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Amelia Earhart PNG Theory

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Old 28th Jul 2018, 16:16
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Originally Posted by Squawk7700
So back then before the interweb and television, did everyone have a HF sitting at home, is that what they are trying to lead us to believe?
Originally Posted by CONSO
Well in the 40's- I had a crystal radio that at night could pick up an AM radio station KSL salt lake from the san franciso area . ... so obviously one could pick up a high freq bounce form 4 times that distance .....


Not so sure that's a good comparison. SFO to SLC is about 600 miles, the distance from Gardner Island to points in the continental U.S. is more like 6000 miles.

Also, Earhart and Noonan had a nominal 50 watt HF transmitter with a relatively simple antenna. KSL upgraded their transmitter to 50,000 watts in 1932 with a ten-acre grounding array. See the lower righthand corner of page 9 in this issue of Broadcasting magazine:

https://www.americanradiohistory.com...2-11-01-BC.pdf

Harmonics in early aircraft transmitters were presumably not suppressed as well as they are today but I would guess that the first harmonic of the 6210 kHz signal would probably have less than five watts of radiated power at 12420 kHz. It seems very unlikely to me that these weaker harmonics would be received by housewives and children on 'family radios' back in the States. The TIGHAR paper cited above assigns small probabilities of reception to many of the civilian reception reports but in several cases then rates them as credible or credible beyond a reasonable doubt.

By the late 1930's the superheterodyne receiver was indeed commonplace in American homes with many having shortwave reception on frequencies above the AM broadcast band. As you know, your 1940's crystal set had no RF or audio amplification so you did need that really good clear channel signal from KSL to power the high impedance headphones for listening.
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Old 28th Jul 2018, 20:58
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[QUOTE=Airbubba;10208620]

Not so sure that's a good comparison. SFO to SLC is about 600 miles, the distance from Gardner Island to points in the continental U.S. is more like 6000 miles.
GEEZE- I should have found a emoji thatclearly denoted sarcasm - which in line with the rest of my comments I thought was obvious !
Well in the 40's- I had a crystal radio that at night could pick up an AM radio station KSL salt lake from the san franciso area . ... so obviously one could pick up a high freq bounce form 4 times that distance .....

And I'm sure that most will be amazed that two wasp engines can be totally dissolved in sea water with no traee .
How many believe that a aircraft engine -with aluminum, steel, magnesium, and aothere alloyn parts could totally disintegrate in salt water even with alternate exposure to air and salt water and leave NO trace??

In the era of the late 30's- a lot of things ' broadcast " from whatever source were taken as absolute fact

Look up Orsen wells and his famous broadcast or newspapers like W randolph hearst and some infamous stories - and just a relatively unique ( for that era and time ) HF beacon was used in place of a low freq.
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Old 29th Jul 2018, 03:55
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Originally Posted by Squawk7700
So back then before the interweb and television, did everyone have a HF sitting at home, is that what they are trying to lead us to believe?
Actually- Yes...
Many 1930's radios had shortwave included, usually from 1-3 Mhz up to 20-30 Mhz and often 6Mhz was the bottom of one of the bands as many had several SW bands (to make tuning easier)
(not sure of linking ability here yet, but google "frequency dial of 1930's radio" and click on images, you will see many examples)
Shortwave was indeed the major radio frequencies, as many rural areas still had no local stations and stations like the BBC were often peoples only choice (the BBC began shortwave broadcasts on 9.30am, Saturday 19 December,1932, and included a frequency very close to Amelias frequency, and of course shortwave has (at the appropriate times) ranges in the thousands of Km (which is why broadcasters like BBC world service chose them

(I have personal experience using AM only, during the cycle22, of reaching the USA on only 4w, using a 1ft helical antenna mobile from Australia- it was a very brief contact, but it did happen, and made my day!)

