Marconi: the man and his wireless

Media

Part of Panorama

Title: Marconi: the man and his wireless
Creator: Dunlap, Orrin E.
Language: English
Year: 1966
Rights
Fulltext: MARCONI: THE MAN AND HIS WIRELESS1 1 Orrin E. Dunlap, Marconi: The Man and His Wireless, by permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers, New York, 1937, p. 87-90, 93-99, 100-101. Guglielmo Marconi (18741937), inventor, electrical en gineer, and winner of the Nobel prize for physics, was the first to perfect the de vices used in space telegra phy. To his genius is due the great scientific triumph of wireless telegraphy. Orrin Dunlap states that he gives us the exciting story of how the first wireless sig nal was flashed across the Atlantic sky, because "it is not only unforgettable, but one of the great climaxes in the history of wireless, and in Marconi’s life." From his book comes the following story aboiit Marconi’s inven tion. Marconi at the dawn of a new century caught the vi sion of a dream. He saw men sitting on the edge of the North American conti nent listening to what a lam bent spark was sputtering across 2,000 miles of broad, curving ocean. New Year’s Day, 1900, ushered in an electrical age of speed and scientific won ders — a Century of Progress. The question in 1900 was, how can 20 kilowatts spread out to every point of the com pass provide sufficient ener gy to traverse 2,000 miles in one direction? Would Am erica and England be brought in touch with each other without the aid of the sub merged cable costing from $4,500,000 to $9,000,000 or up to $2,500 a mile? Marconi thought so, and was working feverishly to ward that conclusion. The cable secluded in the bed of the sea could carry dots and dashes, but the idea that thoughts might pass through the ocean air in less than a second was something to balk human credulity. 26 Panorama How less tedious, less ex pensive it would be to utilize a free right-of-way in the heavens instead of laying a cable in Neptune’s dreary sanctum? The idea had pos sibilities calling for a mira cle man. The skeptics, of course, were countless. It was true, this man Marconi had convinced the doubting world that wirelesss lifted messages for short distances, but the Atlantic — well, it was much wider than the English Channel. It was not so difficult to comprehend, in view of Mar coni’s achievements, that a boat 250 miles off the Eng lish coast picked up a wire less signal from the shore. But that must have been a freak of nature aided by ex traordinary atmospheric con ditions. So argued the diehards. It was eight times that distance from England to America! Marconi, a conservative scientist, knew the Atlantic project was fraught with daring — a little too much for the public mind to grasp. He realized the significance of premature announcements. Wireless across the sea meant the very shrinkage of the earth. It meant new and revolutionary communication between every nation on the face of the globe. Wisdom called for secrecy. If the dream turned out to be a bubble it would be a matter of disappointment . only to the dreamer. If successful it would be a signal of progress for mankind. So he would work quietly, unassumingly, with plans unpublicized. He was looked upon as a modern wizard whose human traits outwardly failed to be tray any eccentricities of genius. Londoners who saw him in Piccadilly or Pall Mall observed a rather sad,. keen-eyed, thin-lipped young man with unlimited capacity for work and a firm faith in his own ability. His brown hair was neatly trim med and carefully brushed; sometimes he shaved twice a day. His attire, if anything, was a little too neat for a scientist. He was fond of a fur coat and was not above afternoon tea. One who passed him in the street would class him with the average club or city man, fond of the good things in life, yet his manner and step revealed he was by no means February 1966 27 an idler. He looked like a man faithful to friendship but the type who would give it rarely. Divested of the fur coat he looked frail. His movements were slow and direct, yet there was an odd air of diffi dence very apparent when he was in the company of stran gers. This shyness was em phasized if wireless telegra phy was the topic. He ap peared much younger than his twenty-six years, and more than one great scientist eyed him incredulously when see ing him for the first time. Superficially, Marconi had little to distinguish him from the average man, but closer acquaintance invariably im pressed one with his tremen dous energy. The doctrine of strenuous life never had a more faithful follower. He labored Under high pressure and expected his subordi nates to feel the same intense enthusiasm that gripped him during experimental periods. He worked by night and day when a problem presented itself. Such was the calibre of the