Theory: Was "Marie" a radio contact in "N.Y."?

[Don Dollinger]

On the other hand, the seeming turn-taking later (AE calling "George," followed by FN calling "Marie") could point back to the wife theory, though it could also be interpreted as AE's message to George being interrupted by new contact with "Marie," especially considering that they seem to then switch from personal messages back to "Marie, hey!"  "Watch that battery!"  "SOS"

Had a shortwave receiver as a kid that I hooked up to a UHF TV bowtie on the roof of the house and when going through the dial would pick up various signals at different times that I would assume were radio propagation as I lived on Lake Ontario and would get bits and pieces with what little I had for an antenna from all over the great lakes.  Most was nonsensical because it would fade in and out and signal cross (hope I am using the right terms here not being a hammy) and get bit and pieces.  I had a light come on when I read in one of the posts where New York City could have been in fact Norwich City (sounds close enough).  Likewise "Marie Hey" could very well have been "May Day"  of course that would not explain all of the utterances of Marie in Betty's notebook but maybe a couple of them.

From reading from her notebook it does seems she was only picking up bits and pieces as well and may very well have only got pieces.

LTM

Don

[Bob Brandenburg]

Ken,

Reception probability depends not only on the ionospheric conditions, but also on the power radiated by the transmitting antenna in the direction of the receiver.   These issues are discussed in two research papers on the TIGHAR website: "Harmony and Power, Could Betty Have Heard Amelia Earhart on a Harmonic?", and "WE-13C Transmitter Harmonic Power Output".  The same methodology was used to compute reception probability for the other post-loss signal reports, except those proven to be hoaxes. 

Bob     

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

"Harmony and Power, Could Betty Have Heard Amelia Earhart on a Harmonic?"

"WE-13C Transmitter Harmonic Power Output."

"How do I search TIGHAR.org?"

[ken jay brookner]

Bob,

Exactly.  There are a myriad of variables...

Let me know if I can help further with callsign lookups.  I've found another source with a 1937 callbook.

kenb

[Ricker H Jones]

 Fred's 2nd wife Mary Beatrice Martinelli was sometimes called "Mary Bea" by family members.  "Mary Bea" may have sounded like "Marie" to Betty.

[Bob Brandenburg]

Outstanding, Ken.

This resolves a nagging issue in the post-loss signals analysis. 

Our primary source for the report in question was a message from the Coast Guard division commander in San Francisco, informing the Coast Guard cutter Itasca of a telephone report from a Charles McGill, W6CHI, about an Earhart signal he claimed to have heard.   

The Oakland Tribune ran a story about the event, identifying the caller as Charles Miguel, and quoted Miguel as saying he had held W6CHI until it expired in December 1936, but had applied for a new license and expected to have it soon.

We suspected -- and you have confirmed -- that "McGill" actually was "Miguel".  Apparently, whoever took the phone call at the Coast Guard office garbled the spelling.  It's plausible that Miguel told the Coast Guard that he had previously held W6CHI, by way of establishing his credibility, and the call-taker missed the past-tense.

Seemingly small details like this are crucial in developing the chain of evidence for assessing a reported signal.  As it turned out, a follow-up Coast Guard investigation of Miguel found that he had a dubious reputation and was not to be trusted.   But we still needed to verify that Miguel was W6CHI.

Many thanks.

Bob

   

[ken jay brookner]

You're welcome, Bob.  Let me know if I can do anything else to help.

kenb

[Dan Swift]

IF they had 2 way radio contact with another operator it could account for all of the apparent attempts at passing bearings onto them.

Would think that highly improbable as they couldn't hear ITASCA voice on either channel.

LTM

Don

It is possible that after a successful landing on the reef, they discovered the damaged antenna and rigged a new one.  Wouldn't be very difficult.  

[Gus Rubio]

(Not sure if this belongs here, but it's sort of on-topic.)

There's the possibility that Betty interpreted "Norwich City" as "New York City", as we know.  How widely-known was the wreck of the NC at the time of AE/FN's flight?  How would they have know the wreck was the NC?  Did the wreck have its name on it at that time?  Visible from the air, before they landed?

