Originally published at: US Coast Guard rescues man stranded on island who wrote SOS in the sand | Boing Boing
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Ha, yeah, looks more like “SO?”. Probably nothing to see here
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He only rented the boat for a three hour tour…
a three hour tour.
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I thought SOS was only valid in Morse code.
What do you write on the beach that would be understood by everyone, even those who can’t read Latin letters? Can’t exactly draw colored maritime signal flags in the sand for NC and I’m not sure a flag and ball drawn in the sand would be understandable. Mayday is only spoken. Can’t really draw a guy raising and lowering their arms. There’s no standard visual representation of Morse code, so … — … might not work.
Given how many imaging satellites there are, you’d figure someone would have come up with a standard shape you could draw that could be seen and recognized without a lot of false positives or negatives, to aid in search and rescue.
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There are international ground-to-air signals. Commonly taught in Scouts or Cadets.
ETA: there are more. A triangle to indicate safe landing, and then a bunch that would only be applicable to combat (need ammunition, need an engineer).
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Morse Code was pretty much abandoned about 25 years ago. SOS is still very widely recognised, though.
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sending out an SOS/ sending out an SOS…
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Whoa. I had no idea those existed. Would ships understand those though? They seem to be part of the International Convention on Civil Aviation.
Still, an X makes more sense than SOS if you want to make a giant signal out of rocks that would show up on older lower resolution satellites.
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According to The International Guidebook for Techbros, you’re supposed to lay out dark rocks in a QR code that encodes your What Three Words.
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I’m not sure if sailors would recognize them. I made it to Canadian Yachting Association Bronze Sail, and never encountered them. That’s both not very high, and recreation-focused, though.
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Apparently, SOS.
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Abandoned by who? For ham radio operators, Morse code is still very much alive and well.
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Morse has been abandoned by the international agencies who run maritime law, rescue, and so on. Which is a shame, because there aren’t many codes you can use by banging on pipes, or flashing torches or heliographs, or just sparking a gap.
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It’s very hard to read Morse that was sent by banging on pipes. Morse requires two distinct symbols to represent long and short, and “clank” sounds the same as “clank”. It’s darn near impossible to tell the difference between a long clank and a pause between letters. For example you couldn’t tell the difference between SOS (... --- ...) and SGU (... --. ..-)
But it’s a great plot device in TV shows and movies, where the hero remembers Morse from Boy Scouts and uses it to save the day.
SOS works because the pattern is easily recognizable, and is clearly of human origin and not an animal or accidental sound; not because the letters are clear and distinct.
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For banging, you can use the silence between double taps to indicate a dit or dah like an old telegraph sounder.
When a sender pressed the key, the receiver’s sounder clicked. When the sender released it, the receiver’s sounder would clack. The length of silence between the two sounds differentiated a dit from a dah.
Edit: clarification
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So true! I was stuck down a well and banged out an “SOS”. They sent down a goat in underwear.
To this day everyone calls it our “Meet Cute” story.
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Landline telegraphers differentiated short and long clicks from sounders. You’d think it was on/off no difference but not so. My dad was a landline telegrapher, good enough for press service, and he could tell the difference. I only knew “radio” code and found it hard to decode landline . Pipe banging may be another matter, though 
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