Rob vk5rc  has requested some information be put posted regarding the sinking of the Titanic, which is very interesting reading, plus some other links.

This was requested from Sarah Boyd whose son Alex is currently doing a communications technology project for his Tech class.
Well done Alex.

Here is one of the links:
Gaining your Foundation License

Price is $34.50 through WIA,  check with NERC club secretary, we usually have these in stock.

1) During the sinking of the Titanic , the radio officer called for help – which was mostly received and he (and radio) were responsible for saving many lives. Shortly following that event, the vital importance of radio was widely recognised and radios and radio operators became a vital member of ships’ crews.

Another vital importance that ameteur radio plays, is in times of disaster, even the NASA space station uses amature radio operators to keep the vital communications links open.

2) In Hurricane Katrina recently in the USA – for the first few days Amateur Radio was responsible for some of the early communications. The internet, optical fibre and or microwave links are relatively complex and fragile structures and readily fail in time of natural disasters. Amateur radio is quite robust. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9228945/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/t/ham-radio-operators-rescue-after-katrina/#.WqIRUGcUlaQ

3) Almost every Astronaut and Cosmonaut is a Amateur radio Operator.

4) The video protocol that was used to bring the signals from the Moon landing (Slow Scan TV) was developed by Amateur radio Operators for Amateur radio experiments in TV – NASA borrowed it.

Now some practicle info on Morse Code

And from logs record from the Titanic

Learning Morse code

And a way to visualize morse code.

A Foundation licence manual is produced by the Wireless Institute of Australia for $30
Today tonight ran this story on NASA Communications via hams

And check out this one.

What a hobby to be involved in.