MEW Workshop Tales Artie Moore and Titanic

Dave, (SillyOld Duffer) makes some very interesting points about the aerial, but I have lots of problems with this.

Firstly, I suppose is local knowledge of the geography and poor radio and ordinary television reception as Ynysddu and Gelligroes are in the 'dip' of The Valley, although 400 feet up the surrounding mountains/hills are a further 300 feet up.

Secondly, the 1911 Daily Sketch glass plate negatives the photos of which show only a rudimentary aerial affair for Gelligroes Mill - or more specifically to Artie's wooden shed containing his wireless telegraphy set.

Thirdly, there was another possibility, and that was Richard Jenkins who 2 and a half miles away lived pretty much on top of the mountain at Ty Llywed farm with another wireless telegraphy set, and he did have a large proper aerial as can be seen in one of the glass plate negative photographs.

Fourthly, I cannot see at all how Artie could have strung a copper cable at all further up The Sirhowy Valley here. The Moggridge Estate owned most of the land around here and then the Penllwyn Estate. He would have had to have crossed the old Penllwyn Tramway (now the B4251 road) and what was then the local road on one side, and on the other side the LNWR railway.

I've tried to fathom a way of easily showing these pics, but my computer skills are somewhat lacking transferring pics these days, so probably the easiest way for those interested is to direct you to the following link:-

Can't seem to post the link - says browser won't allow, so instead

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/community/threads/amateur-radio-heard-sos-in welsh-town-2-000-miles-away.54887/

Go to my post 15 25th May for the pics. Hope this works!

(have tried the above and it seems to work... scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Richard Jenkins' aerial at Ty Llywed farm is pic 6, and Richard Jenkins is pic 7. Pic 2 is illuminating with Artie up a ladder against a tree, and pic 3 is of special interest showing the wireless telegraphy set as it was at the beginning of October 1911 in Artie's shed at Gelligroes next to the barn and cottages. You can also see in that pic his horizontal steam engine to the right.

Others cleverer than me might be able to post the pics on here for all to see without faffing about!

Edited By julian atkins on 18/06/2023 16:08:22

Allow me to post the link, Julian : **LINK**

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/community/threads/amateur-radio-heard-sos-in welsh-town-2-000-miles-away.54887/

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 18/06/2023 17:06:01

Short wave radio has always been notoriously fickle. As I trundled around the globe with my SW cassette player and associated wiring strung out on deck I used to tune into all sorts of stuff from weird and wonderful places

It was like trainspotting for radio stations

Radio Tirana would transmit once a week on wednesday evening GMT for an hour or two and I often tried to tune in to hear the latest Albanian communist utopia news.(Not much to do at sea) On one occasion off Japan I got better reception from Albania than I could from the Chinese communists. Atmospherics did weird things and reception often depended upon the alignment of your aerial, so you never knew how your evenings tweaking was going to turn out.

edit: Always lusted for a sony SW radio but they were so damned expensive, scanning and memory radios were a lot of dosh. You also had to watch where you bought them from, some wavelengths were disabled for security reasons in certain countries, so you could accidently buy one that was gimped on the fly

Edited By Ady1 on 18/06/2023 17:36:06

Thank you Michael - very helpful!

Scroll down to the bottom of the page of Michael's link. Click on the 3rd pic of inside Artie Moore's wooden shed which was his workshop and tell me what you see?

You can enlarge the pic quite a bit...

Edited By julian atkins on 18/06/2023 17:48:18

Ought to say I'm not arguing with Julian at all. More presenting the case for the defence, when I'm not convinced my client is innocent, or that his achievements have been accurately recorded: they could have been sexed up.

However, I'd like to think Artie was truthful, the reports aren't completely impossible, and his subsequent career confirms Artie had considerable technical skills. There must be a story behind Richard Jenkins too. In 1912, we have two apparently rural neighbours were committed to a high-tech, high-skill and rather expensive hobby. A couple of smart Welsh boys making stuff work.

The case for the defence requires Artie to have a substantial antenna, and Julian's photographs contain some tantalising suggestions that he did! It's necessary to zoom in and look for details.

