August 23: First ship-to-shore signal to a United States station

On this day, the first ship-to-shore wireless message in United States history is sent by Lightship No. 70 to a coastal receiving station at the Cliff House in San Francisco.  "Sherman is sighted," the message said, referring to the troopship Sherman, which was returning a San Francisco regiment from the battlefields of the Spanish-American War.  It marked the first use outside of Great Britain of this technology.

In September 1899, Marconi travelled to New York to demonstrate his wireless technology.  His assignment was to give up-to-the-minute reports of the America's Cup yacht race between Columbia and Shamrock, being held off Sandy Hook, Long Island.  From the deck of an observation ship, Marconi used his wireless to report the progress of the race to a wireless operator at the New York Herald.  As each update reached the newsroom, editors' awe intensified.  Never in history had an event been tracked in this manner.  The next issue of the Herald proclaimed: "Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Triumphs."

Until the dawn of this century (1900) ships great and small sailed for distant ports and, once they had passed over the horizon, were lost to the world until weeks or months later when they were again sighted on shore.  Once out of sight of land those who went down to the sea in ships belonged to another world — a world of stark loneliness and utter silence.  Ships burned or foundered in storms with not so much as a whisper reaching land to tell their fate.  The crew of a sinking or burning ship fought their battle for life, silently and alone. Wireless telegraphy with its magic powers was to wrest from the sea its ancient terror of silence and to give speech to ships which had been mute since the dawn of navigation.

Karl Baarslag, SOS to the Rescue, Oxford University Press, 1935. Thomas H. White Radio at Sea (1891-1916)

1900 March 24: Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Ltd.

The name of the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company is changed to Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited. 

The Marconi International Marine Company was incorporated on this day, to handle Marconi's marine (ship communications) business.

Father Roberto Landell de Moura, a Roman Catholic priest and inventor, is said to have publicly demonstrated a radio broadcast of the human voice on 3 June 1900 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  (Unfortunately, most of the online information about this event is in the Portugese language, thus is effectively inaccessible.)

On 4 July 1900 the British Admiralty entered into a contract with Marconi Company for installation of their apparatus on 26 ships and six coast stations at a cost of £3,200, plus an annual royalty of the same amount during life of the contract.  The contract stipulated that each set be tested and operate satisfactorily between Portland and Portsmouth, a distance of 65 miles.  Additionally, it required Marconi Company to train naval signalmen in use of the apparatus at that company's expense. 

This lease was the subject of considerable misunderstanding between the Royal Navy and Marconi Company Under British law, Marconi stood in a somewhat precarious position in attempting to introduce his system into the United Kingdom.  By act of Parliament, enacted in 1863, and amended in 1869, the government was given a monopoly over any telegraph apparatus for transmitting messages or other communication by means of electric signals.  Several attempts were made from time to time to test validity of the government's position, but in every instance it was upheld.  In 1899 Marconi Company applied to the postmaster general for a license to use the system on land in England, but the government refused to grant it.  If postal authorities, exercising the monopoly, had been so disposed, they could have compelled Marconi to close all his experimental stations, since he had not received official sanction for them.  The Marconi firm, being protected by the Patents Act, the government was placed in the same position as a private individual.  Although the government possessed the monopoly, it was unable to adopt the Marconi system without awarding compensation, either by purchasing the system outright, or by payment of royalty. In a later agreement, dated 24 July 1903, the Admiralty solved the problem by awarding Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company satisfactory compensation for naval installations. 

1900 December 23: Fessenden transmits the human voice from Cobb Island

Although best known for his 1906 Christmas Eve broadcast of music and voice from Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Reginald Fessenden actually made the first transmission of voice in 1900 while under contract to the United States Weather Bureau.  His continuous wave theory – whereby a sound wave is combined with a radio wave and transmitted to a receiver where the radio wave is removed so that the listener hears only the original sound – describes how radio works today.  Fessenden proved his theory on 23 December 1900 from an island in the Potomac River, near Washington, D.C.  Speaking to an associate who was a mile away with a receiving unit, Fessenden said:

"One - two - three - four, is it snowing where you are Mr Thiessen?  If it is, would you telegraph back to me?"

Thiessen replied (by landline telegraph) in the affirmative and the rest, as they say, is history.

A History of Wireless Telegraphy (2nd edition, revised) John Joseph Fahie, 1901 .

