Posted on 05/20/2020 8:13:02 AM PDT by NRx
An underwater salvage company was granted approval this week to cut into the wreckage of the Titanic to try to recover a Marconi telegraph, rekindling a complex debate over access to the ship and maritime law.
The company, R.M.S. Titanic, persuaded a federal judge on Monday to allow it to conduct a salvage operation this summer in the wreckage of the ship, which sank during its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912 after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 of the ships passengers died, and about 700 survived.
The ruling, by Judge Rebecca Beach Smith of the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., made changes to a 2000 court order that prohibited the company from cutting into the ships hull to search for diamonds.
The company sought to loosen the restrictions so it could recover the Titanics telegraph machine, which it contends could be lost forever because of the degradation of the ship. The radio transmitter could unlock some of the secrets about a missed warning message and distress calls sent from the ship, said the company, which obtained the salvage rights to the wreckage in the 1980s. The site is about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
The Marconi device has significant historical, educational, scientific and cultural value as the device used to make distress calls while the Titanic was sinking, Judge Smith wrote in her ruling. The company will be permitted to minimally to cut into the wreck so it can reach the telegraph room, Judge Smith wrote.
David Concannon, a lawyer for R.M.S. Titanic, said in an interview on Tuesday that the company would try to avoid cutting into the ship and that the ships telegraph room could be reached through a skylight that was already open.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I've got one. When I was remodeling the house, I sealed it in a plastic bag, along with a 4-to-8 adapter and some 4-track tapes, and put it in a wall behind new sheetrock. I've done that with other items. In the future, hopefully someone will be happy to find antique stuff. I have fond memories of playing 4-track tapes in my 1956 Chevy back in the 1960s. Memories only, because tape and rubber degrades making the device unusable. Same for the Titanic telegraph, good luck trying to operate it.
Well if they find DiCaprio down there I hope they just leave him there.
;-)
They were called “registers,” devices that made marks (ink or punches) on paper tape that would have to be decoded later on. A skilled operator didn’t need to use a register and could decode in real time and write down or type out the message directly as it came in.
Either way, the physical record would be gone now.
Marconi invented the radio. Now with Radio Shack out of business those tubes could be priceless.
Recommend you search Google for a “Sense of Humor”. Maybe you’ll run across a coupun. See Ron White for reference after you find a good deal. ;-)
You are absolutely right, as I said earlier the argument they made for doing this was BS, and that they were really interested in acquiring sellable stuff.
As an example, a sending key of the type used on the Titanic is worth thousands to a collector. But the actual one from the Titanic would be worth far, far more, in spite of its condition (mostly the wood base would be gone).
As others have suggested, there are other valuables that they would also be after, and the radio stuff would be a cover for that.
A while back, Glenn Beck paid something like $60K for a compass that had been owned by George Washington. Without that connection, it would have probably been worth a few hundred.
“Recommend you search Google for a Sense of Humor. “
really!
See? ;-)
See. what?
Thanks. Honest.
LOL!
“(a formation of rust similar to an icicle or stalactite) “
They are forming the ‘rust’, not eating it.
According to the US Supreme Court, Tesla invented the radio, probably because he knew that more than a century later, there would be a Tesla automobile, and they would need radios.
"They should have saved the money they wasted on lawyers and spent it on better iceberg spotters."
I'm quitting while I'm ahead. Have a nice day. ;-)
I didn't know that. Thanks!
And what is recovering the equipment going to tell us about that beyond what the surviving wireless operator, Harold Bride told the inquest? It's not like they're going to find papers with the incoming messages.
If he were a true visionary he would have invented bluetooth earbuds and the smart phone. ;-)
Thank goodness!
I thought you were referring to 1/4” Ampex 456 or other tapes which everybody knows were not on that ship.
Sure, if it’s Maxells or Memoreces or the like, go get ‘em. I’m all for it.
The majority of the radio equipment is off to the right and not visible. Whatever is there is in dire need of extensive cleaning before you can really asses its condition.
Considering that a life jacket locker key from the Titanic sold at auction for 85,000 pounds, there is definitely money to be made on that stuff.
https://www.geekwire.com/2015/nikola-tesla-predicted-smartphones-in-1926-like-a-boss/
“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.
Do you know how to Google?
************
Limited use/capability shown quite often here. JMO
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