Guglielmo Marconi

Transmission breakthrough

A breakthrough came in the summer of 1895, when Marconi found that a much greater range could be achieved after he raised the height of his antenna and, borrowing from a technique used in wired telegraphy, grounded his transmitter and receiver. With these improvements, the system was able to transmit over hills; in one of the outdoor trials at Villa Griffone, it reached beyond the Celestini hill, at a distance of about 2 km, using a vertical antenna connected to a buried metal plate in an antenna-earth system. The monopole antenna used a lower frequency of the waves compared to those generated by the dipole antennas used by Hertz, radiating vertically polarized radio waves which could travel longer distances. By this point, Marconi concluded that a device could become capable of spanning greater distances, with additional funding and research, and would prove valuable both commercially and militarily. Marconi's experimental apparatus proved to be the first engineering-complete, commercially successful radio transmission system.

Marconi applied to the Italian Ministry of Post and Telegraphs, then under the direction of Maggiorino Ferraris, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding, but never received a response. An apocryphal tale claims that the minister, incorrectly named first as Emilio Sineo and later as Pietro Lacava, wrote "to the Longara" on the document, referring to the insane asylum on Via della Lungara in Rome, but the letter was never found.

In 1896, Marconi spoke with his family friend Carlo Gardini, Honorary Consul at the United States Consulate in Bologna, about leaving Italy to go to Great Britain. Gardini wrote a letter of introduction to the Ambassador of Italy in London, Annibale Ferrero, explaining who Marconi was and describing his discoveries. In his response, Ambassador Ferrero advised them not to reveal Marconi's results until after a patent was obtained. He also encouraged Marconi to come to Britain, where he believed it would be easier to find the necessary funds to turn his experiments into practical use. Finding little interest or appreciation for his work in Italy, Marconi travelled to London in early 1896 at the age of 21, accompanied by his mother, to seek support for his work. He spoke fluent English in addition to Italian. Marconi arrived at Dover, where a Customs officer opened his case and found various apparatuses. The officer contacted the Admiralty in London, and, amid concerns in the United Kingdom about Italian anarchists and suspicion that Marconi might be importing a bomb, his equipment was destroyed.

While in the United Kingdom, Marconi gained the interest and support of William Preece, the Chief Electrical Engineer of the General Post Office (GPO). Marconi applied for a patent on 2 June 1896. British Patent number 12039, titled "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor", became the first patent for a communication system based on radio waves.

Demonstrations and achievements

Marconi gave a series of demonstrations in Britain in 1896 and 1897, including in London, on Salisbury Plain, and across the Bristol Channel. By March 1897, he had transmitted Morse code signals over a distance of about 3 miles (5 km) across Salisbury Plain. On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the first wireless communication over open sea: a message was transmitted over the Bristol Channel from Flat Holm Island to Lavernock Point near Cardiff, a distance of 3 miles (4.8 km). The message read "Are you ready". The transmitting equipment was almost immediately relocated to Brean Down Fort on the Somerset coast, stretching the range to 10 miles (16 km).

Impressed by these and other demonstrations, Preece introduced Marconi's ongoing work to the general public at two important London lectures: "Telegraphy without Wires", at the Toynbee Hall on 11 December 1896; and "Signalling through Space without Wires", given to the Royal Institution on 4 June 1897.

Numerous additional demonstrations followed, and Marconi began to receive international attention. In July 1897, he carried out a series of tests at La Spezia, in his home country, for the Italian government. A test for Lloyd's between the Marine Hotel in Ballycastle and Rathlin Island, both in County Antrim in Ulster, Ireland, was conducted on 6 July 1898 by George Kemp and Edward Edwin Glanville. A transmission across the English Channel was accomplished on 27 March 1899, from Wimereux, France to South Foreland Lighthouse, England. Marconi set up an experimental base at the Haven Hotel, Sandbanks, Poole Harbour, Dorset, where he erected a 100-foot high mast. He became friends with the van Raaltes, the owners of Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, and his steam yacht, the Elettra, was often moored on Brownsea or at the Haven Hotel. Marconi would later purchase the vessel after the Great War and convert it to a seaborne laboratory from which he would conduct many of his experiments. Among the Elettra's crew was Adelmo Landini, his personal radio operator, who was also an inventor.

In July 1898, Marconi's system was also used to report the Kingstown Regatta off the Irish coast, an early use of wireless telegraphy for live reporting of a sporting event.

In December 1898, the British lightship service authorised the establishment of wireless communication between the South Foreland lighthouse at Dover and the East Goodwin lightship, twelve miles distant. On 17 March 1899, the East Goodwin lightship sent the first wireless distress signal, a signal on behalf of the merchant vessel Elbe which had run aground on Goodwin Sands. The message was received by the radio operator of the South Foreland lighthouse, who summoned the aid of the Ramsgate lifeboat.

In 1899, Marconi sailed to the United States at the invitation of The New York Herald newspaper to cover that year's America's Cup international yacht races off Sandy Hook, New Jersey. His first demonstration was a transmission from aboard the SS Ponce, a passenger ship of the Porto Rico Line. Marconi left for England on 8 November 1899 on the American Line's SS Saint Paul, and he and his assistants installed wireless equipment aboard during the voyage. Marconi's wireless brought news of the Second Boer War, which had begun a month before their departure, to passengers at the request of "some of the officials of the American line." On 15 November the SS Saint Paul became the first ocean liner to report her imminent return to Great Britain by wireless when Marconi's Royal Needles Hotel radio station contacted her 66 nautical miles off the English coast. The first Transatlantic Times, a newspaper containing wireless transmission news from the Needles Station at the Isle of Wight, was published on board the SS Saint Paul before its arrival.