1901 March: The Slaby system of Wireless Duplex Telegraphy

From an ill-understood curiosity wireless telegraphy seems at last to have become an important and valuable branch of electrical science. Much of the credit for this evolution is due to Prof. Slaby, of Charlottenburg, Germany, and collaborator, Count Arco, both of whom have systematically investigated the phenomena of the Hertzian waves and formulated laws by which these phenomena can be explained. As a result of their labors, the uncertainty and whimsicality of wireless telegraphy have disappeared... Not the least interesting feature of Prof. Slaby's invention is the possibility of receiving two messages simultaneously at a single station.

"...communication can be maintained while the vehicle is traveling..."

In 1901, Lee De Forest and Edward Smythe obtained a contract with the Publisher's Press Association to provide radio reports of the 1901 international yacht races.  So unprepared was he for the competition that, had it not been for the long postponement of the races caused by the assassination of President McKinley, he would not have had his apparatus ready.

During the contest both the Marconi and De Forest mobile stations noticed their shore units signaling frantically with flags asking, "What is the matter?  Signals confused.  Cannot read." De Forest tried to improve his transmissions, and, seeing no more signaling, gained the impression he was getting through satisfactorily.  When his tug docked he expected to be overwhelmed with congratulations, feeling he had made a great showing against his competitors.  However, the event had produced three losers, Lipton's Shamrock II, Marconi, and De Forest. 

The American Wireless Telephone & Telegraph Company, having no sponsor, had nothing to lose and everything to gain by preventing the reception of their competitors' transmissions.  The simultaneous broadband transmissions of the spark sets simply jumbled each other into both illegibility and incoherency.  The failures of the race-reporting efforts of the Marconi and De Forest interests proved of great value to others and, by experience, even to the losers.  Shoemaker, who had developed the American Wireless Telephone & Telegraph Company equipment, was catapulted into prominence in the radio world...

On the 11th of May, 1897, when the crucial tests of Mr. Marconi's then new wireless system were being made in England, that the Italian inventor was assisted by Prof. Slaby, who saw and believed in the ultimate useful future of spark telegraphy. To-day both he and Marconi are the inventors of improvements of the highest type, and these improvements are for the greater part specifically for the purpose of enabling messages to be sent and received by a number of operators in the same vicinity at one and the same time. Prof. Slaby terms this method of selectiveness multiple wireless telegraphy, and Mr. Marconi designates his means to this end under the caption of syntonic wireless telegraphy...

The Slaby-Arco Portable Field Equipment for Wireless Telegraphy by Fred Collins Scientific American, 28 Dec 1901

The Complete Works of Frederick Collins, 1900 - 1909 by John D. Jenkins

On this day, Marconi and his assistants were able to hear the three short bursts of the Morse code 'S' at the receiving station set up in a hospital in Signal Hill, St. John's Newfoundland. This first transatlantic telegraph transmission originated in Poldhu in Cornwall, England, 2100 miles [3400km] across the Atlantic Ocean.

...I will give you a brief description of what my system has at present accomplished, especially in reference to use on ships, and what I hope it will accomplish in the future.  Wireless telegraphy is now attracting very great attention all over the world, and its progress is not slow.  Five years ago, the system with which my name is identified was working over a distance of about two miles [about 3km], but its range has been rapidly increased until a few months ago it was quite possible to communicate by means of an improved and attuned system over a distance of 200 miles [about 300km].  The commercial application of the system has been given serious consideration, and improvements of importance have been made.  It may interest you to know that the commercial application of the system has been tried in Great Britain, its chief base being in England.  It may interest you, also, to know that there are over seventy ships carrying permanent installations for wireless telegraphy.  Of these thirty-seven are in the British Navy, twelve in the Italian Navy and the remainder are on the large liners, such as the vessels of the Cunard Line, the North German Lloyd and the Beaver Line.  There are over twenty land stations equipped in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe, which work in connection with the ships, and several on this side of the water, and a certain number of Lloyd's signal stations are now being equipped....

In February 1902, a Marconi receiving station was installed on the steamship Philadelphia, proceeding from Southampton to New York.  The receiving aerial was rigged to the mainmast, the top of which was 197 feet above the level of the sea, and a syntonic receiver was employed, enabling the signals to be recorded on the tape of an ordinary telegraph recorder.  On this voyage readable messages were received from Poldhu (in Cornwall, England) up to a distance of 1550 miles, and test letters were received as far as 2100 miles.

