SOME WIRELESS RECOLLECTIONS
(By G. Marconi). My first experiment in wirelesi telegraphy was not a very brilliant success, owing chiefly to the prejudice' of on old family servant on my father's estates in Italy, who from the very first viewed with open dislike my work in some way or other as an attempt to hold communication with departed spirits, which he declared would certainly end disastrously for us all. Anyway, when I set up two experimental wireless installations in our grounds at home the old man very carefully removed them before I had time to test them. However, with the help of my mother, who took the keenest interest i'm my work, I was enabled to overcome the old man's prejudice to some extent, and was left to carry on my work in peace, and a little while later I was able to send my first wireless message between two points a couple of hundred yards apart. The "message" so carried was only one letter, but it was the first step in the direction in which my system has since somewhat advanced. It would be out of place in an article of this character to go into details of the scientific development of my wireless system, but I many say that though it was not accomplished without many hundreds of experiments, which I often remained up the whole night to carry but, it steadily progressed every day from the date of my first experiment until I patented it in 18a0. I then felt absolutely sure that I had arrived at a now system of wireless communication of immense potential value; but this did not mean, however, that others thought so; and before I could do anything at all 1 had to persuade- people that at least there was something in the idea. Amateur scientists laughed at the whole notion. One of these folk who specially prided himself on his knowledge of electricity congratulated me on having discovered rather an ingenious idea for a new toy. "It will go well," he said. "These sort of scientific toys are always popular, provided they are not dangerous; parents like them. You will have all the kiddies sending messages to each other'across their garden walls." J
I must note, however, that seientHH of a higher calibre, especially, in this country, gave me great encouragement and I shall always remember that one of the first to declare himself a believer in my system was Lord Kelvjn. The first serious demonstration I made of it here was made at the invitation of the Post Office authorities, when I sent a wireless message between the Thames Embankment and St. Martin's-le-Grand. This attracted the attention of the War Office and the Admiralty, with.the result that I made further experiments on Salisbury Plain, but even after that, though these were quite successful, they did not remove the "doubts of the doubters" in my system, and they were many; but it was at least attracting considerable attention. At that period I often received shoals of letters from correspondents all over the country, pointing out how impossible it was that my system could ever be of any commercial or practical value. One letter I particularly remember, because it was recnlled to my memory in rather a peculiar way a few years ago at a time when I had nearly forgotten all about it.
The letter came from a gentleman in tihc North of England who was engaged in the shipbuilding industry. He told me that he attached no real importance to my invention, simply because he was convinced as a practical man that it would never be possible to rely upon the accuracy of wireless messages, which would always be subjected to influences over which no human being could ever exercise the slightest control. Well, several years later, the writer of that letter was on board a ship wbieh was wrecked, and he, with the other passengers and the crew, were all saved from death by means of a wireless message that was sent for help, which reached a ship a hundred miles away, and she at once went to the aid of the shipwrecked vessel. The gentleman in question afterwards wrote to inform me of this fact, and at the same time recalled the letter he had written to me some years previously. The turning point in my career I date from tfie time I succeeded in establishing communication between Lnvernock anl Bream Downs, a distance of nine miles, and I think after that even the most sceptical were inclined to believe that there were at least possibilities of success in my system. Shortly after this I met a man, an American, at an hotel in Ireland, who was confident that there were possibilities in my system of accomplishing even bigger wonders by it than I hoped for. He-did not know who I was. At dinner—we were dining by ourselves—he asked me what I thought of "this Marconi fellow and his wireless experiments." I expressed the modest opinion that I thought there might be something in them . "Something in them," lie exclaimed; "let me tell you that fellow is on the biggest thing of the century." I smiled incredulously, though I shall not deny that the man's enthusiasm pleased me. I had come across so few like him.
"You need not smile, sir," lie continued; "that man, MaTconi, is going to do something that will startle creation." "He may indeed succeed in sending wireless messages across the Atlantic some day," I suggested, giving expression to my secret hopes. "Across the Atlantic!" repeated the American. "Why, of course, he will, and a jolly sight longer way than that; he will get a message to the stars if there is anyone there to receive them before you or I are ten years older." I left the hotel the next day, and have never seen my Yankee friend since, hut I fear, as I have not yet succeeded in doing all he predicted I would, that his enthusiasm may have somewhat evaporated.
I was, by the way, at this time allowed to pass my military service to my native country in the entirely honorary position of military attache to the Italian Embassy in London, instead of having to return to Italy to do so in the ordinary way, and this courtesy, which would jiave been extended by very few Continental nations, was of the greatest possible use to me whilst I was developing my inventions. From the time I succeeded in establishing communication between Lavernock and Bream my system of wireless telegraphy has steadily progressed. The general reader would probably And a detailed history of its progress rather tedious, which is chiefly concerned with the development of the scientific side of the system, but some incidents in the establishment of our stations in different parts of the world may not be without interest.
