Why was Titanic's wireless operator so rude to the Californian?

Bloody hell, so had Phillips simply followed procedure, the Titanic would have had no way of raising the Carpathia and the survivors would have simply floated about until a passing ship encountered them.

I love the idea of the wireless operators as a bunch of nerdy tech bros. And I appreciate your shedding light on this misunderstood exchange.

By standards of the time and today, anyone who knows what it’s like to work with a deadline and no sleep can relate to telling someone to STFU when interrupted.

It could be said that Phillips saved a lot of lives with having disregarded the rules about repairing the Marconi set. Thank you for this, it was interesting.

“The past is a foreign country. They do things different there.” I appreciate that quote and think we can all learn from it.

Simple awnser: because the volume of the Marconi set wasn't adjusted via diall but via distance from the sender. imagine listening to a really quiet song and then it suddenly going full volume air blairing loud. this is what the operator felt, no wonder he was pissed

Can you imagine the magnitude of the disaster if Phillips hadn't broken the rules and fixed the Titanic's wireless himself? With no way to send out the distress signal that brought the Carpathia to the rescue, probably the only people who might have been saved were a handful of people in some of the lifeboats that other ships basically stumbled across. More people would certainly have died of exposure, or simply lost at sea and never found.

That transcript from the inquiry reads like a Monty Python skit XD

The titanic was the ultimate learning experience on so many levels. It's just sad it cost so many lives.

Very happy to see this. It's a very common thing to take what Philips did out of context, unfortunately.

It's a good thing he fixed it. Far more people would have died if not everybody if he didn't. We might still not know the location to this day. The way they talk to each other almost sounds like the way we talk on various boards.

You forgot to mention why the Californian turned off the Marconi. They stopped, they relayed their position, and there was no need to keep the Marconi running because it was not a passenger ship.

After the Titanic sank, the law required wireless operators to be on 24 hours. Before they were not required to be on at night. Also, since the operators got paid to send passenger messages, they put that as priority not iceberg warnings which they set aside

Unrelated but at the same enquiry, Senator Smith asked Harold Lowe what an iceberg is composed of. To which Lowe responded with: "Ice, I suppose sir?"

On Day 8 of the British Inquiry, Cyril Evans was asked what Phillips meant by "Keep out" and he explained that it was common use between operators, and he specifically added, "And you do not take it as an insult or anything like that."

Without Phillips, the titanic with all of it’s passengers would’ve simply disappeared, we would’ve never known what happened to her

Thanks for making this. I see so many people misinterpret it. It's saddening that Phillips and Bride were only 25 and 22 (respectively, and Phillips had just turned 25 recently). May all of those on Titanic rest in peace. Thank you to all of those who did their best to get as many lives saved as possible. I couldn't imagine being able to be that brave...

As a guy in navy myself serving on cruise Tanker and ferries. I can sure back up the commodore stance on this. Based on how current navy reacts to each other. When you are surround by same guys for month you become close. There is very close knit community between the ships. We still talk to each other over radio. My mother used to say when I got home. I had three days sort my language out

I like your comparison of radio operators in 1912 and computer geeks of today. My dad went to sea as a marine telegrapher in 1925 and his descriptions of his early fascination with radio and a little later of "going to radio school" to acquire basic radio theory, learn Morse, master the rudiments of repair and maintenance and get his operator's license seemingly mirrored the experience of my generation's obsession with the emerging cyber-world. With, as Dr. Johnson put it, "the added prospect of drowning." lol

The Morse abbreviation QRL has 2 meanings: QRL = "This frequency is in use." QRL? = "Is this frequency in use?" Saying that QRL means "Shut up" is a bit of hyperbole, though not entirely incorrect.