It was on this voyage that Marconi made the interesting discovery of the effect of sunlight on the propagation of electric waves over great distances.  He found that the waves were absorbed during the daytime much more than at night and he eventually reached the conclusion that the ultraviolet light from the sun ionized the gaseous molecules of the air, and ionized air absorbs the energy of the electric waves, so that the fact was established that clear sunlight and blue skies, though transparent to light, serve as a fog to the powerful Hertzian waves of wireless telegraphy.  For that reason the transmission of messages works better between England and Newfoundland across the North Atlantic, than in the clearer atmosphere of lower latitudes. Marconi's 1902 experiments on the Philadelphia were performed at 366 metres wavelength (820 kilohertz).  These effects are very frequency dependent, as Marconi and others gradually appreciated in the following years.

1902 March 22: Spanish Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Julio Cervera Baviera founded the Spanish Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Corporation bringing the patents he had obtained in Spain, Belgium, Germany and England and established the second and third regular radiotelegraph service in the history of the world in 1901 and 1902 by maintaining regular transmissions between Tarifa and Ceuta for three consecutive months, and between Javea (Cabo de la Nao) and Ibiza (Cabo Pelado).  This was after Marconi established the radiotelegraphic service between the Isle of Wight and Bournemouth in 1898.

The Kaiser published an order to the effect that the Slaby-Arco telegraphic system should be exclusively employed on all vessels of the imperial navy and in all coast signal stations. This imperial order is of wider significance than is at first apparent, since the commercial marine will also of necessity adopt the system which has been rendered obligatory for the navy.

Eighteen months ago, as a result of investigations made by the German Postmaster General as to which was the best system of wireless telegraphy, it was found, in a report made, that the "Schäfer system of spark telegraphy" was the best.  But the report concluded: "From the present state of spark telegraphy in Germany it may be said that the Gernan systems can completely replace the Marconi one, but the incompleteness of practical experiments prevents any real decision as to the best German system."

The first transatlantic radio press report, 15 December 1902

"On This Day" (in history), The National Post, 15 December 2006

1903: New Zealand Wireless Telegraphy Act

In the late 1890s, the Slaby-Arco wireless system of wireless telegraphy was developed in Germany by Adolf Karl Heinrich Slaby (1849-1913) and Graf George von Arco (1869-1940).  Germany's first antenna installation was erected by Professor Slaby and Count Arco on the tower of the Heiland Church in Sacrow in August 1897, their first successful transmitting experiments having covered half a kilometre in June of that year, only three months after Slaby had witnessed a series of demonstrations by Marconi on Salisbury Plain in England only one year previously. In May 1903, pressure from the German government resulted in a three-way merger of the work Braun, the Siemens Brothers and Slaby-Arco AEG wireless firms, to form the Telefunken company.

When interviewed to-day, Professor Slaby uttered an emphatic denial of the charge made by Mr. Marconi that he had adopted his principles in the development of the Slaby-Arco wireless system.  Professor Slaby not only parries the blow but thrusts back by asserting that Mr. Marconi made use of receiving apparatus invented by the Russian M. Popoff, and of tubes invented by the Frenchman Mr. Branly, in making the test in 1897 in the Bristol Channel for the benefit of the British Postal Department. — International Herald Tribune, 10 April 1902 1903: United States Navy's radio tests

In 1903 seven manufactured systems were tested aboard two warships, the USS Topeka and USS Prairie. Reception distances ranged up to 62 miles [120km] for Slaby-Arco (Germany) to only 13 nautical miles [25km] for Rochefort.  Lack of equipment and trained operators hindered the testing.  By September the Navy had acquired 37 Slaby-Arco devices and 18 by other manufacturers.  Naturally American manufacturers began to complain about the purchases from the German outfit.

