Comments on: Comments on 13085

Post number 13085

Geo — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:55:23 -0800

100 years ago today, Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal. It was reported in Nature on Dec 19, 1901. How's that for an old link?

The first repurcussion of this achievement: legal notice to remove his equipment from Newfoundland because ATC had 2 years left in their 50 year telegraphic monopoly. Plus ça change...

Listen to a real spark gap transmission at 0200 UTC Dec 13 on 3550 KHz to relive history.

By: Geo

Geo — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:04:07 -0800

Sorry for the double post - I got an error message the first time, but I guess the post went anyway.
It is interesting that all the celebrations and re-creations have the date wrong. The actual transmission was on Dec 12, and the first reception was on December 11. So why wasn't it celebrated last night?

By: MrBaliHai

MrBaliHai — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:27:30 -0800

I doubt that any of the news media reporting this story is talking about how Marconi's great achievement wouldn't have been possible without all of the patents he ripped off from Nikola Tesla.

By: HTuttle

HTuttle — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:36:54 -0800

An occassional pastime is to try to grab a few words from a high-speed morse code transmission over shortwave. Here's a site with a phonetic code trainer that might help.

By: MAYORBOB

MAYORBOB — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 17:47:57 -0800

And 100 years later we have Howard Stern, Don Imus, G. Gordon Liddy, Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, various and sundry Morning Zoo Crews, and music which is so soul crushingly predictable. Who hijacked Marconi's marvelous invention?

By: snarkout

snarkout — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:15:24 -0800

Who hijacked Marconi's marvelous invention? That would be David Sarnoff, the Radio Corporation of America radio operator at Wanamaker Hardware in New York who relied breaking news about the Titanic sinking to a worried and excited throng for almost three days straight. Sarnoff foresaw the transformation of radio into a medium for mass communication and was instrumental in starting RCA (which owned the rights to Marconi's invention in the United States) down the road to radio broadcasting and NBC.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:25:32 -0800

*applauds snarkout*

By: Geo

Geo — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:31:35 -0800

I think it is all Fessenden's fault. He showed that radio could be used for entertainment by broadcasting voice and music to ships in the Atlantic. And more...

By: skallas

skallas — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:33:44 -0800

There's always college radio and the net. Or even college radio on the net [wluw chicago stream].

By: ParisParamus

ParisParamus — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:40:13 -0800

The actual transmission was on Dec 12, and the first reception was on December 11. That would be backwards; right?

By: snarkout

snarkout — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:43:55 -0800

*applauds snarkout* It would be more impressive if I had typed "relayed" correctly. In penance, here is an article on the legal battles between Tesla and Marconi.

By: geneablogy

geneablogy — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 20:39:47 -0800

I heard the spark gap transmission. Of course, it's nothing new for me; I hear spark gap transmissions on my shortwave radio every time I run the dryer....

By: holycola

holycola — Wed, 12 Dec 2001 21:12:18 -0800

Hearing media outlets parrot the credit to Marconi for for what was rightly Tesla's discovery used to make my blood boil. Now, I'm just glad that people take a day to remember that a technology so ubiquitous and pretty much taken for granted does have an origin and a historical context that can be appreciated. Would I rather see Tesla's name there? Yes, absolutely. But if I had to choose between reflection on the origins and impact of a technology and the accuracy of the details, I would choose the latter. So, biting my lip a bit, I say happy Marconi day.

By: warhol

warhol — Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:24:06 -0800

Alright, but what does it actually sound like. Another page has a few samples and a little more information. The thing I haven't read anywhere was why spark was banned from the airwaves by the 1920s. While looking for more info, this History of American Broadcasting was very interesting.

By: Geo

Geo — Thu, 13 Dec 2001 07:49:53 -0800

Very nice link warhol. I suspect that spark was banned because the signal takes up more bandwidth than a CW signal of the same power. So, more stations can occupy the same range of frequencies without interfering with each other.