One important thing to keep in mind is that wireless (believe it or not) was used mainly as an entertainment device aboard passenger ships with passengers being able to send and receive greetings while at sea. As a result, it was not used as an emergency device until that fateful night. The wireless operator aboard the Californian had gone to sleep by the time that the Titanic began sending emergency calls and it was a blessing that the Carpathia’s was still up at that time to hear them and tell Captain Rostrom about the situation.
Had the Californian’s been awake to hear the signals, that ship likely would have arrived even before the Titanic went down and saved most if not all lives lost that tragic night and Captain Stanley Lord would have been the real hero. Wireless service thus was required to be on 24/7 aboard all ships going forward from that event.
What gets me is that the Californian was just 5 miles away and could see the Titanic’s distress rockets being launched.
And if the Titanic had come to stop like the California and the Carpathia had because of visibility, and not steamed on by it also wouldn't of sunk.
1. The captain was steaming Titanic at a way excessive speed at night, in a known iceberg zone and in heavy fog. What a maroon. If a rescue ship had arrived sooner and thus most passengers rescued, the Captain would have been thoroughly disgraced and punished. Going down with the ship was too little for what he deserved.
2. The frequencies that long distance wireless operates at are affected by ionosphere influences having to do with ionization caused by solar wind. The auroras in far northern and southern latitudes are visual representations of this. For long distance radio transmissions, operators chose frequency bands that favor short, medium or long distance to take advantage of the bounce characteristics that will enable their point A to B target. It’s not an exact science. Even fixed land based wireless stations (ex. US Coast Guard, FAA) have several designated frequencies they constantly monitor to assure that they can be reached. Heck, back when we had a CB base station at the lake, I’d mess with it late night and could often faintly receive conversations a few hundred miles away but could not receive consistent signals from truckers on the highway 5 miles away mostly over water. This crazy bounce effect was well known by wireless operators of the day and today.
3. Now, the possible compass effects of the super charged ionosphere breathlessly described. Okay, let’s give the author his theoretical 0.5 degree compass error and assume he knew the compass deviation error perfectly and the dead reckoning plot was perfect. So what... The captain was playing Russian Roulette with lives and ship for the vanity of setting a transatlantic speed record. I think this was his last command before retirement IIRC. Well, no cookies and adoration for him.