Current status of the Wireless Telegraph technology

...The Marconi Company has established posts at various points in the United States, in Canada and in the United Kingdom, also at a few Continental points, and at several of Lloyds stations throughout the world. Various steamers have bought their apparatus, and travellers are now frequently able to keep in touch with the world during the whole passage across the Atlantic, by means of the Marconi apparatus on board other ships and at the shore stations. When Prince Henry visited the United States, he travelled on board a German steamer having a Marconi apparatus, and his approaching arrival was duly notified to the world. When he returned to Germany, he was on board another German steamer furnished with the German Slaby-Arco apparatus. On approaching the isle of Wight, the Marconi station at first communicated, and then, finding the apparatus of a rival on board, refused to take a message. Emperor William of Germany thereupon called a preliminary conference of the Powers to consider the matter... (This was 1903 International Radio Telegraphic Conference, Berlin.)

...Marconi was the first to discover the fact that the most satisfactory way of collecting the waves caused by the spark and transmitting them through space, and of receiving them and conveying them to the Branly tube, was to have two upright wires, one at each station.  Marconi's discovery gave the clue to practical and useful ranges; he was the first to see the commercial value of Wireless Telegraphy, and the Marconi Company was the first company in the field to exploit the new discovery.  There is no question, in this resume, of reflecting in any way on the claims of rival inventors.  Lodge, Fleming, Muirhead, Fessenden, De Forest, Tesla, Ducretet, Rochefort, Guarini, Popoff, Arco, Braun, Slaby, etc., have all contributed in most material fashion to the present imperfect solution of the problem; and in many cases the patents show that there have been independent discoveries of exactly the same thing in different countries at practically the same time.  It is the old story over again that is found in the history of so many inventions: the world being ripe for the idea, the minds of many men in many countries were turned to it at the same instant.  Consequently, the future battle of patents is one which is likely to be severe.

The possibility of practical Wireless Telegraphy being established, three questions immediately presented themselves:
          (1) how to secure secrecy;
          (2) how to prevent interference;
          (3) how to obtain range.
It may be stated that to-day the practical working range, used between ship and ship at sea and between ship and shore, varies from thirty to forty nautical miles [about 60 to 80km], though the apparatus of the various makers is scheduled (claimed) to range from 100 to 125 nautical miles [about 200 to 250km].  This is because there are so many misstudied phenomena whose effect is not yet thoroughly understood.  For example, electric disturbances of the atmosphere such as thunder storms, near or distant, have a marked effect.  Sunlight has also a marked effect... In order to obtain secrecy, two methods are now being studied.  By the first method the sending and receiving apparatus are tuned to a similar wave-length. 

To reach the extreme ranges obtained by Marconi, it has been found necessary to erect huge wire-cages at Poldhu, Glace Bay and Cape Cod, so often shown in the illustrated papers.  An apparatus of one hundred and fifty horse-power is said to be employed; but the Marconi Company are naturally jealous of their business interests and nothing is known of their exact methods of procedure by anyone except the experts of the company... 1903: International Yacht Races of 1903 Another fiasco, an early example of deliberate "jamming"

How the Newcomers Made the Old Companies Look Ridiculous
The rival wireless companies again came in conflict in the international yacht races of 1903, when Sir Thomas Lipton brought his Shamrock II over from England, to win the America's Cup.  For fast reporting of the race, one of the press associations used the Marconi system, and another had the De Forest apparatus on its tug boat.  The International Wireless Telegraph Company (IWT), failing in their effort to get the press associations to use their system, set up a very powerful station on the Navesink Highlands.  Throughout the yacht races, the IWT operators ran their transmitter continuously, producing such powerful electrical interference that neither the Marconi nor the De Forest signals could be read by the onshore listeners.  The IWT operators on the shore, when they tired of sending "A-A-A," and "B-B-B," amused themselves by calling the Marconi and De Forest operators bad names.  Some of the etheric language sent out from Navesink Highlands during those races was not fit to print.  The Marconi and De Forest people tore their hair, but the IWT promoters truthfully said that there was no law to prevent a man from sending all the wireless messages he desired out into the great unknown.
— Fools and Their Money by Frank Fayant...The story of the Wireless Telegraph bubble... Success Magazine, January 1907, pages 9-11, 49-52

1904 February: Wireless telegraph on ships at sea

Messages are sent and received by ships at sea. The amount of electric power available aboard an ordinary passenger liner is sufficient to send wireless messages 150 miles [280km] under favorable circumstances.  Knowing the sailing-days and speeds of the ships that they are likely to meet or overtake, the navigating officers of a liner can calculate roughly when they are likely to come within the required radius of another floating telegraph office. Sometimes a vessel has been in almost daily communication with others all the way across the North Atlantic.  The Work of a Wireless Telegraph Man The World's Work, February 1904

