RMS Titanic "SOS" 

This is like hearing a man's dying words except it is still in his voice.

The fact people could turn those beeps into letters so quickly is amazing in itself

His name was Jack Philips. He had just turned 25 years old. He didn’t leave his post until the radio room was flooding. Lots of comments about the bravery of this man but no mention of his name.

The fact nobody knows where this recreation came from is more unnerving than anything. It's literally a recreation of a dead man's call for help on behalf of the passengers who died that same night. The audio is somewhat accurate for that time and the authentic sounding rotary spark is almost pitch perfect.

The engineers who kept the engines going, the operator who kept repeating this message over and over until the end, the band who continued to play to calm the rest of the passengers, all those who accepted their fate so others would live, including Captain Edward J Smith, and chief engineer Thomas Andrews, are all true heroes.

RIP Jack Phillips wireless operator the night the Titanic sank and a hero who stayed at his post right till the end.

Interesting fact: CQD (Come Quick Danger) was the accepted distress call during the sinking. People knew of SOS (Save Our Souls) but it wasn't common, so when the Titanic began transmitting SOS, they receivers knew that their situation was dire and they were trying to emphasize just how bad their situation was.

the fact that this actually happened is so unsettling and sad at the same time. this gave me goosebumps

Also worth remembering the 34 engineers that made sure the power was still running for this signal to be sent as late as 2:17 am. None of them made it but they shall never be forgotten.

Very sad. I can only imagine what the man receiving this transmission was feeling.

It’s just horrible to think that one of the most amazing ocean liners of its time is at the bottom of the ocean

RIP to the orchestra, postal clerks, restaurant workers, victualling department, Engineers, deck crew and officers who passed away that night. You worked till the very end.

She's screaming out: "HELP ME, HELP ME!" But nobody came on time.

that "1912" voice give me goosebumps

Even though I, like literally everyone on RU-vid, was never onboard the Titanic, I can still feel the sheer terror of every last keystroke of this transmission.

Now a submarine down there faces a similar fate.

CDQ= All Stations: Distress

Creepy

I can’t stop listening to this over and over again. It is so captivating in a tragic way.

youtube has a sick sense of humor recommending this rn

Note that when "SOS" is sent, it is not sent as three separate characters, but as one long one: "di-di-di-dah-dah-dah-di-di-dit". This is correct!

Sad fact, based off how fast Operator Phillips was in sending the message, goes to show that he not only took his job seriously, he was a very skilled wireless operator. Let's face it, that was pretty fast. Even I tried to recreate it, it didn't take, even with the Morse sheet in front of me. R.I.P. Operator Jack Phillips, Marconi Wireless Operator of the R.M.S. Titanic.

I remember reading once that the Titanic telegraph operators had a huge backlog of telegrams to send to Cape Race, Newfoundland. The SS Californian was relatively close to the Titanic and had stopped in an iceberg field out of caution. It tried warning other ships in the area of icebergs and interfered in Titanic's communications. The harried Titanic operators told the Californian operators to "shut up." The Californian operator then turned off his telegraph equipment, so the Californian did not receive a telegraphed SOS from Titanic. The crew of the Californian did observe the Titanic a few miles away and weren't sure of its status but did not bother trying to telegraph to find out.

You are on a ship, in the middle of the atlantic ocean, in the darkness of the night, tired and you hear this... creepy

Imagine being on another ship and getting that message

Thank you Captin of titanic Music band Engineers Wireless operator. R.I.P. Also:R.I.P anyone who died that night..

I know Morse code, but this is so fast that literally nothing is happening in my brain while listening to it.

The radio operator (Jack Phillips) on the Titanic initially sent the old "CQD," which is why ships listening for the proper "SOS" didn't react. Only later did he start alternating between the two. By the way, the call "CQD" translates to "CQ" (general call to any station) followed by "D" for "distress."

For those who don’t know what do these sounds really mean; Back in old times, they didn’t have phones, so they used telegraph. A telegraph can send beeps to a receiver from a large distance (exactly like phones but telegraph only sends beeps) . These beeps cannot be understood by humans; so they needed to decode the beeps into letters and thus words for tele-communications to be understood by humans Morse Code is a series of beeps organized somehow to indicate each letter. Of course it takes a long time to understand what that person from the distance is trying to say, but that is how RMS Titanic sent the distress calls and requested SOS or CDQ

God bless Titanic crew members, they managed to save hundreds and call for a rescue.

I'm going to be honest, I don't understand Morse code, but knowing the context is honestly very heart wrenching. This video makes me feel awful for the people who lost their lives. I hope they all are resting peacefully.