Transatlantic transmissions

At the beginning of the 20th century, Marconi turned to the problem of transmitting wireless signals across the Atlantic, in competition with the existing transatlantic telegraph cables. He constructed a high-power transmitting station at Poldhu in Cornwall, England. Marconi had initially intended to conduct receiving tests from Cape Cod in the United States, but after storms damaged the equipment there he established a temporary receiving station at Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland (now part of Canada). On 12 December 1901, using an antenna suspended from a kite, he reported hearing the Morse code letter "S" transmitted repeatedly from Poldhu, over a distance of about 2,200 miles (3,500 km).

The receiving detector associated with the Newfoundland experiment later became the subject of an attribution dispute. A device preserved by the Science Museum Group, known as the "Italian Navy" coherer, is catalogued as a modified carbon-mercury-iron semiconductor diode detector of a type invented by Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1899. The museum associates it with Marconi's December 1901 experiment and notes that it may be the detector on which the transmitted "S" signals were heard. Historical studies state that Marconi obtained the detector through Lieutenant Luigi Solari of the Royal Italian Navy, and have examined the relationship between the apparatus supplied to Marconi and Bose's earlier work on self-restoring detectors. The controversy concerns the origin and attribution of the receiving detector used in the 1901 experiment, rather than the overall development of Marconi's long-distance wireless telegraphy system.

Marconi's reported reception in Newfoundland was widely celebrated, but its evidential basis was later questioned by technical historians. No automatic record of the signal was made at Signal Hill: Marconi and his assistant listened through a telephone receiver for the expected repeated letter S. Later analyses have also noted uncertainty about the wavelength used and the difficulty of transatlantic daytime propagation at the likely frequencies. The 1901 experiment therefore remains historically important as Marconi's reported first transatlantic reception, although the reception itself has continued to be the subject of technical debate.

In February 1902, Marconi conducted more systematic tests aboard the SS Philadelphia while it sailed westward from Great Britain, recording signals transmitted daily from Poldhu. According to his Nobel lecture, readable messages were received by a recording instrument at distances of up to 1,551 miles (2,496 km), while test letters were received at distances of up to 2,099 miles (3,378 km). Marconi also observed during these tests that long-distance reception was substantially better at night than during daylight. These results provided recorded evidence of long-distance wireless propagation, although they did not by themselves resolve the question of the reported Newfoundland reception.

During 1902, Marconi also developed a magnetic detector, which subsequently replaced the coherer in much of the equipment used by his company. In December of that year, official transatlantic wireless messages were exchanged between Poldhu and a new Marconi station at Table Head, near Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Parks Canada recognises the Glace Bay site for the first exchange of radio messages across the Atlantic.

At South Wellfleet, Massachusetts, a Marconi station was used on 18 January 1903 for an exchange of messages between United States President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. The United States National Park Service describes this event as the first public two-way wireless communication between Europe and America.

Marconi continued to construct high-powered stations on both sides of the Atlantic and to develop wireless communication with ships at sea. In 1904, his company established a commercial service transmitting nightly news summaries to subscribing ships for inclusion in their on-board newspapers. A regular commercial transatlantic radiotelegraph service between Glace Bay and Clifden, Ireland, opened on 17 October 1907, although reliable transatlantic communication remained technically difficult for several years.

Titanic

Before the Titanic disaster, the value of maritime wireless had already been demonstrated in the 1909 rescue following the collision between RMS Republic and SS Florida off Nantucket. Republic carried Marconi wireless equipment, and its operator Jack Binns sent repeated CQD distress calls that helped bring rescue ships to the scene and saved more than 1,500 people.

The role played by Marconi Co. wireless in maritime rescues raised public awareness of the value of radio, especially after the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912 and RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915.

RMS Titanic radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were not employed by the White Star Line but by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company. After the sinking of the ocean liner, survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia of the Cunard Line. There was a distance of 93 km (58 miles) between the two ships. When Carpathia docked in New York, Marconi went aboard with a reporter from The New York Times to talk with Bride, the surviving operator. The disaster increased public recognition of Marconi's wireless system and of its importance for maritime safety.

On 18 June 1912, Marconi gave evidence to the British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry into the loss of Titanic regarding the functions of marine wireless telegraphy and procedures for emergencies at sea. Britain's Postmaster-General, Herbert Samuel, summed up the perceived importance of wireless communication in the disaster: "Those who have been saved, have been saved through one man, Mr Marconi... and his marvellous invention."

Marconi was offered free passage on Titanic before she sank, but had taken Lusitania three days earlier. As his daughter Degna later explained, he had paperwork to do and preferred the public stenographer aboard that vessel.

Continuing work

Over the years, the Marconi companies gained a reputation for being technically conservative, in particular by continuing to use inefficient spark-transmitter technology, which could be used only for radio-telegraph operations, long after it was apparent that the future of radio communication lay with continuous-wave transmissions, which were more efficient and could be used for audio transmissions. Somewhat belatedly, the company began significant work with continuous-wave equipment in 1915, after the introduction of the oscillating vacuum tube, or valve.

The New Street Works factory in Chelmsford was the location of one of the first public entertainment radio broadcasts in Britain, on 15 June 1920, when Dame Nellie Melba performed in a broadcast organised by the Marconi Company. In 1922, the Marconi Company operated broadcasting stations at 2MT Writtle, near Chelmsford, and at 2LO in Marconi House, London, both of which helped pave the way for the formation of the British Broadcasting Company.

In 1924, the Marconi-linked company Radiofono was one of the companies that contributed to the formation of the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI), the first Italian radio broadcasting concessionaire and a predecessor of RAI.