Marconi International Marine Communication Company, Circular No. 57:

In its endeavour to secure equipment manufactured in the United States, the Navy Department on 2 April 1904 revitalized its Wireless Telegraph Board. The testing, which continued through 1904 and a portion of 1905, culminated with a final report, which stated that Telefunken equipment was the most desirable. 1905: Australia Wireless Telegraphy Act1905 May 27: Japanese use radio in major naval battle

Wireless telegraph contributes to Japanese victory at Tsushima Strait. The Japanese navy used radio communication to scout the Russian fleet during the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, a crushing Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War. On the night of 26-27 May 1905, as they approach Japan's Tsushima Strait the Russian fleet, wanting to sail undetected into Vladivostok, steer outside regular shipping channels to reduce the chance of detection, but by chance a Japanese ship sees their lights.  At 5am, intercepted radio (wireless telegraph) signals tell the Russians that they have been discovered. Admiral Togo receives the message at 5:05am, and immediately he begins to prepare his battle fleet for a sortie.  Throughout the day, the Japanese Navy uses frequent radio messages to convey intelligence reports and battle orders.  By sundown the Russians are decisively defeated.  Overnight, Japan becomes one of the world's greatest nations, in part because of effective use of the new wireless telegraph technology – the first significant use of radio in war.


1905 December 19: New distance record for wireless telegraph transmission

In 1905, the American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company built a wireless telegraph station at Manhattan Beach, Coney Island. On the night of 19 December 1905, this station was heard by the Navy's newly completed Canal Zone station a distance of 2,150 miles. 1906: First Alexanderson alternator1906 October 3: Berlin Wireless Telegraphy Conference

Called with a view to bringing about an international agreement in regard to the use of the new means of communication.  To try to bring about an arrangement between the Slaby-Arco system used by Germany, and the Marconi system, employed in England.  Great Britain and its colonies have given a monopoly to the Marconi Company, which already possesses 74 stations in England and America.  In addition, 660 British war vessels and 85 large steamships are fitted with Marconi apparatus.  The Marconi Company refuses to hold communication with vessels equipped with the apparatus of other companies. — International Herald Tribune, 3 October 1906 1906 November 3: International Wireless Telegraph Convention, Berlin

An international radio agreement was signed at Berlin, Germany on 3 November 1906, by Germany, The United States of America, Argentina, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Monaco, Norway, The Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and Uruguay.

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was the first person to prove that voices and music could be heard over the air without wires. The early development of radio waves for communication, by Popov, Marconi and others, depended on generating and broadcasting short bursts of electromegnetic energy, that could imitate the dots and dashes of telegraph communication through wires.  Fessenden had many ideas about communication by radio – his most important was the idea that information could be transmitted by continuous radio waves.  Fessenden thought that this could be done by modulating (varying) the amplitude (power) of the broadcast radio wave.  At the receiving end, the modulated wave could be converted to audible sound, making possible the broadcasting by radio of speech and music.  On 24 December 1906, Fessenden used his own equipment set up to broadcast music

Radio's First Voice by Mervyn C. Fry

Company prepared to take transatlantic business by Oct. 1. The officials of the company anticipate that all preparations will be completed before the middle of September, and say that satisfactory exchanges of messages between the Irish station at Clifton and the Canadian station at Cape Breton have been going on for weeks past...

Marconi arrived in Glace Bay. "Yes, we have surmounted all the difficulties and we are sure of success."  "You use Coninental Morse in sending your messages, do you not?"  "Yes, but if I find that the ordinary Morse code suits us better we shall adopt it.  We are able to send space letters by wireless."  "How many words can you send per minute, Mr. Marconi?"  "Well, we have not tried for speed, but we usually send twenty words a minute.  We could send faster than that."  Mr. Marconi stated that bad weather would not affect the service, provided the masts and poles used in wireless system remained undamaged, and that the rates would be ten cents a word for ordinary commercial messages and five cents a word for press dispatches.  These rates, he said, would be cut in two later.

