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Author Topic: The most perplexing issues  (Read 157726 times)

Kevin Weeks

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #30 on: July 31, 2013, 01:56:14 PM »

281 NORTH HOWLAND CALL KHAQQ BEYOND NORTH DONT HOLD WITH US MUCH LONGER ABOVE WATER SHUT OFF

For the fun of it.   Remember, this was sent in poorly keyed code. Add or change as little as possible to make it make sense.

LINE (short for equator) IS 281 NORTH.  HAVE or HEARD HOWLAND CALL KHAQQ.

BEYOND NORTH (?)


DONT HOLD WITH US MUCH LONGER (Very hard to construct a short grammatical English sentence containing this phrase.  I think DON'T is really WON'T)

CAN'T KEEP RADIO ABOVE WATER  MUST SHUT OFF


how deep do you want to delve into this topic?? we could go all the way to the code level??

the received message converted to code is as follows:

..--- ---.. .----   -. --- .-. - ....   .... --- .-- .-.. .- -. -..   -.-. .- .-.. .-..   -.- .... .- --.- --.-   -... . -.-- --- -. -..   -. --- .-. - ....   -.. --- -. -   .... --- .-.. -..   .-- .. - ....   ..- ...   -- ..- -.-. ....   .-.. --- -. --. . .-.   .- -... --- ...- .   .-- .- - . .-.   ... .... ..- -   --- ..-. ..-.


morse code alphabet is:




check out any similar letters to ones that are in the code and interpret however you like

should make for an interesting diversion.
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Phil T Martin

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #31 on: July 31, 2013, 02:01:37 PM »

Ric, after reading your take on the 281 message, it just struck me that maybe the BEYOND NORTH phrase was actually "beyond Norwich City". I'm probably not the first person to think that, but don't recall seeing that notion before...

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JNev

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #32 on: July 31, 2013, 02:30:14 PM »

Fascinating exercise, good cases for possibilities.  Ric's point on use of grammatical construction for sanity check makes sense.  For fun of course - we'll never know, but one huge 'clue' to me is 'poorly keyed' which would fit AE and FN's reputation for radio use - neither was proficient at key. 

I'm not certain of the import of 'behind carrier' as said in the wiki, but is a carrier wave normally associated with key transmissions?  Isn't a carrier wave a product of keying a voice mic to produce the Morse Code?
- Jeff Neville

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Bob Harmon

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #33 on: July 31, 2013, 03:10:03 PM »

  Isn't a carrier wave a product of keying a voice mic to produce the Morse Code?
A carrier wave is produced two ways. One is by depressing a Morse code key. A nice, steady carrier wave is produced for as long as the key is held down. You're basically just turning the transmitter on and producing a radio carrier wave that is not modulated in any way. As soon as you release the code key, the transmitter stops transmitting a carrier wave. The second way to produce a carrier wave is to squeeze the mic button as you mention. It does the same thing. It produces a radio carrier wave. If you talk into it while you squeeze the mic button, you are now producing a modulated radio carrier wave.

Bob
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John Balderston

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #34 on: July 31, 2013, 03:33:54 PM »

Updated with apology to Phil T Norman - I read Ric's note, and made a reply without reading what came after :P  I appreciate your "Beyond North" thought Phil!

Ric, after reading your take on the 281 message, it just struck me that maybe the BEYOND NORTH phrase was actually "beyond Norwich City". I'm probably not the first person to think that, but don't recall seeing that notion before...

For the fun of it:

Poorly keyed signal, plus Radio Wailupe's reception was fading in and out.  "Beyond North" = [landed on reef] BEYOND NOR[wich city]
John Balderston TIGHAR #3451R
 
« Last Edit: August 02, 2013, 03:16:25 PM by John Balderston »
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #35 on: July 31, 2013, 06:36:00 PM »

And then one can wonder - why would they key like that at all anyway? 

Keying carries a lot further than voice, but they couldn't "key" because they didn't have a key.  The only way to send Morse was by depressing and releasing the push-to-talk button on the the mic.  Very awkward. 
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Stacy Galloway

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #36 on: July 31, 2013, 07:38:39 PM »

281 NORTH HOWLAND CALL KHAQQ BEYOND NORTH DONT HOLD WITH US MUCH LONGER ABOVE WATER SHUT OFF

For the fun of it.   Remember, this was sent in poorly keyed code. Add or change as little as possible to make it make sense.

LINE (short for equator) IS 281 NORTH.  HAVE or HEARD HOWLAND CALL KHAQQ.

