THE BIRTH OF RADIO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 2

THE BIRTH OF RADIO

Away back in 1864. twenty-three years before their discovery, William Clerk Maxwell, brilliant young mathematician, manipulated figures in his nimble mind and proved beyond all doubt that wireless waves existed. Although Maxwell was perfectly satisfied with his reasonings, he did not realise what a giant he was playing with, and did nothing practical to develop his brain-child. It remained for Heinrich Hertz to put Maxwell’s theories to the test, with the result

that all the world knows. While Hertz discovered the wireless wave in 1887, it remained for Marconi to show just what could be done with this new form of communication. Starting his experiments in Italy in 1895, he succeeded in receiving signals at a distance of a mile, where Hertz had received in feet. Enthusiastic at his success, Marconi came to England, and soon won the interest of the British Post Office authorities in his experiments. It was in England, too, that Marconi took out the first wireless patent.

After some experimentation in London, Marconi took his plant to a hill overlooking the Bristol Channel, and succeeded in raising his transmitting range to ten miles. To-day, the first ultra short-wave telephone circuit, latest marvel of radio delevopment, is in use over the same point. From a ten-mile transmission, it was only a step to the first trans-ocean message, and this historic event occurred on March 28, 1899, when Marconi succeeded in sending a message across the English Channel. Radio thus received its first practical applications.- In October, 1900, the first message was sent across the Atlantic, and the impossible was accomplished.