The messages sent from the station at Glace Bay will be received on the other side of the Atlantic at Clifden, Ireland, where, Mr. Marconi said, a new plant had been established, fitted out with the latest machinery, much more powerful than that of the older station at Poldhu, Cornwall.  The Cornwall Station, however, would be utilized as a secondary plant.

"Who will send the first wireless commercial message?"  "I have not chosen anyone, and very likely it will be myself who will do so."  "Have you yet chosen a name for your message?"  "No not yet.  'Marconigram' seems to stick on the tongue, and so far we have no other." — The New York Times, 24 September 1907

The British Admirality has made arrangements for installing wireless telephones in some of the vessels of the fleet.  The work is being carried out by the Radio Telegraph Company.  It is said that by these wireless telephones conversation can be carried on between two vessels that are thirty miles apart.  The voices heard on these wireless telephones are clear and distinct, and telephoning is in many respects easier at sea than on land...

This newspaper clipping mentions the Radio Telegraph Company as the supplier of these radio telephones to the British Navy.  This may refer to the Amalgamated Radio Telegraph Company Limited, formed in 1906 in Denmark.

Wireless Dispatch from London Correspondent Will Open Marconi Service

Recognizing the great interest in this epoch-making event shown by The New York Times, the Marconi Company has arranged that the first message transmitted westward across the Ocean shall be one for that newspaper from its London correspondent.  The first eastward has already been filed.  It is from Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier of the Dominion of Canada, to The London Standard. In it Sir Wilfred will congratulate the English people upon the establishment of this new means of communication between Great Britain and Canada. — The New York Times, 17 October 1907 1907 October 17: Marconi's transatlantic telegraph begins commercial operation

On this day, Marconi's new transatlantic wireless telegraph service is officially opened for regular commercial operation.  The eastern station is located at Clifden, Ireland, and the western station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

• Interior Description...Operator's Room...Marconi Wireless Sydney, 16 Oct 1907

• Marconi Says Continuous Wireless Within Week Halifax, 16 Oct 1907

• Trans-Atlantic Wireless Today Halifax, 17 Oct 1907

• Wireless Message Across the Atlantic Halifax, 18 Oct 1907

• Marconi...Sent 10,000 Across the Atlantic Halifax, 18 Oct 1907

• Wireless Joins Two Worlds New York, 18 Oct 1907

• Wireless from King Edward Halifax, 19 Oct 1907

• Congratulations for Marconi Halifax, 21 Oct 1907

• Marconi's Achievement Halifax, 21 Oct 1907

• Wireless Station in Constant Operation Halifax, 24 Oct 1907

• Post Reporter Sent Message to Clifden...Short Answer Sydney, 23 Oct 1907

• Second Test of the Marconi Over-Ocean Wireless System... Sydney, 24 Oct 1907

The first westbound message was sent by English statesman Lord Avebury (John Lubbock) to the New York Times.  The first eastbound message was sent from Canadian Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier to the London Standard.  For the first few days, the system was dedicated to transmitting messages to the press, as well as communications from dignitaries and notables.  Among the eminent scientists and inventors involved in the first day's excitement was Hiram Maxim, the father of the machine gun.  He sent a message from London to American inventor Peter Cooper Hewitt, concluding with this remark: "All honor to Marconi!  Perhaps the next step will be to harness the whole energy of Niagara to make an attempt to communicate with the planet Mars."  The messages were supposed to be limited to just fifty words each, but that rule was broken several times on the first day.  One reporter estimated that about 10,000 words were transmitted, both ways, by 7:30pm on the first day.

Source:— Today (Oct 17th) in Technology History Centre for the Study of Technology and Society
     http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/oct17.htm

Transatlantic wireless telegraph service opened for business

Source:— Today (Oct 17th) in Technology History

The first message sent eastward to England on October 17th [the original 1907 article mistakenly gives the date as Oct. 18th, the true date was the 17th] was from Sir Wilfred Laurier (Prime Minister of Canada), and was addressed to the London Standard (newspaper).  British greetings came back.  Then the line was formally declared open for press business, and 10,000 words of press dispatches came back and went forth that day.  The charge was five cents a word, with telegraph tolls on land added, making a rate of about eight cents a word from New York to London.  These are what are called "press rates."  When the world at large can use the line – not today nor, perhaps, this year – the rate will be at least double that amount.  Meantime, the transatlantic wireless is the servant of the newspapers.

