April 16, 2023

“Guglielmo Marconi – Is he really the father of radio?”

That’s actually a difficult question to answer.

There was several people involved in early radio’s birth.

James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish scientist that predicted the existence of radio waves during the 1860s.

 

Henrich Rudolf Hertz

Henrich Rudolf Hertz was a German Scientist, and in 1866 he discovered that vibrations of electric current could be projected into space in the form of radio waves.

 

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi is known as the father of radio. Marconi was an Italian inventor that proved that communicating through Electro Magnet radio waves was possible.

In 1865 he sent and received the first radio signal communication.

On December 12, 1901 he flashed the first wireless radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean. He sent and received the first transatlantic radiotelegraph message in 1902.

 

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla is said to have assembled and made the his first radio transmissions in 1893 in St. Louis, Missouri. He is not given credit for the discovery of radio since Marconi was able to get a patent in England four years before Tesla.

However for tonight’s discussion I will center on more of Marconi’s inventions and accomplishments.

Marconi’s early 1894 experimental radio set at his father’s farm.

Using a comparatively crude apparatuses: an induction coil for increasing voltages, with a spark discharger controlled by a Morse key at the sending end and a simple coherer (a device designed to detect radio waves) at the receiver.

First across the room and then farther until he was able to send signals at 2km at his father’s estate.

As can be seen on the left hand image is Marconi’s Wireless bell ringer radio.

0By pressing a button at the transmitter he was able to ring the bell at the receiver.

This would have to be considered to be the first working garage door opener radio.

(sorry, I don’t have any idea what the photo on the right is)

This apparatus was Marconi’s radio set in 1896. It had the capabilities of making a punch tape ( to be used for receiving and to re-transmit signal) of received characters which were dots and dashes.

Radio’s Timeline ( just a few)

1893 – Nikola Tesla builds his wireless radio, but fails to get it patented.

1894 – Marconi is granted a United Kingdom patent for radio.

1896 – Marconi starts developing a radio equipment for the Postal Service, and receives a US patent

1900 – Landell de Moura sends the first audio signal wirelessly.

1900 – Nikola Tesla is granted a US patent for his radio.

1901 – Marconi has two-way contact on December 12, 1901.

1906 – Reginald Fessenden, a Westinghouse engineer, uses the recently invented vacuum tube to                   broadcast the first AM radio signal.

1908 – Columbia University Amateur Radio Club is founded.

1909 – Marconi receives the Nobel Prize for Physics.

1910 – The United States Postmaster General issuses the first amateur radio callsign.

1912 – Passage of the Radio Act by US Congress, our first piece of radio legislation.

This clearly stated that if a ship carried more than 50 people or traveled farther than 5 miles from the coast that they were then required to have a radio and operator on board the ship.

1915 – Several company’s were producing equipment for the radio enthusiast.

1920 – Radio WWJ in Detroit begins broadcasting regular AM programs like news, sports info,                          entertainment, etc.

1922 – Marconi launches the first UK broadcast station with a callsign of “2MT”.

1922 – Marconi passes the 2MT station over to the British Broadcasting Company, which got the new              callsign of 2LO.

1923 – United States amateur Fred Schell and French amateur Leon Deloy make the first two-way                  transatlantic contact.

1925 – International Amateur Radio Union is created.

1927 – the First International Telegraph Conference defines who can use the different parts of the                  radio spectrum.

1933 – Robert Moore (W6DEI) invents Single Side Band.

1941 – Father Maximillian Kolbe (SP3RN) is found operating his amateur radio and is executed by                  the Nazi’s.

            Later canonized in 1982, Father Kolbe is now considered the Patron Saint of Amateur Radio.

1947 – The transistor is invented and this signalled the approaching end to vacuum tubes.1961 – Amateur radio operators launch Oscar1, ham radio’s first satellite.

Ham radio operators have always been at the forefront of technology.

Examples are easily seen at our satellite progress over the years and fellows like Joe Taylor’s work in Weak Signal processing software allowing hams to communicate off the tails of Meteor showers or bouncing signals off of the moon and back. 

When the Titanic catastrophe occurred in 1912, hundreds of people were rescued by three other ships, the SS Californian, the Carpathia, and the Mount Temple.

After the survivors were being tended to, it was stated that one man was responsible for saving all those lives, his name is Guglielmo Marconi.

As always, until next week 73,

DE WB6AMT Earl