The investigation found the call, which referred to an attempted overdose, should have received an urgent response but the priority level was incorrectly downgraded by a radio operator.

BBC: Greater Manchester Police criticised over 999 call death

In spite of such horrors, and in spite of such feats as bicycling over 500km in under 72 hours to find a radio operator, Captain Wake was having the time of her life.

ECONOMIST: Nancy Wake

Jacob Wooley , 23, of Guntown, Mississippi, was a field radio operator.

CNN: SHARE THIS

In the mid-sixties, when the BBC was still monopolizing radio in Great Britain, a rogue operator, broadcasting from a ship anchored in the North Sea, plays rock to a country that could only hear the Beatles and the Stones live or by going to a record store.

NEWYORKER: Pirate Radio