Marconi in East Kent

station receives a message from a single transmission and an economy of time
and labor was realized. Naturally, “CQ,” went with the operators to sea and was
likewise used for a general call. This sign for “all stations” was adopted soon
after wireless came into being by both ships and shore stations
In 1904, the Marconi company suggested the use of “CQD” for a distress signal.
Although generally accepted to mean, “Come Quick Danger,” that is not the case.
It is a general call, “CQ,” followed by “D,” meaning distress. A strict interpretation
would be “All stations, Distress.”
The ‘SOS’ signal was only established as an International Distress Signal by an
agreement made between the British Marconi Society and the German
Telefunken organisation at the Berlin Radio Conference, 3 October 1906 and
formally introduced on 1 July 1908.
There’s a common misnomer that the distress call is short for “Save Our Ship”
or “Save Our Souls,” but the letters didn’t stand for anything—it was an
adaptation of an existing German radio call. The signal consists of three dots,
three dashes, and another three dots—simple to tap out in Morse code during
an emergency and easy to understand even in poor conditions.
The first time the ‘SOS’ signal was used in an emergency was on 10 June 1909,
when the Cunard liner SS Slavonia was wrecked off the Azores. Two steamers
received her signals and went to the rescue.
The RMS Titanic had been equipped with a radio room and a Marconi-leased
telegraph machine when she made her maiden voyage in April 1912 with two
young Marconi-employed operators, chief telegraphist Jack Phillips and his
assistant Harold Bride, sending Morse code “Marconigrams" on behalf of
Titanic’s well-heeled customers 24 hours a day.
Both Marconi’s technology monopoly and the torrent of personal messages
conveyed through Titanic’s telegraph proved fatal on the night of Titanic’s
floundering.
When one of the first ships to receive Titanic’s distress call, SS Frankfurt,
responded late to Titanic’s CQD call, Bride responded angrily possibly in part
to due business concerns as Frankfurt’s telegraph operator worked for German
telecommunications company Telefunken and Marconi’s operators were
discouraged if not forbidden to trade telegraph messages with their
competitors.