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I finally was able to get the name of the ship my great-grandfather traveled to from Norway to Newport News, Virginia. That ship is the Noruega, run by Norway-Mexico Gulf Line, and I am fairly confident it departed from Olso (Christiania) on April 9, 1912, and arrived at Newport News, Virginia on May 1, 1912. I'm quite curious at to the path it took during that voyage, particularly because that is the same time frame that the Titanic left, and a family legend has it that his ship heard the distress call of the Titanic. From what I've been able to deduce, the distance would have been immense, I had gathered a day's travel would have been required from the family legend, but from what I have deduced, the distance was more likely on the very edge of radio range in the day, likely closer to 1700 miles, about a week's worth of travel time with the speed of the ship. I could be quite a bit off on these, BTW.

What I can't tell is if it stopped anywhere along the way, or if the way they went was above or below England. Above would be shorter, but...

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  • One of the radio sites linked to in my answer estimated the broadcast range of the Titanic's radio set at night as going up to 2,000 miles. marconigraph.com/titanic/wireless/mgy_wireless.html is a dead link -- I'll check the Wayback Machine and link to a snapshot if possible. – Jan Murphy♦ Sep 27 at 5:24
  • I saw that. So in range, but barely. – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 27 at 5:25
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    I note that your family story is that the Noruega was able to hear the distress call. Not that the ship was able to respond. – Jan Murphy♦ Sep 27 at 5:27
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    There were conflicting stories, but all stories say the call was heard, but too far away to do anything. It just turns out too far is further than I thought. – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 27 at 5:30
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The Scandinavian America Line went from Copenhagen via Christiana (Oslo) to New York round the north side of the British Isles according to the map on http://www.norwayheritage.com/scandinavian-america-line-voyages.htm

It's only a small partial map but I can hardly imagine that big a discrepancy between reality and the map as to turn left into the North Sea instead of carrying straight on.

Calling points of the Norway Mexican Gulf line appear on this link but there's clearly a big jump and no map. http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_shiplist.asp?co=nmgla - you may already have that.

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