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100 Years Since The First Transatlantic Broadcast
Diarmaid O'Loughlin writes "It's the 100th year since the first comunications over the pond
The Marconi Radio Club and The Falmouth Amateur Radio Association Amateur Radio operators are making plans to celebrate a Marconi world historical event. December 12, 2001 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first Trans-Atlantic radio transmission." The BBC is also carrying the story as well. Embedded Geek adds a link to
coverage on stardate.com, pointing out that "there will be events in the ham community to commemorate it, including a reenactment broadcast (look here under 'Marconi's Celebrations' for others)." This would be a nice day to swing by the Cape Cod station, too.
I would have liked to have watched that. TV and learning, who'd have thought?
I thought Marconi was denied patents on the radio because they were already covered by patents from Tesla. Sorry, don't have time to look for links now.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
And to celebrate they've just started selling DAB (Digital) Radio's for under £100, you can get one for your PC for £49, great for recording stuff in native MP2 (MPEG audio was originally created for this).
The stuff is still too expensive for mainstream though.
You are correct, but for Europe only.
Basically Marconi patented his radio circuit but actually built and sold devices using Tesla's. (Yup, lawyers today would have torn Marconi to bits.) Marconi's circuit simply didn't work. Tesla had to go each country proving this, and every single time the country revoked Marconi's patent and awarded it to Tesla. Unfortunately, the 1st world war kicked in before Tesla could do the same in the US. The US government said "hey, all your patents are belong to us", or something like that, thus preventing Tesla from setting the record straight.
It's pretty pathetic that US schools still preach the bullshit Marconi story.
Then it goes on to say: "the Marconi operation at this location was initiated by the young inventor in 1901. However, in December of that year, due to a number of setbacks, he had to use temporary facilities on St. John's, Newfoundland to prove his theory--wireless could cross the Atlantic!"
Doesn't that present a complete turn around from their previous statement?
In any event, the reenactment link has it correct with: "December 12, 2001 will mark the 100th anniversary of the first Trans-Atlantic radio transmission. That signal was transmitted across the Atlantic from Poldhu, Cornwall England to St John's, Newfoundland."
That would be St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Hey, lets all celebrate 100 years of intellecutal property theft or at least the questionable appropriation by Marconi of technology that many consider Tesla's.
http://www.mercury.gr/tesla/marcen.html
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Isn't it amazing that eventhough it is known that Tesla was the pioneer of radio, that Marconi gets all the credit?
I think it's just as horrible as making Buzz Aldrin the first man on the moon, eventhough we know Neil Armstrong was first.
It's clear, even today, that ambition and skill is not related to fame whatsoever. The guy with the best contacts and/or money is the winner, not the clever guy.
Unfortunatly this cable failed after only 3 weeks. A cable laid in 1866 by the Great Eastern remained in operation until 1872, but since there were other cables in operation by then, there has been continous transatlantic communication since 1866.
Instead, they're real big islands off the coast of North America, check out a map. In fact, in Newfoundland, you are closer to Ireland than you are to Chicago.
Since it mentions the first broadcast happened in 1901 they are talking about different firsts... first ever VS first US.
My mistake, sorry!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Actually I woke up this morning to CBC Radio One's hour long special on Marconi, the man and the mission. I was quite nice. In fact I gave up a little study time for it.
It really has been a long time relatively. Considering that transatlantic communication, especially transatlantic routing of IP packets, is more than commonplace now, its hard to imagine people still struggling to get a signal to each other over the atlantic. Stories like this really help to remind us that it wasn't always this easy.
It is nonetheless an appropriate day to celebrate though I do wonder how quickly they started getting spam on their lines?
and I still can't get over the air radio in my cubical. Oh, what dark times we live in. :)
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You can spell team without an I, but not without me!
I totally disagree with your comments. Amateur radio still provides a usefull service in more ways than one.
First of all, the amateur radio operators compose a network of communications that the most completely decentralized form of communication available. While cell phones, satalites, and internet connections are all very hi-tech, they all have central points for failure. It is virtually impossible to knock out amateur communications without killing almost every operator! One or two switching stations or a satallite and cell phones are dead.
