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G4EBT > CW 23.07.05 22:39l 142 Lines 6420 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 640329G4EBT
Read: GUEST
Subj: Re: Books, stories about cw ops.
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0SIF<DB0FHK<DB0ACC<DB0EA<DB0RES<ON0AR<GB7FCR
Sent: 050723/2122Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:59235 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:640329G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : CW@WW
Andrew, VE1EX wrote:-
> I am familiar with a story by Thomas H. Raddall, The Nymph and the
> lamp. a fictional account of a radio operator out on Sable Island
> during the 1920's.. is anyone else aware of other stories like this?
> Fictional or real? If you have not read Thomas H. Raddall's book, I
> would recomend it. One of the best descriptions of listening to, and
> copying the code and the excitement that it can convey.. If you can
> find it, read it!
Raddall, Thomas H, The Nymph and the Lamp Little,
Brown and Company, Boston, 1950, (no ISBN).
Long out of print, but you'd find a copy via internet. In
fact there's presently a used one on offer for $2.95 at:
http://www.alibris.com/books/isbn/0910327492/The%20nymph%20and%20the%20lamp
You can read an extract of the book at:
http://www.bytenet.net/titanicimprint/raddall.htm
Here's a clip from the extract:
Independent Isabel Jardine is a secretary at the government telegraph
office in Halifax, where she meets the legendary Matthew Carney, on
furlough from the remote Marina Island Marconi station in the North
Atlantic.
Isabel uses the obliging Carney to escape from the problems in her life,
but is soon disenfranchised by her marriage and her isolation. Learning to
understand Morse, even operating the key, she becomes dangerously involved
with the cynical Greg Skane.
At the point of having to choose between Skane and Carney, Isabel is
seriously injured by a jealous Island girl and sent to the mainland to
recover, where she flees to recreate her life again. Later, Skane finds
her and tells her truth regarding the breakdown of her marriage and
increasing, inexplicable distance from Carney.
Armed with this knowledge, and that the operations on Marina will soon be
overtaken by improving technology, Isabel returns to Marina to stand by
her man, truly for better or worse, fulfilling the Norse legend of the Sea
Nymph.
Raddall served as a radio operator in naval transports during World War I,
the Canadian merchant marine and later the government telegraph station at
Sable Island. His experiences provide a solid, factual basis for the
lyrical depictions of the wireless operator's lot.
The immediate Titanic mention is over within a page or so, but there's
still much of interest to shipping enthusiasts. Wireless operations of the
sea permeate the majority of the book, with vivid descriptions of the
Babel of the airwaves: mumbling trawlers, chattering merchant steamers and
the liners, prima donnas of the ocean.
This book is long out of print and offers a wealth of detail on the life
of the wireless operators on remote stations and their connection, at
times emotional, with the 'Babel of dots and dashes' of their work. The
book celebrates and mourns the human connection:
On the coastal stations, where there was a good deal of interstation
traffic, each operator became known to the others by his "hand", his
style, the color of his personality flung on the mind-screens of the
others by the mere contact of his fingers on the transmitting key. (page
204)
In the early days radio work had a dreamlike quality that grew upon a man.
As late as 1910, when Carney went to Marina, there was nothing to do but
sit for hours with a pair of heavy old-fashioned phones clasped on his
head, listening intently in a void. Sometimes for the benefit of new
operators who took the modern traffic as a matter of course [Carney] liked
to recall those days.
"Only a few ships were fitted, you know, before the Titanic went down. The
shipowners considered it a fad. It cost a lot of money and it didn't work
very well. Aboard ship you were a bit of a joke, a fellow wearing an
officer's uniform who sailed the sea in a chair, sitting in a cubbyhole
and playing with knobs and electric sparks. That was what they called you,
Sparks, and they grinned and told you how useless you were, you and your
silly box of tricks.
Oh, it was hard to keep your faith in it, sometimes. You'd sit, watch
after watch, hearing nothing but static, and every half-hour solemnly
cracking off CQ-CQ-CQ with your spark - like yelling 'Hey ,Mac!' down a
drainpipe in the dark. If you got a reply it gave you quite a start. Your
fingers would tremble on the key. You'd muddle your dots and dashes a bit.
You felt like one of those old prophets in a desert somewhere, talking to
Jehovah."
When Isabel resolves to address the issue of her mundane existence, she's
not satisfied by merely understanding the messages through learning Morse,
but resolves to operate the key herself. Gradually, the 'Babel of dots and
dashes that filled her ears' starts making sense. From page 169:
At first the great passenger liners were beyond her grasp. They shrilled
away on high notes like operatic sopranos. And at speeds close to thirty
words a minute. The smaller liners and the tramps were more companionable,
droning along at twenty or so; and frequently there were trawlers, rolling
scuppers-under out there somewhere on the Banks and muttering away to each
other at a childish ten or fifteen. The trawlers were Isabel's
kindergarten class, and after a time she could follow the drift of tramp
steamer conversations...
When you put on the phones it was as if your inner self stepped out of the
bored and weary flesh and left it sitting in the chair in that barren
room. For a space you were part of another world, the real, the actual
living world of men and ships and ports, in which Marina was nothing but a
sandbar and a trio of call letters in the signal books.
There was CQ, the anonymous call that might mean anybody, the constant
"Hey Mac!" of the groping tramps. There was QST, the general call to all
stations, ship and shore, which usually had to do with navigation
warnings, icebergs or derelicts in the lanes, and suchlike matters.
But most significant was a simple group of dots and dashes that for
convenience were written SOS, although it could have been VTB or any
combination of letters involving three dots, three dashes and three dots,
all run together without pause.
End of clip.
Also, see:
http://www.library.dal.ca/archives/trela/letters/544merkel13dec51.htm
73 - David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
(Bookworm, nethead, telnet typist
and duty windbag).
QTH: Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 22:11 on 2005-Jul-23
Message sent using WinPack-Telnet V6.70
(Registered).
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