I still find Davids theory the most likely though, to me the holy grail would be the finding of that tag!!!
(or of course the plane itself)
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Old 29th Jul 2018, 18:33
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Originally Posted by CONSO
In the era of the late 30's- a lot of things ' broadcast ' from whatever source were taken as absolute fact
Some things never change. In this TIGHAR puff piece on CBS Ric tells us that 'the case is closed':

CBS NEWS July 28, 2018, 9:54 AM

Amelia Earhart case "closed" after analysis of her distress signals, researcher says

The disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart 81 years ago is one of the greatest mysteries in American history. Researchers revealed a new clue this week that may shed light on what happened to Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, as they tried to circle the globe.

Ric Gillespie, who has researched Earhart's doomed flight for 30 years, says he has proof that Earhart crash-landed on a remote South Pacific island about 2,000 miles from Hawaii, and that she called for help for nearly a week before her plane was swept out to sea.

"Everybody expected a happy ending to the search because Amelia was out there calling for help and her calls were being heard," Gillespie said.

He has located documentation of distress signals that were sent in the days after Earhart's disappearance. Those signals prompted the Navy to launch a rescue mission.

"It took the battleship a week to get there, by which time the radio signals had stopped, and when the planes flew over the island, they didn't see an airplane," Gillespie said.

"Now the airplane's manufacturer, Lockheed, had said that if you're hearing calls from this airplane it's not floating around in the water because the radios would be wet, it wouldn't work. The airplane is on land and able to run an engine to recharge the battery, so it's on its wheels. She's made a safe landing someplace," Gillespie said.

Gillespie said the calls weren't just heard by the Navy, but also by dozens of people who unexpectedly picked up Earhart's transmissions on their radios thousands of miles away. Reports of people hearing calls for help were documented in places like Florida, Iowa and Texas. One woman in Canada reported hearing a voice saying "we have taken in water. … We can't hold on much longer."

Gillespie's organization, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has also found forensic evidence that bones found on the island are almost certainly Earhart's.

While the official stance is that Earhart and Noonan were lost at sea, Gillespie said the radio evidence only strengthens his theory that they survived the initial landing.

"This case is closed," Gillespie said.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amelia-...searcher-says/
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Old 30th Jul 2018, 00:58
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"we have taken in water. … We can't hold on much longer."
Sounds like the woman in Canada heard the distress call from a sinking ship. Doesn't sound much like an aircraft. You'd barely have time to get out a radio call, let alone a week later.
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Old 30th Jul 2018, 06:07
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Originally Posted by Squawk7700


Sounds like the woman in Canada heard the distress call from a sinking ship. Doesn't sound much like an aircraft. You'd barely have time to get out a radio call, let alone a week later.
If the aircraft had to be on dry land for the radio to work, it couldn't have been taking on water.
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Old 31st Jul 2018, 13:53
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I remember reading Ralph Barker's "Great Mysteries Of the Air" in the 1960s which highlighted, amongst others, Amelia Earhart's disappearance. In that book it said that garbled radio transmissions were received for 7 days after her disappearance and were contradictory and it became very clear they were from hoaxers. It would be easy to cherry pick some of the radio calls to prove one's theory that the plane was floating or marooned on an atoll. KHAQQ was not a secret and should not be used to verify that the calls were genuine.
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Old 1st Aug 2018, 13:04
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My little boy brought this home from school and thinks it's a great book. Reading this thread, I'm not so sure I agree with him!

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Old 1st Aug 2018, 20:52
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I see Mr G. has "Closed the case." Hopefully, then, we will hear no more about the unfortunate bones.
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Old 3rd Aug 2018, 22:51
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Have just read the story in The Australian newspaper (in their weekend magazine.) Good story for the public. Well done David.

