Degrees and minutes are used in navigation for very good reasons, maybe you didn't get the memo.
Yes, I am aware of it's purpose but I see no point in belaboring whether someone posts here in decimal degrees or degrees minutes seconds on an Internet forum. We were discussing Balfour's conversion, not anything I was posting.
By the way, you never addressed the issue of Balfour using decimal degrees. It is difficult to know why he did, perhaps it was more intuitive to him. If it was so unusual, why was this not pointed out by Chater or Collopy when they sat around discussing the events? They were the ones that created the reports. If it were that outlandish to use this decimal form, why would they themselves have passed along the information in the same form? You also mentioned that decimal degrees weren't in use until 40 years after the flight. Do you have any evidence to support that theory? This defies the evidence that Chater published these coordinates in decimal form.
Absolutely, unless you can show strong justification for doing so as I have done, e.g. Balfour's non-standard use of the "point;"
It is only a non-standard use of the "point" if you believe your theory, otherwise it is is just as it appears at face value, a decimal degree form. You did not address the dropped six being a much more accurate approximation compare to the .minute theory that you proposed.
As far as the mistakes in the telegram go, is the image you posted of the telegram at the receiving station? Who actually typed the telegram on to paper? That is the person you need to look at for errors. The dropped 6, the extra zero on altitude, the extra zero on barometer, let alone the attempts to correct the typing mistakes.
The decimal degree on the second reported position is only about 3.5 miles off the original flight line just passed Nukumanu Island. This is just another coincidence? They surely would have seen the island and FN probably determined the headwinds on that reference which is why this was stated in the report (23 knots). FN would have had at least 12 minutes to perform the calculation before AE announced it. Your reference point is before the island suggesting that they were passing along old head wind calculations from the last time they were over land.
As far as the modified coordinate theory goes, we are also not just talking about the .minute notation, this is transforming 150 degrees to 157 degrees. This is the basic point. If you are willing to make such a change, what is to say the time stamps were not wrong?
They were already fighting a headwind and I cannot believe they were caviler about using fuel excessively or wastefully. If they did not care about being on the flight line, why head back to it at all? The seem to head back to it aggressively and wastefully if we use your 157 longitude.
We have no evidence that the storm was 687 SM is size. It does make a lot of sense that the storms were being reported 250 to 300 miles out of Lae. Once they saw the worst of it and found a path around it they headed back to the flight line. Bouganville Island was closer so the use of a more southerly island does not make sense for land references. The alternative theory also has them flying on a much more Easterly course, flying right in to the storms outside of Lae.
I remain unconvinced that the coordinates given were incorrect. The time stamps being incorrect are just as likely.