[anonymousiam]

They probably ditched the transceiver because it weighed 40-60lbs, which is a lot of extra weight for something that you don't need, based upon "success oriented" planning.

(The linked article says Earhart didn't know enough about radio, either to convert from wavelength to frequency, or to match an antenna to the transmitter. Such knowledge was probably rare in 1937.)

[lucas_membrane]

Earhart had a practice run at navigating over the ocean to a radio source on land prior to the start of her trip. She flew from somewhere around San Francisco out over the ocean, then turned around and tried to fly toward the source of a radio signal using the technique that would guide her to Howland Island. She got lost, and that exercise was never repeated by her.

[jahewson]

Radio had been around for the best part of 40 years by that point.

[laverya]

Compare that to computers, which had been around for the best part of 40 years... in 1980.

[lucas_membrane]

One of the things that may have caused Earhart to underestimate the risk was the high reliability of AM medium wave radio broadcasting in the US over long distances, with over a dozen 50,000 watts and higher clear-channel stations, each serving about half the country reliably just about every night. But short waves (around 7 MHz) in the tropics during daylight with a 50-watt transmitter, and a receiving antenna that you lost on takeoff, is a far different situation. For the trip from Hawaii to the US, their plan was to home in on a powerful AM broadcasting station in Los Angeles, which would rewire its antenna to send most of its power to the west. That might have worked, depending on the time of day.

[laverya]

Not to mention "just fly east" will get you to land just fine from Hawaii. It might not be the land you were looking for, but it will be land - so even if the direction finding failed the error would be survivable.

[IAmBroom]

What's your point?

They didn't, and still don't, teach radio theory for a pilot's license. Can you calculate the ideal quarter-wave length of a single-line antenna for a given frequency?

[bigbuppo]

Sounds like she would have been friends with Stockton Rush if she were alive today.

[eterm]

And indeed if he were alive.