First, here's Artie up a ladder, implying a tree is supporting the antenna:

Artie is adjusting the Antenna, which is supported by a Pole, not the tree. He's nailed a strut to a branch with an insulator on the far-end, and is holding a wire coming from the top of the pole. The purpose of the strut is to carry the wire around the tree. I guess he's either about to attach the antenna wire to the insulator or has just removed it. Look closely, and there are 4 vertical wires going towards the pole top, plus a horizontal wire just below Artie's feet. The aerial isn't in the tree, and it's somewhat elaborate. Work is in progress - the wires aren't supposed to dangle - so the configuration can't be confirmed.

Note the hoarding edge on the right because it appears in the next picture.

At first sight, the next photo looks like a simple shot of the mill, and I guess that's Artie stood above the mill-wheel:

I think this shot is a failed attempt to photograph the antenna, not a picture of the building. The antenna is hard to see because thin wires are lost in the background. However, the hoarding can be seen behind the mill, and zooming in reveals Artie's tree and ladder:

The pole and ladder can be seen, plus a wire that appears to climb high over the roof of the mill:

And there may be a second wire climbing in the opposite direction. Possibly Artie is improving the antenna by lifting the incoming ends to the top of a pole next to the tree, rather than to a strut near the base.

I'd guess the shack is somewhere near the tree, perhaps behind the hoarding or the buildings opposite the mill except there's no sign of a building with a strange roof.

Not conclusive, but I think Artie's antenna was quite big, and as we all know, size matters...

I'll look at the equipment photo later: Tesco's need me.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 19/06/2023 11:09:25

Hello SillyOldDuffer,

to perhaps give you (& others) further food for electrical thought here is a quote from a 1911 newspaper article which mentions the antenna:

"... Close by is the miller's garden in which there are pairs of poles fixed to the tops of trees about 220 feet apart.  The poles are connect with a pair of wires running parallel with each other, and connected with a little wooden shed behind the miller's house."

Source document, bottom of this page, posting dated Jun 12 2023

Must say I am very impressed by your radio based detective work.

Regards,

Phil

Edited By Weary on 19/06/2023 12:45:17

I must agree with Weary about being impressed by the research, I know only the very basics of radio, but am finding this thread absolutely fascinating. I am amazed at the amount of information and references that have been found for something that happened so long ago. Please keep this one going!

Dave

Thanks Phil, though the size of the antenna is disappointingly small! Julian says radio reception is poor at that location, which makes sense in the bottom of a valley. I was hoping to find Artie had used the geography to fit something bigger in.

This is a clip from the 1916 6" map. I've ringed the mill with a blue circle and shown the likely position of the photographer and his line to Artie's tree with a red X and arrow. (Not very obvious - look in the middle bottom area)

Unfortunately the mill is located near the corner of the OS maps, but this clip of the 1916 6" map gives an idea of the ground available, maybe!

Generally the area shows considerable evidence of early coal-mining in decline; shafts, 'Old Coal Levels', railways, a tramway and much disturbed ground. The old tramway leads to the Gelli-groes colliery, marked as disused in the 1879 survey. The field containing the tree is a few hundred feet long, but Artie might also have been able to use the spoil heap on the other side of the tramway. Over the river behind the mill there's a quarry and an area of rough ground, then fields. The site has potential for a large antenna: quite a large area of rising derelict industrial land, where no-one would mind a few tall poles and some wire.

Another bygone, just south of the mill the map marks an LH. This is a Lamp House, or street-lamp. In 1916 this was the only street lamp in the area, and important enough to be recorded as a feature. Be interesting to find out why the lamp was installed at all. My guess is serious crime. When South Wales was booming in the heyday of Welsh coal, and rife with social injustice, it got pretty wild at times.

Dave

The 1938 map shows the chance has gone. The old tramway has become the A4048, much of the industry has been tidied up, and there's been a fair amount of development. In 2023 the locals would blow a gasket!

Well, Artie must have picked up something on his magnificent erection or he would not have bothered to pursue a hobby in radio. There were no radio stations to listen to in those days so ships etc would have been a big part of what was on air. But according to THIS interesting Science Museum article, the Titanic's radio signal would have traveled only about 300 miles in daylight and maybe two or three times that at night. So 900 miles maximum. The Titanic sank near Newfoundland, about 2,200 miles from Swansea. Seems more likely Artie might have picked up signals from other, closer, ships relaying the Titanic's desperate message?

