The message was characterized as being sent in “extremely poor” Morse code. This would indicate to me that not only was it sent slowly but also was poorly spaced. In correctly spaced Morse code the dot (dit) is the unit of measure without regard to the speed being sent. A dash (dah) is equal in length to three dots. Additionally the internal spacing between elements within the character being sent is equal to one dot. For example to send the letter “a” (.-) you would in essence be sending “dit (space) dah”, and “b” (-…) would be “dah (space) dit (space) dit (space) dit”. The correct spacing between characters (letters) is equal to three dots and the correct spacing between words is equal to seven dots. If your spacing is incorrect what you intended to send and what was actually received could be vastly different. For example if you intended to send the word “and” (.- -. -..) what could be received could conceivably be “pti” (.--. - ..), or any number of other combinations, if your spacing was not correct.
Now put yourself now in the cockpit of Earhart’s Electra. You had been in the air for twenty-plus hours and have not had two-way contact with anyone since you left Lae, in fact you have not heard anyone other than a Morse code signal from the Itasca on 7500 kcs some two and a half days ago. You have finally found a dry spot amongst all that water and managed to get your aircraft somewhat safely down onto that dry spot. Both you and your navigator are injured, you’re in trouble and you know it, you’re scared, and you need to try something, anything, to get some help. Voice communications hasn’t been effective so you decide to try Morse code. You don’t have a key (they had both been removed to save weight) but you could key and un-key your microphone to send your message. What would you send? Supposedly Noonan knew they were 281 miles north of the equator on some island that wasn’t on the chart you had. You would want to identify yourself, your position and your condition as simply and clearly as possible. So you send “CALL KHAQQ TWO EIGHT ONE MILES NORTH EQUATOR BEYOND HOWLAND CANT HOLD MUCH LONGER AND STAY ABOVE WATER NEED TO SHUT OFF” and repeat it again and again and again. What was received at Wailupe Naval Station during an hours’ time was “TWO EIGHT ONE (not 281) NORTH HOWLAND CALL KHAQQ DON’T HOLD WITH US MUCH LONGER ABOVE WATER SHUT OFF”
Wailupe was not staffed by your ordinary Navy radio operators; it was staffed by specially trained intercept radio operators. They would have been trained to write down exactly what they heard. They would have not added words or letters. I would love to get a peek at their copy sheet. This was certainly the biggest story of the time; did one of these operators keep a copy to show to their parents, girlfriend or kids? I probably would have. According to these specially trained operators the message was not 281… but rather TWO EIGHT ONE. That, in my opinion, reinforces the validity of the message. It has been established that neither Ms. Earhart nor Mr. Noonan were proficient with Morse code and it is certainly reasonable to assume that neither of them knew how to send numbers in Morse code.
I have been an Amateur Radio Operator for more than 35 years operating CW almost exclusively and have spent many hours in the Novice portion of the Amateur HF bands, when Morse code (CW) was still a requirement to earn your Amateur Radio license, giving contacts and encouragement to new CW operators. It was both a challenging and rewarding experience. There was a common tendency for new operators to run their characters together, both at the beginning and at the end of words. Proficient operators normally do not copy code letter by letter but rather by words at a time. It is immeasurably easier to copy well-spaced CW at 30 words per minute than it is to copy “extremely poor” CW sent at 5 words per minute.
The biggest mistake of this ill-fated flight, in my opinion, was replacing Captain Harry Manning with Fred Noonan.