History and Background of Maritime Distress Signals - ALL AT SEA

History and Background of Maritime Distress Signals

VHF Radio Distress Call: British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment, during a demonstration on Flat Holm Island, 13 May 1897. This was the world’s first demonstration of the transmission of radio signals over open sea, between Lavernock Point and Flat Holm Island, a distance of three miles.

Radio or ‘wireless’ was first used aboard ships early in the 20th century. The wireless signal itself was just the carrier for telegraph and telephone