Secondly, many of the 'ham-nerds' you speak of are some of the most brilliant electircal engineering type people I have ever met. Many technologies that we use today can be attributed to amateur radio, including the roots for wireless connectivity such as 802.11 (ever heard of packet radio?). You can also find the roots of cell phones in amateur radio.
Thirdly, amateur radio operators provide many valuable services to the community including community service, education, and Disaster Relief (WTC).
You can experience the distinctly other-worldy feeling of the last-century long-distance radio transmission business on the Point Reyes peninsula, a couple of miles north of San Francisco. On the peninsula, near Abbot's Lagoon, there is a big radio transmission installation with several antenna masts. Looking at the masts in fog and mist brings pictures from another time to mind of ships at sea, men in wireless offices and cabins, hunched over morse keys, tapping out important business telegrams to receivers overseas and life-saving messages to ships at sea.
The station started as a Marconi installation, and ceased operation as an MCI maritime radio site in 1997. On the other side of the peninsula, AT&T operates another shore-to-ship station. There is not too much to see at the stations themselves, but visiting Point Reyes is interesting enought in its own right -- so go and marvel at the radio masts if the weather is bad, which is just too likely most of the time.
-- H. Wilker
The ham bands above the shortwave spectrum are perhaps a more interesting target, until you consider that many of them are shared (900 MHZ, parts of the 75cm band) and others are tiny (The most popular 2 meter band is only 4 MHz wide).
The ham radio bands are scattered through the spectrum (to allow for experimentation at different wavelengths) and thus do not represent any contiguous chunk of bandwidth.
Finally, ham radio has a number of justifications - often more important than the desire for bandwidth by internet nerds to be first to reply to a
You may think that the latter is superfluous, but it is still very useful. For example, the Hurricane Watch Net (www.hwn.org) provides valuable assistance to the National Hurricane Center and has been given awards by them and other organizations. Why? Because we communicate with people who do not have sat-phones and whose cell-phones (if they have any) have been disabled by the hurricane. We provide a central communications frequency for those who need to coordinate information on a hurricane - we have had rescue helicopters, warships, hurricane hunter aircraft, ships-in-distress, government research organizations and state department entities contact us in emergencies (contact with non-ham entities is only legal in an emergency). They wouldn't do that if they had the sort of communications you envision.
Likewise, the Skywarn organizations provides invaluable life-saving data to the NWS through ham radio. Why ham radio and not cell phone? Ham radio provides trained operators that filter information for NWS. It also provides a controlled shared frequency for coordinating communications among the many spotters. NWS invests significant resources to train and operate the spotter networks.
Hams help with many other disasters - partly because we can deploy equipment in unplanned for situations, partly because we have redundant and highly varied communications assets, and partly because we often become an inter-organizational communications mechanism for organizations that don't have interoperability.
Ham radio also provides a last-ditch communications method. When your phones are overloaded, or your other methods are out, the *simplest* transmitter to construct or own (if you are poor in the third world) is a CW (morse code) transmitter. All it requires is an oscillator that can be turned on and off, and an easily made antenna.
Ham radio also helps young people learn useful technical and organizational skills.
My father started his electronics interest with ham radio, went on to invent the VLF submarine antenna (his doctoral thesis) and is a respected scientist.
I started with an interest in ham radio. It led me to jobs (while in high school and college) as a broadcast engineer. When I joined the Navy, I was already a trained radio operator, and thus was able to become an airborne radio operator without going to a one year school for it. I got into engineering in college because of ham radio, and that let me into computers, and hence 35 years of computer geekdom. A person met through ham radio led me to group of computer geeks whom I have worked with for the last 30 years. Through ham radio contacts, I have met people in many interesting positions, making friends and also getting personal tours of such places as the Stanford Linear Accelerator and the Multiple Mirror Telescope. Ham radio led me to start my current company, which originally made embedded controller based ham radio repeater controllers. Ham radio has led to adventures including a NASA research expedition, disaster relief in Mexico City after the earthquake, and various other things.
Ham radio operators have developed new technology for use in ham radio, and even in this age of electronic engineering continue to do so. For example, extremely high altitude remote sensing balloons are currently a favorite hobby of some ham nerds.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Of course, they all built on the work of people like Tesla. Fessenden knew the physics better than Marconi, but Marconi knew how to sell it. Sound familiar?