BEYOND NORTH (?)


DONT HOLD WITH US MUCH LONGER (Very hard to construct a short grammatical English sentence containing this phrase.  I think DON'T is really WON'T)

CAN'T KEEP RADIO ABOVE WATER  MUST SHUT OFF


how deep do you want to delve into this topic?? we could go all the way to the code level??

the received message converted to code is as follows:

..--- ---.. .----   -. --- .-. - ....   .... --- .-- .-.. .- -. -..   -.-. .- .-.. .-..   -.- .... .- --.- --.-   -... . -.-- --- -. -..   -. --- .-. - ....   -.. --- -. -   .... --- .-.. -..   .-- .. - ....   ..- ...   -- ..- -.-. ....   .-.. --- -. --. . .-.   .- -... --- ...- .   .-- .- - . .-.   ... .... ..- -   --- ..-. ..-.


morse code alphabet is:




check out any similar letters to ones that are in the code and interpret however you like

should make for an interesting diversion.

This has been a very interesting diversion!
I had actually done some exercises with the Morse Code to see if I could shake anything out of the "281" message... The first question I ran into was: Were they using the American or International version of Morse Code? I decided that although the American version was still being widely used in the US at that time, AE and FN would have probably used the International version- which was being used by the US Navy, maritime vessels, and most European countries. Without having seen the actual Morse Code chart available in the plane, we actually have no way of knowing.

However, since their Morse Code message was received and some coherent words were coaxed out of it, I assumed everyone involved was using the same Morse Code version.

The other assumption I made was that SOME of the received words were correct. Words like "Howland and/or KHAQQ". I then ran all the Morse together, without spaces between the 'words', to see what else would come out of it.

I haven't gotten anything really coherent, yet, and I don't want to start switching the 'dashes' and 'dots' around- although I believe some 'dots' and 'dashes' were misinterpreted during the original transmission.

I also Morse coded some words I thought AE and FN might try to send out in code:

. .- .-. .... .- .-. -  earhart

-. --- --- -. .- -.     noonan

--. .- .-. -.. -. . .-.   gardner

-. --- .-. .-- .. -.-. .... / -.-. .. - -.-- norwich city

-. .-. .---- -.... ----- ..--- -----  nr16020

It has been interesting to try to interpret what AE and FN, as amateur Morse Coders, would have been trying to send versus what the professional Morse Coders translated :)

LTM~ Who's accidentally learned Morse Code,
Stacy
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Stacy Galloway

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #37 on: July 31, 2013, 08:35:04 PM »

 ..--- ---.. .----   -. --- .-. - ....   .... --- .-- . - .. .- -. -..  -.-..- . -.. .- . .  /-.- (K) ....(H) .- (A)--.- (Q) --.-  (Q)/  -.  ..
 . - . -- --- -. -..  -. --- .-. - ....   -.. --- -. -    .... --- .-.  . -.. .--  . . - . . ..  ..- ...-- /. (E).-(A) -.- (R). ... (H). (E) .-.(R) . (E) - (T)/-- - . - -. . .-.  .- -   ... --- ...  - .   .-- .- - . .-.  ... .... ..- -   --    - ..   -.  . .-. 

Here's a little bit of what I've experimented with... This is one of many starts and stops I've had with the mysterious '281' message... The 'E' that follows the 'H' needs to be '.-' and it would become an 'A'. I've hesitated to start switching dashes and dots around, though. (I've added the '/' to separate the words)

As Ric has mentioned, without the original logs we'll never know what really was received back in those early days, but it's been a fascinating riddle...

LTM~ Who loves those cryptograms,
Stacy
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« Last Edit: July 31, 2013, 08:39:09 PM by Stacy Galloway »
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Christophe Blondel

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #38 on: August 01, 2013, 02:31:10 AM »

Stacy,

what do you think of my 2011 suggestion (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,279.0.html) that "281 N" was only a mistranscription of "NOONAN" ? The idea is that "OO" is a pair of 3 dashes, very likely to shift the listener's ear to understanding numbers, for so long series of dashes will only be found inside numbers, except for the "OO" case. "28", by the way, is the only pair of numbers that produces adjacent 3-dash series. "1" will then follow as a misreading of "A", if the dash was made too long and/or fragmented, due to the awkwardness of the operator.

I would of course not bet too much on the idea. This is just to insist on the idea that wondering what "281 N" meant may be nonsense, given the probability that no "281 N" was actually sent.