The telegraph companies carefully defined a "word" to be exactly five letters.  The telegraph company agent accepting a message for transmission would count the individual letters in the whole message and then divide by five; the result was the number of "words" for the purpose of calculating the charge. Any  fractional  remainder  was  counted  as an  additional  word. The  letter  count  included  the address  to  which  the telegram was to be delivered, all  numbers  had to be  spelled  out in full,

The first message sent westward from England on October 17th:

General Manager John Bottomley of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America received the following telegram yesterday morning at 10:42 from an aide in charge of the transatlantic wireless sending station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia: "Everything going splendidly.  Have handled a couple of thousand words already.  Shall be busy all day."  Messages to be sent across the Atlantic by the wireless system are filed at the local Western Union and Postal telegraph offices, just as if they were to be sent by cable.  They are then sent to Glace Bay over the wires of these companies.  There the Marconi people take up the message and send it across the sea.  Mr. Bottomley estimated that the Glace Bay office must have handled between 4,000 and 5,000 words yesterday.  Few except congratulatory and press messages are to be sent thus for the first two or three days.

Telegram rates cut in half. There is not necessarily any advantage in the promptness or accuracy with which messages will be delivered.  The real advantage, and it is an enormous one, lies in the cheapness and in the ability to extend the means of doing increased business at far less cost than is required with the cables. 

The New York Times

Already the great value of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph as a means of transmitting news dispatches across the Atlantic has been thoroughly demonstrated.  In less than a month from the completion of the stations at Glace Bay and Clifden the Marconi Company has become an active and potent competitor with the cable companies in the quick and accurate service of foreign news...
— The New York Times, 4 November 1907 1907 December 19: Telephone Across the Atlantic Soon

Poulsen expects to transmit telephone messages next February

COPENHAGEN, December 18:— The American minister, Dr. Maurice F. Egan, and others from the American legation as well as several representatives from the French legation, visited the laboratory of Professor Poulsen, who recently developed a new system of wireless transmission and he demonstrated the power of his equipment to transmit messages clearly and accurately.  He said that he hoped to communicate with America via Ireland by wireless telephone in February next.
— Halifax Herald, 19 December 1907

1908 January 22: Wireless System to Open

Private Messages will be taken by the Marconi Co. after Feb. 2

Only between London and Montreal

LONDON, Jan. 21:— Before his departure for Ireland tonight William Marconi told The New York Times correspondent that the Marconi transatlantic wireless system will be opened to the public on Feb. 1 or 2, and that in the beginning the service will be between London and Montreal only via Clifden, Ireland, and Poldhu, Cornwall, on the eastern shore of the Atlantic, and Glace Bay, on the western shore.  Montreal was chosen as the beginning point for the transmission of business and private messages because Canada has subsidized the wireless system to the extent of $80,000.  In the effort of the American telegraph companies to stifle the company, through fear of its competition, Mr. Marconi said: "The telegraph companies placed a grave obstacle in the way of our success by refusing to accept at press rates messages filed in New York for transmission via Glace Bay, thus adding from 8 to 4 cents a word to the cost of an east-bound message, while the regular press rates from New York to Glace Bay were only 1 cent a word..." The rate on private messages between London and Montreal will be only twelve cents a word, seven cents less than the rate charged by the cable companies.

Aerial wires at Glace Bay broken in big Nova Scotian storm

Restoration delayed by fierce cold and icy condition of poles from which wires are strung

LONDON, April 25:— The Marconi Transatlantic Telegraph service is having its first serious interruption since its inauguration last October.  This interruption accounts for the fact that the European correspondents of The New York Times to-day are transmitting their dispatches for The Sunday Times by cable instead of by wireless telegraph...

"...every auto will be provided with a portable wireless telephone..."

(Brief) Reminiscences of Old-Timers: William Dubilier

The SS Republic, a Royal Mail Ship (RMS) authorized to carry both the British and United States mails, was flagship of the White Star Line steamship company's Boston-European Service, and one of the largest and most luxurious passenger liners in the world.  On the morning of 23 January 1909, the Republic, outbound from New York, was rammed by the Florida, in heavy fog off the coast of Massachusetts. Republic immediately began sending distress signals by Marconi wireless.  (This is reportedly the first practical application of the then recently invented wireless in an open sea rescue effort.)  Although the Republic eventually sank, it stayed afloat long enough to transfer all of its surviving crew and passengers to safety, and also radioed for assistance from other ships, most importantly the Baltic.  The Republic's initial "CQD" distress signal, sent by Marconi operator Jack Binns, was picked up by the Marconi land station "MSC" at Siasconsett, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.  In this incident, probably 1,500 lives were saved by means of radio.