Even so, he would have had the news ahead of the general public. The Titanic hit the iceberg about midnight, local time, so that would be about 4pm UK time. Any distress signals reaching Wales then would have arrived late afternoon or evening time. No radio stations in the UK at that time. So the earliest the UK public would have known was next morning's newspapers. Even then, there was great confusion, with the Daily Mail reporting no lives were lost. American papers were first to break the true scale of the tragedy. link and link

Reports in those links indicate there was radio chatter back and forth between ships, and journalists, relayed across the Atlantic. So again, this is most likely what Artie could have picked up, not the direct transmission from the Titanic. But this detail was probably lost in the retelling of the story to the local newspaper for his obituary by family members recalling events of some 40 years earlier, at which they were not present but only heard discussed around the family dinner table etc. And we all know how that goes. (And local newspapers generally do not fact check obituaries submitted/told by families of the deceased.)

PS, just noticed the obituary clipping in Weary's link, says it was reported to the newspaper by one Councillor Richard Vines. So who knows where he got his information and how reliable it was. Most likely word of mouth from the family and other members of his constituency who may have recalled stories about Artie. Not necessarily a reliable source of historical facts at the minute detail level.

Edited By Hopper on 19/06/2023 15:55:26

May I take this opportunity to thank forum members for their further posts, which I read with considerable interest.

Just to be pedantic, can I be allowed a few corrections.

1. At 11.40pm (ships time) Titanic hit the iceberg, then that is 3.07am GMT. Titanic sank at 5.18am GMT. There was a delay of some 47 minutes in sending out the first distress signal at 12.27am ships time 3.54am GMT.

2. Dave's most interesting OS map has his red arrow pointing slightly too far left into the garden of the adjacent Islwyn Cottage then still owned by the old Penllwyn Tramway Company. (The tree that had the ladder against it is no longer there).

3. There is still a street lamp!

4. For those looking at modern maps, this bit of the A4048 confusingly became the B4251 approximately 15 years ago.

5. According to Leighton Smart's booklet, in 1949 Councillor Richard Vines was also Headmaster of the local Pontllanfraith Technical School.

"From Humble Beginnings

Artie Moore was born in 1887. As a child Artie was involved in an accident at the mill, which resulted in the loss of the lower part of one of his legs, and for the rest of his life, he wore a wooden leg. At some point prior to the year 1909, Artie, using a hand made lathe driven by the water-wheel at the mill, built a working model of a horizontal steam engine. He entered the model in a competition in the The Model Engineer magazine, and he received a book by Sir Oliver Lodge entitled Modern Views Of Magnetism And Electricity, and turned his attention from engineering to the new science of those days – wireless. Working at Gelligroes Mill in Pontllanfraith near Blackwood, Gwent, he soon began erecting wire aerials and building his rudimentary radio station, consisting of a coherer-based receiver and a spark-gap transmitter"

Hi Julian,

I spent a lot of time researching Artie, at least in proportion to what would normally go into a single page article.

The main source for the article was the "Artie Moore Amateur Radio Society" mc0mnx.webs.com/ from which the above quote was taken. One has to hope they would be the most reliable source of information. They also say he went to London as a direct result of the Titanic episode.

There is a surprising amount about Artie online and deciphering what is truth and what is embellishment is difficult. Some sources just say 'Marconi visited him' which could have been at Gelligroes or in London; others specify it was at Gelligroes.

I found suggestions his brother also was involved in the hobby radio operation, others mention his father and a friend. I suspect various people had a 'fringe' involvement, if only helping lug gear around and erect antennae!

It's a shame if some of the BBC content around Artie is inaccurate, I hope some readers, at least, can forgive me for not spending days researching original sources for a brief article, even if what I did do appears to have been a little more thorough, or at least sceptical, than the BBC's.

It was very difficult to know what to trust, although the source that said he lived near Cork was rapidly discounted...

