Artie Moore
Welsh wireless pioneer who heard Titanic's distress signal.
Arthur Ernest Moore, known as Artie Moore, was a Welsh wireless pioneer who built a home-made radio station at Gelligroes Mill. He is notable for having heard the RMS Titanic's distress signal on his own equipment before news of the disaster reached Britain, and later worked for the Marconi Company on radio and sonar development.
Quick Facts
- Birth Name
- Arthur Ernest Moore
- Birth Date
- 29 April 1887
- Birth Place
- Pontllanfraith, Wales
- Death Date
- 1949-01-20
- Death Place
- Bristol, England
- Occupation
- radio operator and engineer
- Known For
- Reportedly hearing the distress signal from Titanic in 1912
- Notable Works
- wireless radio, sonar development
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Artie Moore lost the lower part of one leg in a childhood accident at his father's mill and wore a wooden leg for life. By age ten he was interested in amateur engineering, adapting a bicycle for his disability. Using a hand-made lathe driven by the mill's waterwheel, he built a working model steam engine that won a competition in Model Engineer magazine; the prize book, Modern Views of Magnetism and Electricity by Sir Oliver Lodge, sparked his interest in wireless. Moore and his brother later took over the mill, using a generator coupled to the mill wheel to charge batteries for local farmers and creating machinery for them.
In a garden shed and later the mill loft, Moore built a coherer-based receiver and spark-gap transmitter powered by batteries charged from the mill wheel. He strung copper wire across the Sirhowy River and uphill to a barn to create a large aerial system. In 1911 he intercepted the Italian government's declaration of war on Libya, earning front-page coverage in the London Daily Sketch. With friend Richard Jenkins, an electrical engineer at a local coal mine, Moore made what was probably the first use in Wales of amateur wireless for business: receiving an order for grain over the air from Ty Llwyd farm, about three and a half miles away.
Early on 15 April 1912, over more than 3000 miles, Moore heard the Titanic's distress signal in Morse code. He bicycled to the police station in Caerphilly, where his report was discounted; two days later press reports confirmed his accuracy, including that the ship's operator had used 'SOS' in addition to the older 'CQD' code.
Reader's Guide
The publicity from Moore's Titanic reception led the Monmouthshire Education Committee to offer him a scholarship to the British School of Telegraphy in summer 1912. After three months of study, he passed a Government examination in Wireless Telegraphy and Morse Code. Guglielmo Marconi, whose predicted maximum range of 2000 miles for wireless reception Moore had greatly exceeded, visited him after a local resident wrote to Marconi and offered Moore a position as a draughtsman at the Marconi Company. Appointed in 1914 to the Ship Equipment Department, Moore worked for Marconi's companies for the rest of his career.
During the First World War, Moore worked on clandestinely armed Q-ships and designed and supervised wireless installations on the Invincible-class battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible for their Falkland Islands mission. He later became assistant to Captain H.J. Round, working on thermionic valve development. After the war he headed the Ship Equipment Department in Liverpool, then in 1923 became manager at Avonmouth for the Marconi International Marine Communication Company until his retirement in 1947. In 1922 he patented an early form of sonar; during the Second World War his sonar work helped Allied ships avoid German U-boats in the North Atlantic.
Moore inspired local enthusiasts to form the Blackwood Transmitters Club in 1927, later the Blackwood Amateur Radio Society. The Artie Moore Amateur Radio and Historical Preservation Society maintains an archive and periodically transmits from Gelligroes Mill using the callsign MW0MNX, based on Moore's MNX.
More in Amateur Radio People, Part 3 1-24
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