It's sad to know that 1500 were killed but the people who weren't were saved because of this Morse code call for help And to the engineers who kept the engines on you will never be forgotten

i got extreme chills. this makes me sad. i wish they survived

There were two operators, one of whom survived the sinking. As I understand it, one op may have been sending the distress while the other was adjusting the spark for maximum output under conditions of failing power. 73, Drew

And now 5 more deaths 😰 (Submarine)

I'd love to see someone pounding brass that fast. Not that I'm saying it isn't possible, just the fact that I'd love to see it. That's a lot of work.

Me trying to feed my brain any information 5 minutes before the exams...

I couldn’t make any sense out of that . No wonder no one came to their rescue

That fact that you can still hear a "panicked voice" in the brass telegraph is so horrifyingly sad

I would say about 26 to 28 wpm. I was a sparker in the Navy. Back when Morse was still being used.

Imagine being at a repeater station or somewhere else where you received this and your horror slowing building as you translated it

This is really haunting.

A (mostly) accurate timeline of what happened that night: April 14 1912. 11:39 PM- Iceberg is Spotted by lookouts Frederick Fleet & Reginald Lee. 11:40 PM- Iceberg Hits, creating small slits in the hull from the Forepeak Tank, up to the Coal Bunker in Boiler Room 5 (the 2nd frontmost boiler room). April 15 1912. ~12:15 AM- Senior Wireless Operator Jack Philip’s messages are received by multiple radio stations onboard ships or Cape Race. ~1:00 AM- Most Lifeboats have left the ship. 2:06 AM- Wireless Room Abandoned hastily, Last message: “CQD SOS CQD SOS this is” ~2:08 AM- Area where the band was playing submerges. ~2:10 AM- Final Plunge Begins. ~2:17 AM- Titanic’s last message _Received_ by other ships (signal range was low, so the message was weaker and could barely be received. ~2:18 AM- Titanic Breaks from the bottom-up (go watch Titanic Animation’s analysis on the break up, it agrees with physics) into the Bow, Forward Tower, Aft Tower, and Stern. Emergency lights may have remained on in the stern, but not for more than a minute, obscuring the ship in *TOTAL* darkness. ~2:20 AM- Titanic goes under, taking with her around ~1,400 lives, ~100 more die in the water of hypothermia. ~2:22 - 2:40- few Lifeboats return to the site (3, I think. Correct me if I’m wrong), Lowe distributes his passengers between a chain of 4 lifeboats connected by ropes. ~3:00 RMS Carpathia arrives at the site. ~4:00 SS Californian Arrives at the site, soon followed by the Mount Temple, Birma, Frankfurt, and some others (I forgot). April 18 1912. Carpathia Arrives in New York with 705 Survivors. (I know the comment section will explode, so to *try* to prevent that; THIS IS A LITERAL TIMELINE NOT AN ARGUMENT)

This is haunting. This morse code transcript from Titanic is as eerie as listening to the cockpit voice recorder from a plane crash.

IIRC, legend has it that the radio operator stayed at his position and went down with the ship.

Yooooooooooo dis fire fr fr 🔥🔥🔥

It's reasonably authentic and reflects what might have been received by a station in the immediate vicinity. The spark transmitter was driven by 15kHz AC, which resulted in a slightly musical tone. At greater distances, it would have been received with a slight "ghostly" echo, based on my own experience with the 630 metre band. That echo, due to multipath distortion, would have smoothed out the rough sound to some extent. The cw speed is a bit fast. One thing to remember is that the receiver bandwidth or selectivity would have been enormous compared to modern receivers. You could add some static too for authenticity.

The way it just ended in static felt like the equivalent of a lifeline flattening...

Whenever I think life is shit, I remember the people in RMS Titanic!

Fire beat bro 🔥

My respect to those people who died in this tragedy. Thank you for posting this video.👍

Rest in peace Titanic we will miss you😭😭

The call of somebody in distress, facing death.

Man why am I crying right now, don’t think I’ve ever cried this hard at a radio 📻 transmission

Felicidades, has encontrado un comentario español!

I think the Telegrapher Is Philips.. He did sadly die

Makes me realise how great these people were

I can only imagine the shock on the radio operators faces when the captain came in and said the ship was sinking.

That 1912 voice is very creepy to hear... Imagine being on another ship and listening to this... 😱😱😱

This is amazing, I can only imagine the anguish of the radio operator. Regards KN1W

On the night the Titanic struck the iceberg, Jack Phillips received a message from the Mesaba (a near by ship from the Titanic) warning them about the icebergs ahead of the Titanic, but Phillips did not pass the message to the Captain because it wasn’t marked as “urgent“.