Also, do we know how would "Norwich" have been pronounced at the time, by AE?  "Nor-ik"?  "Nor-witch"?  "Nor-wick"?  

Just wondering.  I'm amazed at the detective work by some of the posters, finding relevant 70-year-old records is something!

EDIT- I may have found some answers myself, but please reply if you like, thanks.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Did the wreck have its name on it at that time?  

Yes, the name was on it.

Visible from the air, before they landed?

My guess is "probably not."

Also, do we know how would "Norwich" have been pronounced at the time, by AE?  "Nor-ik"?  "Nor-witch"?  "Nor-wick"?  

I don't think we know.
[/quote]

[Sheila Shigley]

In the interests of brainstorming, here is a list of Navy code words (NAVEXOS P-474) which includes a number of Mandate islands:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/NAVEXOS_P-474M.htm

Ironically, I landed on this site by accident, and in the "M" section no less.  This glossary was published at the end of WWII, but I haven't found out yet whether the list was current throughout the war, and more importantly, before.

[ken jay brookner]

I came across a good analysis of one of the lesser known radio signal propagation modes in an article i was reading this morning.  The author calls it "skewed" propagation and he goes on to explain a propagation phenomena that many hams using directional antennas have observed--me included. 

I note this here because it may explain why some of the radio direction bearing lines (direction finding the post loss transmissions) seem so far off of the mark.  It could also rule back in some reception reports of the post loss transmissions that would otherwise be ruled out by looking at normal propagation predictions.

You can read the article at this link:  http://www.worldradiomagazine.com/wro_issues/2011/WRO_01_2011.pdf

The article begins on page 38 and is titled "Our Signal's Scenic Route: Dissecting a Skewed Path," by Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA.

I wasn't sure where to post this, but since this thread already included some propagation discussion...

I expect that those doing the propagation analysis for TIGHAR are already familiar with this mode, but I wanted to mention it in case it was new information.

kenb

[Christophe Blondel]

Also, do we know how would "Norwich" have been pronounced at the time, by AE?  "Nor-ik"?  "Nor-witch"?  "Nor-wick"?

I don't think we know.

We probably won't know how "Norwich" would have been pronounced by AE at the time. But everybody can hear how she pronounced "sandwich" during the 1932 interview reproduced one minute and a few seconds after the beginning of the "American experience" documentary online at http://video.pbs.org/video/1414964998/. She even says it twice, but does she pronounce it twice identically ?

English is not my native language however, so I must let other people decide whether this sample makes it more or less likely that she could pronounce "Norwich city" in a way that could make it sound like "New York City" on radio. I would indeed greatly appreciate knowing what native English speakers think about it.

Christophe Blondel (who knows by experience that even without a noisy engine, you often have difficulties understanding what people tell you on radio)

[Mark A. Cook]

"Posted by: Dan Swift
It is possible that after a successful landing on the reef, they discovered the damaged antenna and rigged a new one.  Wouldn't be very difficult." 


I could be wrong on this but if this did happen even on  a untuned antenna could AE & FN not start atleast picking up some of the local area traffic of ship's and planes looking for them too in turn start to being able to talk back to them???

I got a copper pipe as one anteena only about 30 foot high and that talk's 3 to 4 states away.. And 2nd antenna set-up of only 2- 60 foot of  bare wire and I pick up even outside USA on it..

You got a other Ham on here I am KD8LWH out of W.V.

LTM

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I could be wrong on this but if this did happen even on  a untuned antenna could AE & FN not start at least picking up some of the local area traffic of ship's and planes looking for them to in turn start to being able to talk back to them?

The ships and planes would have been using Morse Code.  Neither AE nor FN were skilled at interpreting or transmitting code.  Their transmitter was crystal-controlled and could only transmit on three frequencies: 500, 3105, and 6210 kcs.  I'm not sure what frequencies the search personnel would have used or whether AE and FN would know what they were to tune in the receiver to listen for traffic.