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 19/06/2023 17:59:48

My grandfather was a radio operator in the navy between the wars. He once was assigned to what was effectively a Clyde puffer on the roster of a battleship (Renown, I think). He was on the Caledonian Canal near Loch Ness and needed to signal the ship which was cruising through the Hebrides. He sent out a general call for a relay, as he couldn't get a direct signal, with lots of mountains in the way. He got his relay (in morse) via another British warship, and at the end enquired where the relay ship was stationed - the answer was New Zealand!

It's likely that Artie's and my grandfather's signals were boosted by bouncing around the upper atmosphere, which can allow long distance signals with low-power equipment, especially in days when there was vastly less interference.

Neil

Just a thought, but if Julian or another contributor to this thread would like to do a fully researched and referenced article on Artie separating fact, fiction, apocrypha and speculation, then I'd be interested in receiving it as a submission.

Neil

It would be really interesting if a definitive article was to result from the researches being carried out. Julian is obviously a very thorough researcher, and with the valid points raised by some of our other contributors would be something well worth reading.

I've certainly lost a few hours this afternoon reading the links in the above posts, all fascinating stuff, always impressed by the range of knowledge our contributors posess.

I did find the original article in MEW very interesting.

Dave

Keeping me out of the workshop though, i've got a shaper rebuild to finish!

Edited By Dave Wootton on 19/06/2023 18:30:55

Amidst this utterly fascinating discussion … could we spare a few moments thought for those on the ‘sightseeing’ sub which is currently lost.

**LINK**

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65953872

MichaelG.

I've had a look at Arties shack and identified some of the stuff, sorry about the tiny red letters!

On the extreme right is a shelf with documentation and probably the station log. There's no clock, so expect Artie owned or borrowed a pocket watch. There's an electric light, so I expect the shack was operated during the night when long distance reception improved.

Below the shelf on the right is a model horizontal steam engine, presumably the prize winner.

Starting from left middle:

• A is a large inductor (coil) with slider, used to tune the receiver (after a fashion!)
• B is the induction coil, with spark gap. The distance between the balls suggests between 5 and 10kV. One side, heavily insulated, is connected to the aerial, the other bare wire is the earth.
• C is a smaller induction coil, not connected, a standby
• D is a pair of relays with switches, probably disconnecting the main power.
• E is a galvanometer, used as a kind of multimeter. It's probably come from a railway telegraph test set or maybe a colliery.
• F are the headphones - very expensive.
• G are two switches, on marble bases, with extra insulation, that disconnect the receiver from the aerial before transmitting or during a thunderstorm. They appear the only thing stopping 5kV blasting into the receiver when the transmitter is operated.
• H is a potentiometer, part of the receiver, used with an electrolytic detector
• I is a morse key. It's position suggests Artie was left-handed
• J I believe is an electrolytic detector
• K may be an electric door bell. These generate a small spark and were used tas a kind of signal generator to confirm the detector was working at maximum sensitivity. No need to hope the aerial was working and that there was a real signal coming in.
• L - I think it's an ink bottle.
• M is a sort of bread-bin with slots about the right size to hold sheets of paper. Dunno.
• N (just right of the picture) is an insulator supporting the aerial.
• O is a power take-off point, connected to a battery or dynamo, probably 12 or 24V
• P is an ammeter measuring power input.
• Q could be a bottle of acid, needed to top-up the electrolytic detector
• R is a chemical measuring flask, see Q above!
• S could a dry battery, needed to bias the electrolytic detector
• T I think is a cut-out or fuse protecting the dynamo from a short
• U is a picture of a gent in what seem to be academic robes, presumably a wireless pioneer. It's not Faraday, Hertz, Maxwell, Lodge, Righi, Bose, Tesla, Popov, Fessenden, de Forest. Slaby, Branley, Jackson or Marconi. Might be Crookes. Any other suggestions?

If anyone fancies building a replica, the is apparatus wired up something like this circuit:

Left out: the extra switches in the photo probably do things like connect the dry battery, disconnect the headphones, and short out the receiver. Also, I've shown the tuning inductor as a tapped coil when Artie probably had two coils, one sliding inside the other.

