Guglielmo Marconi
- the father of radio
Marconi is often called the �Father of Radio� for the many developments he
made to radio, and although he probably did more than any other person to
advance radio technology, he freely admitted that he did not invent it. However
he left behind him a great legacy, with a company that made many wireless sets
from commercial equipment to domestic sets that are collected by vintage
wireless enthusiasts.
Childhood
Guglielmo Marconi was born on 25th April 1874 in Bologna in Northern Italy. His
father was a wealthy Italian and his mother came a Scottish and Irish family of
brewers and distillers.
Marconi's mother loved to travel and the young Guglielmo accompanied her on
many of her trips. As a result the young Marconi received private tuition, and
later he attended a school in Florence. He found his work difficult, but still
managed to progress to the Technical Institute of Leghorn where he was more
successful, and developed an interest in physics.
Unfortunately Marconi left the Institute without any formal qualifications
but he managed to undertake some studies and experiments at home. As a result
his mother she arranged for one of their neighbours, a noted physicist named
Professor Righi to act as an adviser. It was through this contact that Marconi's
interest became focused on the newly discovered Hertzian Waves.
Wireless Experiments
With Marconi's interest fired with ideas of Hertzian Waves, he started by
repeating the experiments of Heinrich Hertz who had discovered the presence of
the waves. Marconi soon realised that the sensitivity of the coherer (the device
used to detect the radio waves) was crucial to the range which could be
achieved. As a result he set about trying to improve its sensitivity by a
process of trial and error and he achieved a considerable degree of success.
Marconi made other discoveries and improvements and eventually he was able to
detect signals at distances up to about two kilometres.
Realising the possibilities this offered for communications he offered the
idea to the Italian authorities but they were not impressed and they dismissed
the idea.
Move
Marconi was not deterred by his rejection, but in order to be able to exploit
his idea he moved to England with his mother in February 1896. Through the
connections of a relation he was introduced to William Preece the Chief Engineer
of the Post Office. Preece was keenly interested in wire-less forms of
communications and had performed a number of experiments himself.
Marconi undertook a number of demonstrations to officials from the Post
Office and also the War Office. Later demonstrations were also made to the
press.
Up until this time the new Hertzian or radio waves used by Marconi had not
been put to any real use. Then in 1897 it was decided to test the new system and
see if it could provided a reliable link across various stretches of water. If
this was successful it would save on the installation of expensive submarine
cables. In some of the first of these tests across the Bristol Channel,
Marconi's system proved to be very successful, further enhancing his image.
Open for business
With the success of these tests interest in the possible uses of radio grew, and
in July 1897 Marconi decided that he had to launch his own company. Named the
"Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company Limited" its foundation allowed him to
borrow further money to allow further tests and development to be performed.
With financial backing behind him he continued his developments and tests.
With the range increases he made it was decided to attempt to make the first
international radio link by transmitting across the English Channel in 1899 from
Wimereux near Boulogne in France to South Foreland near Dover in England.
However it also enabled new discoveries to be made because the transmissions
were picked up over 130 kilometres away in Chelmsford at the company factory.
The Atlantic
The success of the cross channel transmissions lead Marconi to believe that
transmissions could be made across the Atlantic. After many setbacks
transmission tests were commenced between Poldhu in Cornwall England and a
receiving station near St Johns Newfoundland.
Tests commenced in December 1901 and through many difficulties and high
levels of static the transmissions were just picked up, proving transmission
across the Atlantic was possible.
Further Transmissions
Marconi had to terminate his transmissions to Newfoundland for legal reasons he
moved his station to Cape Breton Island. Now using this station he introduced a
news service to create some revenue.
The main area of business for Marconi's company was to provide communications
systems for ships. With the transatlantic link established more ships took the
Marconi system on board. The first commercial installation on a merchant ship
was completed in 1900, and by 1902 seventy ships had Marconi systems on board.
Short Waves
The initial long distance transmissions had been made using very long
wavelengths, typically in excess of 2000 metres. Then in the early 1920s the
short wave bands were starting to be exploited. Many professionals including
Marconi started to experiment with these bands carrying out many experiments.
With proof that the short wave bands could provide reliable communication
over long distances the British Government decided that it needed to install an
Imperial Wireless Network. The Marconi Company approached the British Government
and offered to link up the Empire with short wave stations in England, Canada,
India, South Africa and Australia. As the technology was very new and there was
a high risk of failure the Government insisted that Marconi bore all the risk of
failure. Once installed the system was very successful, and very reliable.
Final Years
In later life Marconi became more involved with politics and the interests of
his native Italy. He had been appointed to the Italian Senate in 1914, but in
later life he undertook diplomatic missions for his country.
His last years were very troubled with the increasing tension of the 1930s.
To add to this his health started to fail and he suffered a number of heart
attacks. Finally he died on 20th July 1937 at the age of 63. This was
the end to a brilliant career spanning true pioneering work in the field of
radio, and the service of his country he loved.
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