Yet, if I remember properly, Itasca rushed to this supposed position when the message was repeated to them ... Another mystery is why this "poorly keyed" position was considered so reliable by professional operators.

Christophe Blondel
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Christine Schulte

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #39 on: August 01, 2013, 04:46:23 AM »

Christophe,

I remember reading this in 2011 and finding it a very interesting suggestion. (I actually printed out a Morse code to be able to follow what was said. My son got hold of it and had the idea to use Morse code to "broadcast" correct spellings to his then-best friend, who was a very bad speller, in class. They were very enthusiasic about it for some time and later experimented with Braille, too, because they felt the "tap-tap-tap" was distracting  ;)).
I also experimented around with the message for a while, but felt I got nowhere, and it was much too speculative for my taste. However, I've also wondered if the misspelled part of the message was in fact "281 N". This is a piece of precise information in a message that is otherwise totally garbled and obviously incomplete, and that seemed suspicious :).

I think the message and its interpretation make it very clear that people are heavily influenced by assumptions about what they believe to be true in interpreting anything ambiguous:
The Pro-Nikumaroro interpretation is based on the assumption that the "281 N" part was rendered correctly because that's the only part that makes sense in terms of the hypothesis. (By the way, it just doesn't make sense to me that someone who is to the south of the equator and wants to get that fact across would say "Line is 281 North". Why not say "we're 281 miles south of the equator?" when that's where you know you are? But then I'm neither a native English speaker nor a navigator and the phrasing might make perfect sense to someone who is.)

I, too, find it interesting that Captain Thompson, while he doesn't seem to have been interested in the radio bearings taken by Pan Am, and in any messages received by voice, etc., was immediately prepared to take a message sent in Morse code, which was propably his main means of communication at sea, seriously.The bearing taken by Cipriani is ambiguous - it seems to have pointed to the plane being NNW or SSE - but he developed a total fixation on N(orth) because there's land to the south and he believed, for whichever reason, that the plane was down at sea.

Christine Schulte
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Kevin Weeks

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #40 on: August 01, 2013, 06:39:06 AM »

as interesting and fun bit of cryptography as this could be, without the actual logs from the receiving station it is completely bunk. without knowing what was actually received we have to go on what the operator thought was received. code sent poorly without clear context could easily be misconstrued. standard letter coding is done by using a quick succession of dots and dashes with a space or slight pause then continue on.

We need more references to know how reliable the data was.
was the message sent more than once, the same way
was it modified by the operator before being forwarded
were the encoded letters properly spaced (probably not as they say poorly coded)


if you absolutely want to drive yourself bonkers, take the morse code I gave above insert it into the link below. it is a cryptography site that will decipher all possible letter combinations of code without spaces. it will only process 12 unspaced characters at a time because of the sheer volume of combos produced.

http://altamatic.com/crypt
« Last Edit: August 01, 2013, 06:46:56 AM by Kevin Weeks »
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Monty Fowler

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #41 on: August 01, 2013, 01:32:58 PM »

without the actual logs from the receiving station it is completely bunk

Brings to mind the STENDEC/Star Dust mystery.

LTM, who remembers what SOS is in Morse code,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
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Matt Revington

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #42 on: August 01, 2013, 02:36:34 PM »

without the actual logs from the receiving station it is completely bunk

Brings to mind the STENDEC/Star Dust mystery.

LTM, who remembers what SOS is in Morse code,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

for those who don't get the reference this has been discussed here

http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1188.0.html
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Kevin Weeks

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #43 on: August 01, 2013, 02:52:37 PM »

without the actual logs from the receiving station it is completely bunk

Brings to mind the STENDEC/Star Dust mystery.

LTM, who remembers what SOS is in Morse code,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

or the exact opposite of it!

my guess there is possibly due to some sort of oxygen deprivation. they were flying at 24k feet in a non pressurized cabin... they had just radioed they were 4 minutes out and sent in stendec.... decent..s  possibly some sort of acronym meant to relay they were starting their decent, but confused do to lack of oxygen?? this btw was right before they ran into a mountain...
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Monty Fowler

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Re: The most perplexing issues
« Reply #44 on: August 01, 2013, 04:38:28 PM »

On the flip side, at least the Star Dust and some of its occupants have been found, God rest their souls. We've still got a bit of work to do before Amelia and Fred can have the same satisfaction.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
Ex-TIGHAR member No. 2189 E C R SP, 1998-2016
 
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