Within minutes of the collision, the Republic's Marconiman sent the "CQD" ("CQ" meaning "[Attention] All Stations", and "D" meaning "Distress"), the predecessor to today's "SOS" distress signal, over the airwaves to the world at large.  No less than seven ships, including several major liners, responded.  This was the first practical demonstration of this new technology's ability to aid victims of disasters at sea, and this "miracle" captured the wide attention.  It was one of the world's earliest "breaking-news" "live" mass-media event.  The Republic's passengers were transferred twice, first to the less damaged Florida, then to the called-to-the-rescue White Star liner Baltic.  This double-transfer open-sea rescue maneuver remains the largest on record.

of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.

There cannot be many people who screwed up at school, failed to get into university, and then went on to win a Nobel Prize for Physics.  But at least one did, and with good reason: he made radio happen.  In a few years of manic activity, Guglielmo Marconi managed to transform an obscure piece of maths into a social upheaval that makes the dot.com phenomenon look about as radical as a new bike for your postman... No intellectual, Marconi earned his Nobel prize the hard way by dragging a great chunk of physics out of the lab and holding it up for the world to see, approve and, more importantly, buy...

During the First Decade of the Twentieth Century Marconi kept building larger antenna systems, larger since he was striving for greater transmission distance and improved signal reception, which lowered the operating frequency.  At Poldhu in England the frequency of his station in October 1902 was 272 kHz.  His initial station at Table Head, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, in December 1902 was a massive structure comprising 400 wires suspended from four 61 metre wooden towers, with down leads brought together in an inverted cone at the point of entry into the building.  The frequency was 182 kHz.  By 1904 his English antenna had become a pyramidal monopole with umbrella wires, and the frequency was 70 kHz.  In 1905 his Canadian antenna, moved to Marconi Towers, Glace Bay, was a capacitive top-loaded structure, with 200 horizontal radial wires each 305 metres long, at a height of 55 metres, and the frequency was 82 kHz.  By late in 1907 he was using a frequency of 45 kHz...

Will replace transatlantic equipment destroyed by fire

LONDON, Jan. 8:— William Marconi has arranged to sail for America on Jan. 20 to supervise a new installation of his transatlantic wireless apparatus at Glace Bay, in place of that destroyed by fire.  The station at Clifden, on the Irish coast, has been re-equipped, and Marconi is confidently looking forward to a resumption of transatlantic wireless service in the course of the next month.  Experience in the actual working of his system before the destruction of the Glace Bay apparatus had given occasion for valuable observations which will be utilized in the re-equipment of both the Irish and Newfoundland stations...
— The New York Times, 9 January 1910

1910 April 24: Wireless Renewed Across Atlantic

The Marconi wireless station at Glace Bay will be ready for transatlantic business in a few days. The original station was destroyed by fire in August of last year.  The new station occupies a picturesque site on Glace Bay, the station is a landmark for miles around. — The New York Times, 24 April 1910

In 1909, the Poulsen Wireless Telephone & Telegraph Company was founded in San Franscisco.  The associated Poulsen Wireless Corporation of Arizona was incorporated in 1910, and then the Federal Telegraph Company.  The Federal Telegraph Company, specializing in manufacturing arc transmitters, brought Poulsen's arc transmitter to the United States.  When NAA, the United States naval spark station at Arlington, Virginia, went into commission in 1912, an arc transmitter also was installed; thus two rivals, Fessenden with the spark, Poulsen with the arc met on a common proving ground.  Arc transmitters up to 500 kilowatts were tested by the U.S. Navy.  One main disadvantage was found in that the arc emitted harmonics and arc mush.  The arc produced so much heat that a water cooling system was required.

L to R: Doug Perham, F. Albertus, and Peter V. Jensen.

Image source:

Valdemar Poulsen by Russell Naughton

The Arc Transmitter...Development...of the Poulsen System in Denmark, England...United States by Hans Buhl