Am I the only one who jumped to the conclusion that one possible reason for AE to tell Itasca that she was flying North and South on the (157/337) line was to help them DF her position? Her technique may have been lacking, but knowing the direction a target is moving helps establish its location to a DF station.
Yes, I think that this is a novel idea.
She obviously didn't understand that Itasca could not get a DF bearing on her frequency.
Yes. That is one of the fundamental links in the accident chain. Earhart seemed to have no grasp of the concept that
both her DF equipment and that of the Itasa had frequency limitations. The request to have the
Itasca transmit the letter "A" on 7500 kcs makes no earthly sense to me. So far as I know, we don't know where she got the idea that her equipment could get a bearing on that frequency. She may have gotten some bad advice along the way.
Too bad she didn't establish two-way communications when she had the opportunity. She coulda asked questions on 3105 (am I getting louder?), and received answers on 7500 (_._ _ or _.).
I agree completely. Why they didn't latch on to that lifeline and play twenty questions is, for me, one of the greatest missed opportunities that they had. They knew a little Morse Code, just not enough to keep up with the requirements for getting the proper licenses and using it to decode transmissions in flight. All they needed was to ask the Itasca to send some easily identifiable letter for "Yes" and some other letter for "No."
Of course, then they would have to ask the right questions and figure out what to do about them. That's not a trivial problem. The
Itasca probably would have asked them to transmit on a frequency within the range of the
Itasca's equipment:
On 2040GMT, June 28,
Itasca sent this message to Earhart
Itasca transmitters calibrated 7500, 6210, 3105, 500 and 425 kHz CW and last three either CW or MCW.
Itasca direction finder range 550 to 270 kHz. Request we be advised as to time of departure and zone time to be used on radio schedules.
A transmission on 500 kHz would be ideal for the Itasca's
declared DF range. But Earhart had removed the trailing antenna intended for use on 500 kHz. When she asked Itasca
to take a bearing on her, she was transmitting on 3105 kHz--and the Itasca
attempted but failed to get a bearing from her transmission. The Itasca
’s direction finder was designed to work only with lower frequencies (270 kHz to 550 kHz). All she and Fred needed was a time machine and web link to TIGHAR for answers to their navigation questions.
When we perfect our time machine, we can send them the information that they need.