man intent upon transatlan tic wireless; the man who was preparing for what he termed, “the big thing” — wireless between the Old and New Worlds. Marconi, accompanied by Major Flood Page, managing director of the Marconi Wireless Company, and R. N. Vyvyan, engineer, in July 1900, went to the barren southwest tip of England and selected Poldhu, near Mul lion in Cornwall, as the site for a pioneer transmitter, 100 times more powerful than any station ever built. Cons truction began in October. There history would be etched electrically on the blue canopy of the globe. Professor James Ambrose Fle ming of University College, London, appointed, Scientific Adviser of the Marconi Wire less Company in 1899, was entrusted to design the ins tallation. He was a specialist in high tension alternating currents. Mr. Vyvyan was selected to supervise cons truction. Newspapers printed meagre reports that an Ita lian inventor hoped to link two far-distant points with out the aid of visible wires. The word "visible” appear ing in the accounts of 189699 indicated the incredulity of the general public. The 28 Panorama Gay Nineties were conserva tive in regard to electrical miracles;. people shook their heads in doubt and wonder ment .... A queer-looking structure, never before seen on the English landscape or any where else for that matter, was attracting attention on the forbidding rocks that jut out into the Atlantic at Poldhu. It was Marconi’s latest idea of what an aerial system should comprise. There was to be a ring of twenty wooden masts, each about 200 feet high, arranged in a semicircle 200 feet in diameter, cover ing about an acre. It was designed as the “frame” of a conical aerial consisting of 400 wires. By the end of August, 1901, the t masts were nearly com pleted, bbt a cyclone swept the English coast on Septem ber 17; the big masts blew down like so many tooth picks after it had taken ele ven months to erect them. Disappointment swept through the Marconi ranks. The engineers said it meant postponement of three montns or more to remove the wreckage and build anew. The “sister” towers on Cape Cod suffered a similar disaster a few weeks later. Marconi was too anxious, too unconquerable a soul to permit fallen masts to get the best of him. He decided it might be possible to utilize a simpler aerial. So two poles, instead of twenty, each 150 feet high, were erected. A triangular stay was stretch ed between the masts and from it were suspended fiftyfive copper wires. They were about a yard apart at the top and conveyed at the bottom, forming a fan-shaped aerial. Everything was ready for a preliminary test. The fiery spark crashed across the gap electrifying the makeshift web of wire and the bleak November air. A wirelesss outpost at Crookhaven, Ireland, 225 miles away, heard the signals with such intensity that the engineers felt certain the power was sufficient to drive a message across the Atlantic — ten times as far as Poldhii to Crookhaven! Marconi was sure it would. He decided to conduct the first test in Newfoundland — the nearest point in America to the Old World. Bound on a historic jour February 1966 29 ney, he sailed on November 26 from Liverpool on the liner Sardinian, accompanied by two assistants, G. S. Kemp2 and P. W. Paget. 2 Mr. Kemp was one of Mar coni's most valued electricians and his diary of wireless was a great asset to Marconi when in court fighting patent litigation and infringements. They had odd baggage for three men. Small captive bal loons and a number of large kites were in the luggage. They knew the inclement weather in Canada at this season of the year and the shortness of the time at their disposal made impossible to erect high masts to hold aloft antenna wires. But the kites and balloons might do the trick, thereby saving time and expense and possibly make history. Undramatically, in fact, unnoticed, the trio <rf pio neers landed at St. John^s on Friday, December 6, ahd-the following day, before begin ning operations visited the Governor, Sir Cavendish Boyle, Premier Sir Robert Bond, and other members of the Ministry, who promised heartiest cooperation. They cheerfully placed the re sources of every department of the government at Mar coni’s disposal to facilitate his work. "After taking a look at various sites,” said Marconi, “which might prove suitable, I considered the best one was on Signal . Hill, a lofty eminence overlooking the port and forming a natural bulwark which protects it from the fury of the Atlan tic winds. On top of this hill is a small plateau some two acres in area, which seemed very suitable for manipula tion of the balloons and kites. On a crag on this plateau rose the new Cabot Memorial Tower, erected in commemo ration of the famous Italian explorer John Cabot, and de signed as a signal station. Close to it there was the old