Is this sig nificant?
The provincial government has an official site for the 100th celebrations. The local section of the IEEE is also involved in organizing the celebrations.
Here are some more websites relating to the celebrations:
Dr. Zedel taught me Ocean Acoustics last semester...
By the way, despite being way out in the Atlantic ocean, Newfoundland is a beautiful province and a wonderful place to get away if you like the outdoors, hiking, game hunting, sport fishing, whale-watching, and lots of other things.
Mozilla
I think we should also remember and see the amazing coincidence that on 12/12/1991 the first web page was served by TBL. The web has now become more important than radio or tv for delivering information and communicating - as witnessed by the very existance of slashdot.org.
I love the way history has such interesting coincidences!
I for one would love to give it a go, but every site I've looked at described hundreds of hours of studying and tests and tens of thousands of dollars in equipment.
Is there any way to build a cheap but effective setup? Maybe in the $1000 range? I just get flamed when I asked this question on a ham usenet group.
( And yes, I did RTFFAQ first. :) )
Here's an article about the first transatlantic radio transmission from a member of a Newfoundland amateur radio club.
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Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Actually, the convoluted history of Marconi companies is pretty much impossible to track down. The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company (established in 1897) changed it's name to Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in 1900. It merged with the Eastern Telegraph Company in 1929 to become Imperial and International Communications. However, the manufacturing assets were not part of this merger. From this point it gets hazy; we now have 2 companies, one carrying on the Marconi name (manufacturing); the other (incorporating the original Marconi company) without a mention of Marconi in it's corporate title, despite the fact Marconi himself was part of it. Over the years, each company became part of literally dozens of corporations; some merged with others, some went broke, some had "Marconi" in the corporate title and others did not, etc. Don't read too much into the GEC-Marconi name.
Cool, thanks for the info.
Most ham radio today requires no morse code testing. The technical tests are relatively easy to master and don't require hundreds of hours of studying. There are classes in most areas for prospective hams, or you can buy test study books and cram for them.
Very few hams have tens of thousands of dollars in equipment. You can get on VHF/UHF radio for a few hundred dollars (less if you buy surplus at a hamfest swapmeet). Add to that a $100 packet controller and you have digital modes. HF gear (where you operate by either ground-wave or ionospheric propagation) is more expensive, but you can definitely get a complete station for under $1000.
Or you could really get into the spirit of ham radio and build your own - although I would not recommend building a receiver unless you have a lot of time and expertise. But transmitters (except for SSB) are easy to build. I built my first transmitter.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Tesla is credited for inventing radio by the USPTO, because his 1881 Tesla coil was able to transmit power over large distances, using high frequency electromagnetic waves (radio). His original device was not used for voice communication, but power transmission. A true pioneer, he was working on the last mile power delivery problem before we even had a power grid in the US.
In truth, Marconi received the patent originally, but the USPTO overturned Marconi's patent in 1943, three months after Tesla's death. This patent dispute lasted for nearly half a decade! Marconi was lauded, while Tesla died pennyless.
Tesla was the prototypical geek, the antithesis of Edison and Marconi. Both were showmen, not scientific inventors, which greatly irritated Tesla. Also, because English was not his native language (Serbo-Croat), he avoided any public speaking, as such "demonstrations" by slavic immigrants at the time warranted visits from the KKK. Tesla was poorly treated in a time when no equal opportunity existed for eastern european immigrants.
-- Len
I don't know about that other guy you mentioned, but the French had been flying for years when the Wright brothers first flew. This difference is when the wright brothers were in their cradle french were making uncontrolled hops of 150 feet (meters?), while the wright brothers were able to make fully controled flights lasting several hours.
Of course fully controlled is relative, by todays standard the control was primative, but they were able to safely stay in the air for hours, and come down where they wanted to. Compare that to those who were unable to control their flights.
You have a good point...the tests and equipment costs can be intimidating. However, the cool thing about amatuer radio is that is has been designed for everyone. The tests are actually simple enought that young kids can pass them with the appropriate amount of studying...alls it takes is a good memory, and a keen ear (for the code part). As everyone does...start with the Technician Exam (Element 1) and go from there. It is 35 questions (I think) of FCC rules, operating courtesy, and basic electronics knowledge...cake! That will get you started with priveleges on all frequencies 6 meters and up, with all modes available. If you have fun with that, take the time and go for general and extra, the morse code is really interesting to learn.
