Where did the whole "may day" and "SOS" thing come from?

Question

Why May Day and not some other month and time scale.... June Month for example!

Where did May Day come from and when was it coined as a international distress call?

And what about SOS does that stand for something?

Answer 1

Mayday as a distress call actually isn't related to the May Day holiday, but is derived from the French m'aider (venez m'aider means "come and help me")



SOS came about because dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot is one of the simplest sequences in morse code and thus was easy to remember as a distress call. The explanation of it standing for "save our ship" or "save our souls" is a backronym and came into use long after the sequence was originally devised.

Answer 2

An SOS was an international distress signal transmitted by Morse code. With the advent of long distance radio transmissions in the early 1900’s it was possible to communicate with radio using Morse code signals. (Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail developed the electric telegraph during the 1800’s, more detail). During the early 1900’s the Germans introduced a radio distress signal based on this technology that was adopted worldwide a few years later.

This signal consisted of three dots, three dashes and three dots again, “…_ _ _…”

These signals represent S O S in Morse code, but it would appear as though the letters were irrelevant, it had all to do with the distinctive sound. Three shorts, three longs and three shorts repeated over and over again were distinctive and easily recognizable.

With the development of new technology, satellites and so forth, Morse code has been replaced and no longer used. It is still used as a visual distress signal, as in one could place objects on the ground to form an SOS, to get attention from the air. No matter how you do the SOS it will be recognized, even if seen upside down.

Originally Mayday is to aircraft as SOS was to ships. The main difference being that the distress signal was “voiced” or “spoken”. Origin around 1923 by Fred Mockford who was an English radio officer given the task to think of a word that could be easily understood as a distress call. From the French “Venez m’aider” meaning “come help me".

Answer 3

Mayday is an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning 'come help me'. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many groups, such as police forces, pilots, firefighters, and transportation organizations. The call is always given three times in a row ("Mayday Mayday Mayday") to prevent mistaking it for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions



SOS is the commonly used description for the international Morse code distress signal (· · · — — — · · ·). From the beginning, the SOS distress signal has really consisted of a continuous sequence of three-dits/three-dahs/three-dits, all run together without letter spacing. In International Morse Code, three dits form the letter S, and three dahs make the letter O, so "SOS" became an easy way to remember the correct order of the dits and dahs.



In popular usage, SOS became associated with phrases such as "save our ship" or "save our souls". These were a later development, most likely used to help remember the correct letters. As the SOS signal is a prosign (code), its respective letters have no inherent meaning per se, it was simply chosen due to it being easy to remember.

Answer 4

It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning 'come to my aid'/"come [to] help me." It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many groups, such as police forces, pilots, the fire brigade, and transportation organizations. The call is always given three times in a row ("Mayday Mayday Mayday") to prevent mistaking it for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions, and to distinguish an actual mayday call from a message about a mayday call.The Mayday callsign was originated in 1923 by Frederick Stanley Mockford a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London, Mockford was asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the word "Mayday" from the French m'aider.



Many people believe that SOS stands for "Save Our Ship," but that's actually incorrect. The SOS signal dates back to the early wireless radio days where voice communication was impossible, but messages were send character by character using Morse Code. The characters "S" and "O" are represented in Morse Code by three quick beeps ("dots") and three longer beeps ("dashes"). The signal for "SOS" is heard over the radio as "beep beep beep beeeeep beeeeep beeeeep beep beep beep." The characters were chosen because their "beep" equivalents are even and produce a very distinctive sound. It wasn't until later that people decided that "SOS" had any particular meaning.



'CQD' was standardised as a maritime distress call by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in 1904. 'CQ' had been used by British landline operators as a general call-up ("All stations attend") for quite some time, so most shipboard operators were familiar with it. However, Guglielmo Marconi felt that it did not convey the proper sense of emergency, so he appended the letter 'D' to the call and required all Marconi-equipped stations (which included most ships and shore stations of the period) to use 'CQD' as a standardised distress signal.

Answer 5

See May Day Link Captain.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_(distress_signal)



S.O.S. I've always thought it meant Save Our Souls, I now see it can



also mean Save our Ship.



see link.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS



Best Wishes Captain.



Mars Mission.