An era in maritime communication, sparked by the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, came to an end Monday in Pearl River when Globe Wireless broadcast its last Morse code message to ships.

 The company shut down its 87-year-old radiotelegraph service five months after international maritime officials quit recognizing Morse code as an acceptable form of communication for ships in distress.  

The service was the last of its kind in North America and operated from two transmission stations in Pearl River under the call letters WCC and WNU and two stations in Palo Alto, Calif., under the call letters KFS and KPH. The stations provided a radio frequency for ships and shore stations to communicate routine and emergency Morse code messages.

 Globe Wireless operators in Pearl River and California simultaneously tapped out the final Morse code message sent by the company at 6:59 Central Standard Time.

 The two-sentence message noted the company's 87-year history in the business and assured its maritime clients that Globe Wireless will continue offering communications services for ships via electronic mail.

 Although some ships still carry Morse code equipment, most ship-to-shore communication for the past several decades has been conducted over Telex and facsimile machines. In more recent years, ship crews have used mobile phones, electronic mail and satellites to communicate and to send distress signals.

 Rather than tapping out the Morse code "SOS" of three dots, three dashes and three dots, ships now can use the Global Maritime Distress and Safety system, which uses the satellite-based Global Positioning System and signals a ship's exact location and the nature of the problem.

 The end of Morse code represents the most recent step in the shipping industry's march to embrace modern communications technologies, said Peter Kierans, Globe Wireless vice president of corporate development.

 "We are bringing all of the things that you enjoy ashore to ships at sea," he said of the other services offered by his company and others around the globe. "Ships are basically becoming a branch office. You could say the old dog has learned new tricks."

 That wasn't the case in 1912, when about 1,500 people died as the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank 420 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Out of the tragedy came rules requiring all ships to carry equipment capable of sending and receiving Morse code messages over VHF radio frequencies.

 American inventor Samuel F.B. Morse, who patented the telegraph in 1840, created the system of dots, dashes and spaces symbolizing the alphabet to use with the telegraph. But Morse code started becoming obsolete in the 1960s when faster and more efficient forms of communication began appearing aboard ships.

 Globe Wireless Manager Karl Halvorsen described Morse code as a "very slow, unreliable and expensive service. If you're lucky, you can send 25 words a minute."

 Even in this day of hyper-automation and computers, ships that used Morse code still had a crew member who listened to the signals on earphones and marked the message on paper.

 Meanwhile, Morse code continues to thrive among amateur ham radio operators who still use the dots and dashes in some of their broadcasts.
 
 

07/13/99
© 1999, The Times-Picayune. Used with permission.