military barracks, then used as a hospital. It was in the forum of this building that we set up the apparatus and made preparations for the great experiment. “On Monday, December 9, we began work. On Tuesday we flew a kite with 600 feet of aerial as a preliminary test, and on Wednesday we inflated one of the balloons, which made its first ascent during the morning. It was 30 Panorama about fourteen feet in dia meter and contained about 1,000 cubic feet of hydrogen gas, quite sufficient to hold up the aerial, which consist ed of wire weighing about ten pounds. After a short while, however, the blustery wind ripped the balloon away from the wire. The balloon sailed out over the sea. We concluded, perhaps the kites would be better, and on Thursday morning, in spite of a gusty gale we ma naged to fly a kite up 400 feet. “The critical moment had come, for which the way had been prepared by six years of hard and unremitting work, despite the usual criti cism directed at anything new. I was about to test the truth of my belief. “In vie,w of the importance of all that was at stake, I had decided not to trust entire ly to the usual arrangement of having the coherer signals record automatically on a pa per tape through a relay and Morse instrument, but to use instead a telephone connect ed to a self-restoring coherer. The human ear bearing much more sensitive than the re corder it would be more like ly to hear the signal. “Before leaving England I had given detailed instruc tions for transmission of a certain signal, the Morse tele graphic ‘S’ — three dots — at a fixed time each day be ginning as soon as word was received that everything at St. John’s was in readiness. If the invention could receive on the kitewire in Newfound land some of the the electric waves produced, I knew the solution of the problem of transoceanic wireless tele graphy was at hand. “I cabled Poldhu to begin sending at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, English time, con tinuing until 6 o’clock; that is from 11:30 to 2:30 o’clock in St. John’s.’’ As the hands of the clock moved toward noon on Thursday (December 12, 1901), Marconi sat waiting with the telephone receiver held to his ear. It was an intense hour of expectation. Arranged on the table were the delicate instruments ready for a decisive test. There was no calibrated dial tuner to facilitate adjusting the circuit to a specific wave length. In fact, the wave of Poldhu was not measured. February 1966 31 There was no device to mea sure it. Professor Fleming thought there should be some method of measuring wave length but he had yet to in vent his cymometer or waver meter. The length of Poldhu’s wave was a guess. There was nothing precise or scientific about tuning. But based on the fact that the aerial was 200 feet high and that it was linked with a series coil or "jigger,” Professor Fleming estimated the wave length was not less than about 8,000 feet or 960 meters. Marconi had to hunt for the wave. A wire ran out through the window of Cabot Tower, thence to a pole and upward to the kite which could be seen swaying overhead. It was : a raw day. A cold sea thundered at the base of the 300-feet cliff. Oceanward through the mist rose dim ly the rude outlines of Cape Spear, the easternmost point of the North American con tinent. Beyond rolled the unbro ken ocean, nearly 2,000 miles to the coast of the British Isles; wireless might leap that in one ninety-third of a se cond! Across the harbor the city of St. John’s lay on the hillside. No one had taken enough interest in the experiment to go up through the snow to Signal Hill. Even the ubiquitous reporter was absent. In Cabot Tower, the vete ran signalman stood in the lookout’s nest scanning the horizon for ships, little dreaming that mysterious waves might be coming out of the sky from England. Wireless was ready for the crucial test. Its destiny was at stake. So was Marconi’s. Everything that could be done had been done. The receiv ing outfit was as sensitive as Marconi could make it; he had faith that these instru ments would pick up the faintest trace of a signal. Marconi listened and lis tened. Not a sound was heard for half an hour. He inspected the instruments. They looked perfect. Had something gone wrong at Poldhu? Had some myste rious force led the signals astray? Was the curvature of the globe a barrier? All these things flashed through his mind, coupled with the 32 Panorama fact that it was almost fan* tastic to believe an unseen wave of intelligence could cross through the ocean air and strike such a slender tar get as a copper wire. It seemed incredible. It would be so easy for the message to travel off in some unde sired direction. Marconi knew, however, if the signal went east, north or south it would also go west and to that wire antenna dangling from the kite. Without warning there was a sharp click in the ear phones. What caused it? Was some stray static play ing a prank? Indeed not! Marconi had at last found the right tuning adjustment to put him in touch with Poldhu! “Suddenly, at about 12:30 o’clock, unmistakably three scant little clicks sounded several times in my ear as I listened intently,” said Mar coni, in recounting the day. “But I would not be satis fied without corroboration. “ ‘Can you hear anything, Kemp?’ I said, handing the receiver to him. “Kemp heard the same thing I did, and right in my anticipation,” recalled Mar coni. "Electric waves which were being sent out from Poldhu had traversed the Atlantic serenely ignoring the curvature of the earth, which so many doubters con sidered would be a fatal obs tacle. I knew then that the day on which I should be able to send full messages without wires or cables across the Atlantic was not very far away. Distance had been overcome, and further dev elopment of the sending and receiving instruments was all that was required.” Wireless had flashed across the Atlantic’s sky like “some meteor that the sun exhales.” Again and again Marconi and Kemp listened to be sure there was no mistake. Padget was called in. He listened but heard nothing; he was slightly deaf. What Marconi and Kemp heard must have been Poldhu. There was no other wireless station in the world to send that pre arranged signal. And a mar vel was that it was noon time; it would have been so much easier to perform the feat at night when darkness aids the flight of long-wave wireless. Marconi was not aware of that. February 1966 33 It was mid-afternoon. The kite gyrated wildly in the gale that swept in from the sea. The antenna failed to maintain the maximum alti tude and the fluctuating height naturally influenced reception. The wind tugged and tugged at the kite, final ly at 2:20 o'clock the anten na was lifted within range of the repetitious dots. And that gave further verification. At dusk the inventor and his companions went down the hill toward the city spark ling with lights. He made no statement to the press. In fact, he felt rather depress ed because he had not inter cepted a continuous stream of signals. Possibly the stress of the preceding days had something to do with his dishearted feeling. It is said that a secret is no longer a secret if more than one person holds it, but that night three men kept a secret from the world. And what they harbored was front-page news — news that would find a place in history books. They went to sleep dream ing of what they had heard and in hope that a new day would put the stamp of suc cess on their work by further verification. It almost seem ed too true for them to be lieve their own ears. They would listen again for the three elusive dots. They were up on the hill early the next morning, an xious to lend an ear to space at noon, for that was the ap pointed time for Poldhu to broadcast. The signals came on sche dule but were not quite as distinct as the day before. The changing weather on a 2,000 mile front could make a radical difference in be havior of the waves. There was no doubt, however, that wireless had spanned the At lantic. Nevertheless, the mo dest inventor hesitated to make his achievement public, lest it seem too extraordinary for belief. Finally, after withholding the news for two days, cer tainly evidence of his conversatism and self-restraint, Mar coni issued a statement to the press, and that Sabbath morning the world knew but doubted. . The scientific world was mindful that Marconi had never released a statement in public until absolutely 34 Panorama certain of the facts. He ne ver had to withdraw a notice as to his progress. As soon as the significance of the event was realized star re porters and spedal magazine writers rushed northward from New York to get the story from the lips of the in ventor. He told them it cost $200,000 to get the three dots across the Atlantic I To Marconi there was nothing problematical about the fu ture; he had spanned the At lantic. He had upset the calculation of mathemati cians. — By Orrin E. Dunlap. SELF ANARCHY Harold Laski has this story to tell: I discussed recently with a Hindu I knew — a man of great cul ture — the question of Indian Independence. “If England were to withdraw from India,” I said, “wouldn’t the country relapse into a state of anarchy — much like what it was in the 18th Century when Clive and Hastings laid the foundations of the Bri tish Raj?” My friend assented sadly, “Yes, I suppose you are right.” “And that would be followed by a tyranny, or several tyrannies, would it not?” “Yes, probably.” “And then the pendulum would swing back to anarchy again?” “Yes,” he said, "yes, I am afraid it would!" Then, after a long pause, he added, "but it will be our tyranny and our anarchy!” February 1966 35