Gdybym usłyszał coś takiego w moim radio, pomyślałbym sobie. Masz Ci los, głośnik mi się zespół ;D

Beat goes hard

thanks for posting..it's like bringing Titanic's voice back to life....

"It's a CQD old man... This is Titanic."

This is in essence equal to listening to the black box of Titanic. Very humbling indeed. Oh how incredibly powerful it would be to hear a perfect recording of that night's events start to finish

it's 1:30am and i watched 12 seconds into this and couldn't watch any more because it just scared me so much.

This does sound like rotary spark gap. The pacing is fast- that is a characteristic of a "spark gap fist". Even if it isn't original, ie: the "actual" distress call; it is a really good example of what a then-nearly 100 year old form of communication sent over early radio transmission capabilities might have sounded like. Thanks for posting this, and 73!!

No, it is a simulation of the actual logged distress transmission. It is technically interesting in that it supposedly sounds like the spark gap transmitter technology that would have been in use at that time. Also, the speed of the transmission is very fast for manual straight-key Morse Code. Note the dash-to-dot ratio is about 2:1, not the standard 3:1.

This is undoubtedly the most scary SOS call i ever heard.. gosh i have chills

Bone chilling... I remember hearing this in the Titanic museum in Belfast when my family went there, loved who the place went from "This is how amazing the Titanic was!" to creepy morse code leading to devices that let you see every person who was on the Titanic, their race, where they were from and the scary part : If they made it out. Fun fact : There was only one Japanese man on the whole Titanic and he lived to tell the tale!

Excellent representation, that frame sound for hundreds of people the difference between life and death.

Man that guy certainly had his balls in a vise grip...a hundred years later and I still feel for those poor souls who just wanted a better life or just a vacation. In any sense, I LOOOVVE that spark gap sound, you really aren't gonna hear that on the airwaves anymore. God rest their souls and thanks for uploading.

I'm not sure how accurate this is but on a website I found these were the meanings of the codes: DE - "This is" MGY - "Titanic" CQD - "Calling all vessels" SOS - "Save Our Souls" So the entire message reads - "This is Titanic, calling all ships, save our souls, calling all ships..."

so fast... i cant believe... this is an art !!!

Not this coming in my recommendation after the recent titanic submarine news 💀

I could just feel the horrifying urgency behind the code. May they rest in peace.

This day 105 years ago, the Titanic set sail for her maiden voyage. ~Fennett

Actual morse code: "MICHEAL DONT LEAVE ME HERE" "MICHEAL." "MICHEAAAALLLL"

POV: You're on the Carpathia hearing this confused and shock.

It's hard to image how much hopelessness were accompanying that sinking ship to the end, how much fear was in the eyes of every people who was there when they realize that death is coming for them in any seconds in this sinking freezing hell, even females and kids were on boats it doesn't mean that there couldn't be any females or children on that ship, just that moment when everything what you have is hope that something would just appear and save your life but nothing happen... I hear in this sounds despair and fear what nobody Heared when it was needed a most... Respect to orchestra that was playing when it was sinking and rest in peace everyone who is lying on the ground of the sea...

This made me sad.

Im from this little place in Nova Scotia, Canada called Canso. We used to have this old cable building (the foundation is still there but the building isnt) and that cable building was the first place to get the signals that the Titanic was sending out. I just think thats awesome

It is wild how modern this sos sounds.

WE MAKING IT OUT THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN WITH THIS ONE 🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The ships' operators always sent character morse, each with there own swing, but I feel this was a little imperfect. I think the sound is very realistic.

This is a gold mine of a sample pack.

This is very eerie

The titanic: SOS CQD help SS Californian: eh they might be practicing swimming or a sinking drill

In 1912, radio sets used a rotary spark gap, which gave a buzzing sound when you tapped the key. Later sets gave a beeping noise.

The way it goes so fast and the tone goes up and down frantically shows how distressed they were.

I’ve seen a lot of animations on the titanic but when you see or hear real recordings then the scariness and reality sets in

this hurts 😢💔

Everytime I hear the distress call from the Titanic (in the movies) I can copy it in my head, since I've been around Morse code all my life. I taught myself to send and receive Morse code when I was twelve years old and then used it in the Army for years. Once you learn it, code becomes like a second language.

that guy could have tried to save his own life but decided to get that message out, what a fucking mad lad and a hero.

WOW AMAZING....RIP all passengers who went down with the ship...

2年間聞いてきたけどだんだん聞き取れるようになってきたぞ

sounds pretty desperate to me.

The speed at which Morse code was typed gave a sense of the feelings of the person staying in the radio room at the time. I feel it...

the "SINKING.." part is genuinely unnerving