock times she stated. The 5th is reasonable, but that guess wouldn't rule out some other dates as well. The signal catalog says "signal propagation and other factors" determined the July 5th date, but I'm unable to determine beyond the links I've cited what those factors were. Did Betty say she was home from school, thus ruling out the holiday of July 4th?
Your thesis, if I understand correctly, is an interesting one. You posit the water level was too low during the time Betty is supposed to have been listening (the 5th) to have caused the effects of "knee deep" water. I might only suggest the inconsistency may cast more doubt on the growing certainty expressed in this thread (but not by TIGHAR so far as I can tell) in the date of Betty's reception than in the "narrative that has taken root" from Betty's transcription.
Side note, and probably inexcusable thread drift, but I'll venture it:
My own research into Betty's notebook led me to look for any radio messages in which there might be a word to word correspondence with the snippets Betty heard and what others were reporting. Howard Coons'
account said he heard a woman say "Still alive. Better
hurry. Tell husband
all right." Page 4 of
Betty's notebook begins with the word "hurry" and ends with the words "Will you please [static] all right!" A few words tally; maybe a statistician could tell me how likely that is. The interesting part is if you sum Coons and Earhart, you can compose a credible complete sentence that in context makes perfect sense because it is something people in emergencies are often known to say:
Both heard: "Hurry."
Betty heard: "Will you please"
Coons heard "tell [my] husband [I'm]"
Both heard: "all right!"
Coons said he heard what he heard 1:16 am California time, on July 5th. That's 4:16 am where Betty was in Florida, so the time correspondence is not so great.
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078 ECR