Behind a paywall, but a Goggle search on this phrase might get you in: What happened to famed US pilot Amelia Earhart?
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Old 3rd Aug 2018, 23:12
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Originally Posted by Allan L
Behind a paywall, but a Goggle search on this phrase might get you in: What happened to famed US pilot Amelia Earhart?
This link seems to work at the moment in the U.S.:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/lif...a6cef6835d20f2
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Old 4th Aug 2018, 00:09
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Good article, the paywall seems to pop up after opening the link more than once on the same device. Sometimes you can clean browser cookies with CCleaner Official Site and reset the paywalls to first articles free. The article will probably be republished on other media outlets in the days to come.

Nice video with David and some of the survivors of the 1945 PNG jungle aircraft find. At the end of the video David tells of a report that the aircraft was buried by a bulldozer operator in the 1990's.

I remember seeing a couple of Model 10 Electra's in commuter airline service in Boston in the early 1970's. One was with PBA (Provincetown-Boston Airlines) and I believe there was another smaller operator as well.

Tales and urban legends of Earhart's navigator Fred Noonan were still going around Pan Am when I was there three decades ago.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 22:28
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interesting aside from today's NY Post

https://nypost.com/2018/08/04/this-f...-the-atlantic/
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Old 18th Aug 2018, 13:52
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David, Have you had any useful contacts yet from The Australian article?
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Old 19th Aug 2018, 00:44
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See David's web site "Earhart Lockheed Electra Search Project" for some more comments.
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Old 20th Aug 2018, 03:48
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Instead of Tighar

try

https://earhartsearchpng.com/2016/01...earch-project/

and read kelley Johnson LAC report 487 for a few facts as to real range

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/.../Report487.pdf
the only real facts tighar found

Analysis Range
Prepared byPrepared by C.L.. Johnson
DateDate JuneJune 4, 1936
LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORP.

ModelModel 10E

pay close attention to page 9 and effects of staying within 140 to 150 TAS for 16,500 AUW- but earhart started with about 15000 plus or minus AUW . . .
Report NoReport No 487487
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Old 3rd Sep 2018, 07:14
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David, I see your earhartsearchpng website has many comments linked in with discussion here. The range issue has so many variables, in terms of weather conditions, time turned back, position - not to mention
other scenarios some of which cannot be totally discounted however unlikely they might seem. You seem unwavering in your thoughts - is there anything that has arisen in terms of new information that has changed your perception of
the events surrounding all this?
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Old 5th Sep 2018, 07:30
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@propertee64

No, not really.... nothing has changed for me to discard "my unwavering" thoughts on the matter.

As far as I am concerned and where my thoughts are, like any pilot, her thoughts would be on getting to somewhere which would mean the aircraft would be in one piece, she had already busted it once that year. The whole complexity of the events and the later found evidence point to the Electra being on that hill, that is all I can think.

On the one hand we have an aircraft type fabled for its' long range, think this particular one, C/N 1055 which did have a Flight Plan for 4307 statute miles across the Sahara from DAKAR to ADEN in 28 hours and 40 minutes, then think of C/N 1065 "The Daily Express, flown by Merrill and Lambie across the Atlantic (twice) in 1937 and later this same C/N 1065 used by Sir Hubert Wilkins in the Arctic on long search flights there before finally being sold to Russie. C/N 1055 is the only Lockheed Electra that cannot be accounted for.

Then, on the other hand, we have evidence that it rests on a hill in East New Britain, evidence which comes from some AIF Veterans who happened on aircraft wreckage which fits the bill, the main evidence being an S3H1 WASP engine, which should not be where it is...... They happened on it and the unpainted aircraft itself, purely by chance because they were not supposed to be where they were according to their patrol Orders.

To me and a growing number of people, it all adds up.
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Old 3rd Oct 2018, 08:50
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Any more updates on things David?
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Old 3rd Oct 2018, 23:30
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@propertee64 and all...

Yes, I can say that there has been a development. I can't say much more as I am trying to work through the minefield it has created from third parties.
This has occurred not from the person who will fund it but from other people.
Trying to work through this.
I wish I could do this out of my own funds but can't afford any more outlay.

David
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