To receive:

• throw the two transmit/receive switches to connect the receiver side to the antenna.
• Put the headphones on, and adjust the potentiometer until the detector stops fizzing
• Optionally, check the receiver is working by ringing the bell. (The headphones should click along with it)
• When a signal is heard, adjust the tuning inductor's slider for best results

To transmit:

• Switch the main battery or dynamo on
• throw the two transmit/receive switches to disconnect the receiver. IMPORTANT!
• Operate the morse key. Pressing it causes a spark to jump across the gap. which energises the aerial much as banging a gong causes it to resonate. A short key press causes the other end to hear a quick double click, read as a dot, and a longer press causes a stretched double click, read as a dash.

There are a few Health and Safety issues:

• The spark coil puts several kilovolts directly onto the aerial wire, which is hazardous to the operator and anyone who happens to touch the antenna. Nasty electric shock as well as an RF burn.
• If the morse key is pressed without disconnecting the receiver, then the receive circuitry is whacked hard by the spark. Not nice for anyone wearing those headphones!
• The morse key may be switching the full input power, probably a few hundred watts, causing it to get very hot. Artie's key has a large lower contact, much bigger than the one on an ordinary telegraph key, and it's purpose is to absorb heat.
• Big sparks from the coil and key, both generating ozone and emitting ultra-violet and xrays.

Impressive I think, and quite a lot of it is home-made.

Dave

Hi Neil,

Thank you for your posts above, and thank you for telling us that you wrote the MEW article on Artie Moore.

I am very familiar with the 'Artie Moore Amateur Radio Society' website. Run by a certain Kevin Dawson but nothing updated for years. He also is the Admin on the 'Artie Moore Amateur Radio Society' Facebook page.

The BBC Wales online website repeated stuff about Artie Moore on 22nd May 2023. With stuff that was clearly inaccurate. He couldn't have made it to Caerphilly some 8 miles away at 5 am in the morning on his counterbalanced bicycle, and Gelligroes wasn't in Caerphilly Borough Council as it didn't exist until the mid 1970s - then, in 1912, it was still in Monmouthshire.

So let's look at the above 'Artie Moore Amateur Radio Society' website you state you relied upon, rather than the Wikipedia entries on Artie, or Gelligroes Mill, or do say an online check of the British Newspaper Archive...

No where is there any mention of Artie transmitting messages about Titanic, no where is there any mention of his father or one of his many brothers being involved, no where is there any mention of Artie attempting to boost reception of the signals Titanic was sending. No where is there any mention of Artie assuming it was some other ship or land based station.

Setting that aside for awhile, I would very much like to hear further from Dave (SillyOldDuffer) as to his thoughts on the pic of the inside of Artie's wooden shed and all the wireless telegraphy equipment and much else besides. I would very much appreciate Dave's assessment of the contents in that pic. Perhaps also be mindful that Artie's equipment may primarily have been to communicate with the other set of Richard Jenkins' high up on the mountain some 2 or3 miles away at Ty Llywed farm Ynysddu that did have a good aerial.

Just another point for Neil, Leighton Smart in his booklet (repeated by the Artie Moore Amateur Radio Society website) said Artie received the Titanic signals in the loft of Gelligroes Mill, which would imply that Artie had abandoned his shed to the confines of what would clearly have been a very dusty and at times noisy environment. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me, and I am sure that other model engineers would agree with me!

Hi Dave!

Very many thanks for your analysis of the inside of Artie's shed and the wireless telegraphy equipment!

Fascinating!

You are the first person to have ever, to my knowledge, done this, and I thank you for your time and effort on this task which must have been considerable and occupied a great deal of your time today and probably also yesterday.

Sorry, our posts crossed whilst I was typing something about Neil Wyatt's replies.

Do you think that Artie's set as per the pics of early October 1911 for the Daily Sketch was any good?

For what it’s worth [probably not much] here is the location of the commemorative green plaque [which is just about legible in Street View]

**LINK** : https://earth.app.goo.gl/gWQjZT

MichaelG.

.

51°38'42"N 3°11'22"W

Edit: __ what3words pinpoints it to breeze.rising.tango 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 19/06/2023 22:18:16