#wireless communications

The Titanic’s CQD as received by the Baltic at 11:10pm on the 14th of April, 1912.

Transcription of note below cut if preferred.

“April 15 1918 -- Our wireless work is interesting, although a grind. We keep station open day and night and are working in reliefs of four hours on and eight hours off. Have to get the weather reports every four hours and keep an ear open for any S.O.S. that might come. We are now catching the communiqués from every country in Europe. We are ambitious to catch the States.”

‘No one is allowed from now on to have a complete wireless installation in Paris. Many people have set up instruments, some for amusement, some, it appears, for sinister purposes. No one may send messages now, though they are allowed to keep their receivers. In order to hear the messages which come through from Russia, the Eiffel Tower station needs "dead silence" in the air.’

Today, I went to La Harazée again. I was about half way when a poilu stopped me for a ride. We are not supposed to carry anyone except wounded, but sometimes we take poor fellows and give them a lift. He was returning to the front from his permission and had been walking all day so it wouldn't hurt to carry him a few miles. He was very interesting, working for a very interesting service: he was an operator of a new device for receiving the enemy's telephone messages by means of sound waves through the earth; a sort of wireless outfit stationed half a mile behind the first lines. To this are connected several long copper wires which extend to the German "fil de fer" (barbed-wire) in No Man's Land -- as close as it gets to the Germans without being detected. With this apparatus they can hear the Boche messages very distinctly. But he told me that both sides now send all of their important news by courier, as the Germans have discovered a similar device…

‘Observation balloons are "the eyes of the army”.

These sausage-shaped crafts are very important to the fighting forces. They go up every morning and come down every night. A truck hauls them in or lets them go up, according to orders from the officer in charge. They are very efficient posts of observation. Nothing below for miles upon miles will escape skilled lookout men, and everything is discovered in a jiffy. Wagon-trains of ammunition, troop movements; bingo! Some shells explode in their path. In fact, everything is an open book to the trained observer, cruising around in the high altitude breezes, however alert to every little thing going on.

It’s really interesting to watch the observation balloon, always anchored close to the front so that it can see everything. Yet, far enough to the rear, away from the enemy anti-aircraft batteries. The great bag is held in place by a steel cable, and has direct telephone communication with the artillery field station.

This station receives all wires from the observation posts and the field batteries. When noticing anything suspect from up there, the observer phones the location as it appears on his chart to inform the officers on ground, as if they were looking at the very spot themselves. Then the range is computed and phoned to the battery in charge of the particular location. Once the range is found, the firing begins.

Finally, as soon as that the objective is struck, the observer informs the ground with the word "hit".’