[wideminded]

I have often heard that one problem that was highlighted by the Titanic sinking was that radio transmission in those days did not really involve defined frequencies, so there was a lot of interference and confusion among different transmitters.

I was thinking that an IEEE Spectrum article might get into the details of this, but this one doesn't.

[TexasRepublic]

“I have often heard that one problem that was highlighted by the Titanic sinking was that radio transmission in those days did not really involve defined frequencies, so there was a lot of interference and confusion among different transmitters.”

The problem was that “damped wave” spark transmitters broadcast across a wide band of frequencies, with only limited tuning ability. The result was like talking and listening to many people across a crowded room. Very chaotic. More selective broadcast tuning was impossible until the invention of controlled-oscillation vacuum tube transmitters a few years later.