As for equipment, start out with the used stuff. There is plenty out there, check the obvious sources such as e-bay. If you get a technicians license you will probably want to start our on 2 meter FM, so look around for a little mobile transciever and put it in your car, or get a power supply and put it in your house. A magnetic mount antenna can be purchased new for about $20, and you're on the air. Surf around the local repeaters and talk to other hams and start getting involved with a local club. It can really be a lot of fun and a good learning experience.
Does anyone know how these early long distance radios worked? IIRC, vacuum tubes were not invented until a later date. Was there any kind of amplification used? Did they use oscillators, or was it still just a 'spark gap' kind of thing?
That's why it is written in the title Broadcast communication.
Telegraph isn't broadcast, it's peer-to-peer. To a point to another, and nobody else receiving it.
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I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
I'm not old...and I know about Linux. But you do have a good point about the lack of young people in the hobby. However, think of the older guys as mentors...the know A LOT. Join a club, if your not already in one, pick out an older person that knows about the hobby, and get every last tidbit of information out of them...that's why they are there. KB3GBA/AE
I thought that only New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI where the "Maritime" provinces and Newfoundland [and Labrador] is included with the Maritime provinces in the "Atlantic" provinces.
So by your logic Manhattan Island isn't part of Mainland North America either. And Mexico isn't part of North America because it is closer to Ecuador than Chicago. Who care if Newfoundland is an island, it is part of North America, as are Cuba, Jamaica ans Panama. In case you feel like debating this CENTRAL America is a political term, not geographical.
-Shieldwolf
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Insightful=1, Interesting=1, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Total=6.
Seems I struck a nerve
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Now that is a distinct possibility that I will admit is quite likely. The guy knew what was supposed to be coming in, and may or may not have made it up. My guess is that it's one of those things that no one will really know.
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
The overturning of Marconi's patent was due to the fact that Marconi's company had sued the US Government for patent infringement during World War I. The quickest way of solving the problem was overturning the patent, and so they did.
Seems I recall learning a long time ago that Marconi, didn't really "invent" radio, but expanded on other peoples works (specically Hertz) I shutter to think of the results (or lack of) if he had to work under current US Copyright and Patent Law. Under US copyright law, Heinrich Hertz, could have obtained a copyright for life plus 75 years. He passed away in 1894 making his Hertzian waves availble for public domain in 1969. Just in time for the 70's. Imagine the 60's with no radio. There would have been no BBC (founded in 1921), No NPR, and no Wolfman Jack.
After all these years, you think Buzz still feels cheated?
(BTW, how did they decide on Neil or Buzz? Did they flip a coin or something?)
Reality has a liberal bias
Working on a machine that has 128k of memory and uses an NTSC monitor is pointless; most wristwatches have more processing power than that nowadays.
;-)
/. review here and more info here and here.
I understand the point your trying to make, but you're clearly ignorant of present technology if you think most wristwatches have a CPU more powerful than an Apple ][ or more than 128k of memory. Most wristwatches I see today are still analog, and most of the remaining digital ones have far poorer specs than an Apple ][. Care to change your definition of "most" or "processing power"?
Some people need to just grow up and change with the times. Nostalgia is good but living in the past will get you nowhere. Get a grip.
People who UNDERSTAND the technology they use commonly have a VERY good grip. Of course, they LOOK like they're standing still compared to those who chase the bleeding edge of tech and never quite get a grip on any of it.
Your watch analogy reminded me of a quote from James Gleick's book Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything:
"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with 2 watches is never sure".
That book will really ruffle the feathers of anyone who thinks the only way to make progress is to develop more and newer and faster technologies. Very good book.
The Royal Mint [Danger: Netscape-unfriendly site] has commemorated Marconi's 100th anniversary in UK coinage with the current issue of the UK Two Pound Coin, News item here and picture of the thing on the right hand side of the first picture on this page
No... he wasn't.
But neither is Jean Louis Gaseé. Marconi was a showman, full of bravado. His extroverted nature was opposite of Tesla's introvert scientist personality.
-- Len