The first distress call used by the early Marconi Company was CQD -- CQ being the general call to alert other ships that a message is coming and D standing for 'danger' or 'distress.' 'For various technical reasons this proved unsatisfactory and in 1908, by international agreement, a signal made up of three dits, three dahs and three dits was adopted as the one most easily transmitted and understood. By coincidence, this signal is translatable as SOS. During World War II a new distress signal, SSS, was devised for use only when the cause of the distress was a submarine torpedoing." From the "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1977, 1988)
And if playing GWX 2.0 and up?
You can hear the CQD in Morse if you know where to find it.
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