Many were the difficulties which my company encountered when our operations began to assume world-wide proportions. We "bumped" up against prejudices of all sorts, against queer forgotten laws and customs, and against the hatred and suspicion with which a new invention is always regarded in backward countries.
For example, when we were erecting a station in China strangely clad devotees assembled near our workmen and began praying for their destruction. Our ifcfin of course paid no attention to these people, and they did us no particular harm, but it "was different when one of them, bolder than the othe¥s, began to walk round and round, some of the men uttering strange incantations which no
doubt were Anything but blessings; the man after a short time became a most I unmitigated nuisance, and yet it would j not have been our policy to have interfered with him. Round and round our men he continued! to walk through the whole day, never pausing for a moment cither in his perambulation exercises or mutterings; suddenly towards the end of the day ho collapsed in a dead faint on the ground; after some restoratives had 'been administered to him he got on his feet once more and left us, apparently convinced that the gods for the moment at any rate did not intend to interfere with our enterprises.
One of the most difficult stations we ' ever erected" was at Clicfden, in the West of Ireland. The ground selected for the site of the station was practically bog land, and it took many months' work to prepare a solid foundation for the tall iron mast in that treacherous soil. During the work one of our engineers became missing and a couple of the men went to look for him. They found him half a mile off sunk up to his waist in a piece of bag into which he had inadvertently stepped, and it was very well they did so, for had ha been left in his unpleasant quarters an hour longer our company would most likely have lost a capable officer.
One of the most interesting and enormously useful developments of wireless telegraphy has been, of course, the establishment of wireless communication between shipß at sea and shore. Worldwide attention was recently attracted to this special development of wireless telegraphy by the part it played in aiding the police to arrest Dr. Crippen; and as a matter of fact by means of wireless communication between ships and the shore, and ships and ships, just as remarkable tilings 'have been accomplished as the arrest of the doctor and his companion. A theatrical manager on his way to New York from London some time ago got into communisation with a playwright in New York, and was thus able long before the strip reached shore to enter into and complete all the arrangements for the purchase of « play'by the author in Question. Indeed, hundreds of incidents could be cited where business dealings of the greatest magnitude have been entered into and completed by busit ness men on board ships and their clients ashore by wireless communication. Some little while ago a gentleman travelling from London to New York was enabled by means of a wireless message to caneel a certain contract which hia firm had entered into just before he started; cither party to the contract had the option of breaking it off if they did so within twenty-four hours. The gentleman iti question, when he got on board the liner, met a friend who was able to give him an important bit of information which induced him to send a wireless message to his firm to break off the contract an hour after the ship had left the shore. The message cost the sender probably about fifteen shillings, but it saved his Arm losing several thousands of pounds. I was recently told of a case in which a poor man and his family who were going to Canada received the news an hour after his ship left the dock that a relative of his had died, leaving him ten or twelve thousand pounds. The solicitor who sent the message offered at the same time to advise a couple of hundred pounds to the ship's purser by "wireless" message for the man's immediate needs, and so the fortunate steerage passengers continued their journey as occupants of a first-class cabin. I have heard that writs have been served on board ships by means of wireless messages, but of these unpleasant incidents I have no personal knowledge. The growth of wireless has, by the way, inspired not a few people .with the notion that not only are wireless messages responsible for the depressing sort of summer weather we have had in this country of recent years, but that maj ultimately cause some sort of cosmic disaster.
Onn lady who owned a boardinghouse at the seaside, whose business is naturally largely affected by the weather, wrote to me during the wet summer of 1903 to say that I would be indirectly responsible for her ruin if I did not cease sending wireless messages which, she declared, were causing such unseasonable weather; but during the past few years these sort of prejudices against wireless telegraphy are not so noticeable even in spite of persistently bad weather. I am constantly asked to say something about the future of wireless telegraphy, Some people, like my Yankee friend I have mentioned, seem to think that I shall sooner or later devise a system of establishing communication with some of the heavenly bodies. These sort of ideas do not come into my mind at all. lam a very practical-minded individual, and nothing that docs not seem to me within the realms of practical politics has ever appealed to me. I could not go deeply into the subject of the future of wireless telegraphy without becoming most appallingly technical ii my language, so I shall merely confine myself to observing that wireless telegraphy is still young and has yet to grotf considerably before it reaches its full de- . velopment.
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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 234, 11 February 1911, Page 10
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2,163SOME WIRELESS RECOLLECTIONS Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 234, 11 February 1911, Page 10
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