Sparks save lives "CQD DE MGY" [Microwave Musings]

There is much mystery and myth surrounding spark gap transmitters, and these primeval RF sources form the foundation of much of our profession. The popular remake of the movie Titanic featured some wonderfully authentic early radio gear that, pardon the pun, sparked a lot of interest in the roots of RF communication. The ship hit an iceberg in the ice-cold North Atlantic on 15 April 1912, and its radio operator, John "Sparks" Phillips, was able to send the CQD DE MGY distress call (CQD means "come quick disaster," DE is the Morse code shorthand for "this is," and MGY was the Titanic\´s call sign [1]), using a Marconi spark gap transmitter (Marconi radio operators use CQD even though SOS had been widely adopted in 1906). The carpathia received the call and proceeded to rescue 706 passengers that had made it into the lifeboats. Without this invention, it is likely that far more souls would have perished.