Photo credit: In December 1901, Marconi set up his receiving station on Signal Hill, in an abandoned hospital, not far from the Cabot Tower that was constructed a few years previously to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland, and Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Photo credit: The wreckage of the antenna array at Poldhu after a gale in September, 1901. The Marconi Company transmitter at Poldhu, Cornwall, Circa 1901. John's Newfoundland the ideal location for his receiving station. Fearing that the signal would not travel the distance to Cape Cod with the shorter antenna, Marconi decided that transmission should be attempted to the nearest landfall on the American continent. But when a storm damaged the Poldhu antenna, Marconi was forced to replace it with a shorter one. Marconi set up a transmitter at Poldhu, in Cornwall, on England’s west coast and a receiving station at Cape Cod in Massachusetts, on the east coast of the United States. Marconi, however, believed that radio waves could follow the curvature of the earth and he set out to prove his case. Over longer distances, the scientific community reasoned, the curvature of the earth would cause the wireless waves to shoot out into space making transmission across the Atlantic impossible. They believed that radio waves traveled in straight lines, which was true, and was therefore useful for only short distances. In 1899, he successfully transmitted a message across the English Channel to France.Īt that time, scientists were unsure how far a wireless signal could travel. In 1896 he patented his first device for wireless telegraphy and in 1897 found investors for his Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, which began manufacturing radio sets that were able to transmit and receive messages in Morse Code. But when the Italian government showed no interest in his work, Marconi moved to Great Britain where his work received greater support. Marconi realized that with additional funding and research he could build a more powerful device that could span greater distances and prove valuable both commercially and militarily. At the age of only twenty, Marconi discovered that by grounding the transmitter and increasing the height of the antenna, he could extend the range of wireless signals. From his early years, he developed an interest in science, particularly the work of German physicist Heinrich Hertz on the transmission of electromagnetic waves through the air. Guglielmo Marconi was born in 1874 into a wealthy family in Bologna, Italy, and educated by private tutors. It was on top of this hill, in December 1901, that Guglielmo Marconi stood to receive the world’s first wireless transatlantic transmission.Ĭabot Tower on Signal Hill. To the north lies Quidi Vidi Lake, and to the west lies the city towards which the hill descends gently in ridges and valleys. The rock, known as Signal Hill, stands on St John's eastern shore across a narrow waterway that leads into the harbour. Overlooking the harbour of St John's, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, is a massive piece of rock towering 140 meters above the Atlantic Ocean.
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