AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, the newly formed Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, with its home in England, purchased a 93-acre farm from a New Jersey resident by the name of Mr. Woolley.  The farm, located in Belmar, New Jersey, was to be the site of their receiver equipment for commercial transatlantic radio operation.  Advance publicity of this new enterprise appeared in Volume I of the new magazine, The Wireless World, April, 1913-March, 1914.  Under the title of "New Jersey Station," the article concludes, "At Belmar, a large force is required to handle the operating work, and much will be done to make the residential quarters attractive to live in.  Summer boating on Shark River is a pastime which is looked forward to with pleasure, while tennis and outdoor sport will be encourages; in fact, a happy little community will soon be thriving in this neighborhood." 
    Since that memorable time the old Woolley farm has hosted a number of 'communities," the present one being a part of the U. S. Army Electronics Command of Fort Monmouth, New Jersey -- the Evans Area.  The war-time home of U. S. Army radar, this area is known to tens of thousands of soldiers, civil-

An Era of Yesteryear 
    The Headquarters of the present Evans Area was completed and dedicated by the Marconi Company in 1914.  Of dark red ornamental brick with a lighter tile roof, it was intended to be a 45-room hotel for unmarried employees, complete with dining room, smoking room and a spacious lounge overlooking the wide, sweeping shore line of the Shark River and the Atlantic Ocean.  A French chef was in charge of the kitchen and was assisted by cold storage facilities having a generating capacity of 600 pounds of ice per day.  Outside, a twelve-acre vegetable garden served to supply fresh produce.  Quoting now from Volune II of The Wireless World, April, 1914-March, 1915, "The bedrooms are charming -- that is the only

Spinney and coppice, wood and open meadow-land offer of their abundance, and the countryside teams with wild life. To any with a bent for natural history there is an unending source of amusement, while to those whom sport claims for devotees there is an equally wide range of interest. Fishing and shooting and, what is perhaps the most sportsmanlike of sport, long tramps over the miles of open country with a chance of bringing home a mixed bag at the end of the day.

Antenna Construction at Belmar 

    Now jeaving the pleasantries of Belmar ecology, let me go on and say that the initial antenna construction there was six masts, each 300 feet high, crossing the road at right angles and stretching westward for almost one mile.  Later construction added other antennas, some wood and some steel.  Old-times in the neighorhood tell me some were as high as 400feet. 
   A total of six permanent antenna were constructed on buildings -- the hotel, two houses across the street for top Marconi officials and three buildings which housed appartus.  The site of the transmitting station was New Brunswick, some 40 miles away, but keyed from the Belmar headquarters. 
    With the new Marconi Company, there was an office boy very much interested in the new technology of radio.  His name was David Sarnoff, a popular hero of the day for his reception of ship-to-shore radio signals during the Titanic disaster in April, 1912.  Young Sarnoff and another radio enthusiast by the name of Edward H. Armstrong became close friends.  During 1913 at Columbia University, Armstrong worked toward an invention which he hoped would improve the sensitivity of radio receivers.  He was quite secretive and kept his new circuit concealed in a "black box."  On the night of January 6, 1914, at Columbia, he demonstrated his new circuit.  The results were sensational.  As a next step, it seemed very important to use the hugh antenna complex of the Marconi Company in Belmar. 

An Historic Experiment 

    On a bitterly cold night, the 30th of January, 1914, the stage was set for the Belmar experiment.  The team of experimenters was made up of Armstrong, Sarnoff and Weagant.  The normal receiving equipment was having its usual trouble in getting good signals.  Finally adjusted, the Armstrong circuit was given its test; it was both historic and dramatic.  Throughout the drafty shack, signals filled the air with unprecendented volume.  They came from Clifden, Ireland; Poldhu, Cornwall; Neuen, Germany; numerous arc stations from the West Coast; and finally Honolulu coming in strong during the early morning hours.  It was Armstrong's regenerative circuit, his first major invention, which was followed by the court-contested super-regeneration and later his grand climax, frequency modulation. 
    During U. S. involvement in World War I, the U. S. Navy took over control of American Marconi.  At the war's end, U. S. industry at government urging exchanged American dollars for British interests.  It started with $3,000,000 from General Electric Company, with Westinghouse and AT&T soon also developing interest in this lusty new baby infant called radio.  On December 1, 1919, a new corporation called RCA came from this technological incubator. 
    As all this was going on, new transatlantic receiver stations farther north were showing great advantages

    Jumping ahead a bit in my story, the Army purchased the site in November, 1941.  The area was given its official name commemorating Colonel Paul Wesley Evans, a famed World War I signal officer, but many of the old-timers living in the general vicinity, lacking facts, assumed that the Army had named the site to honor the memory of the Grand Wizard. 
    The years of the KKK encampment were limited, as the forces of government moved toward their eviction.  From one extreme end of occupancy by the KKK, the pendulum swung the other way, this time towards the spiritual. In 1937, Reverend Percy Crawford, a protestant evangelist from Philadelphia, purchased the tract for a school which he called King's College.  It was to be protestant, interdenominational, liberal arts and co-educational.  The first class began in the fall of 1938, and by 1941 the school had an enrollment of 100 students. 
    With an ever-growing student body, it was apparent to Reverend Crawford that he needed more building space, even as it became apparent to the Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth that they needed both more building space and acreage as was clouds darkened.  The Reverend's solution was to move forst to Delaware for a few years and then on to a spacious campus near Tarrytown, New York.  The Army's solution was to buy the college and plan for more buildings. 
    Accordingly, it was during November, 1941, that the Signal Corps announced the purchase of King's College, including he six original American-Marconi buildings and the surrounding 93 acres as a start.  The plan was to close the temporary Fort Hancock radar laboratory and to expand substantially in Belmar. 

Peculiar Architecture 

    Seeking cheap and rapid construction, drawings were prepared for a single-story brick structure 900 feet long and 60 feet wide, to be located in the rear of the main Marconi-American brick building, which would be headquarters.  Lt. V. L. Friedrich, in charge of  "Buildings and Grounds," showed me these plans one morning while the two of us were a Fort Hancock.  His orders were to bring the completed drawings to the Commanding Officer, Colonel R. V. D. Corput by 1100 hours that morning for routine approval and then to be sent out for construction bids.  Such a long and narrow building looked pecular to me.  The two ends were just too far apart and would require long hikes.  Vic and I looked at a map showing the topography, and gradually our pencils

Birth of the "H"-building 

    At preciselt 1100 hours, Lt. Friedrich reported to Colonel Corput in his Squier Laboratory office.  He carried with him the requested drawings and a set of those which had just been finished.  Using as much tact as possible, he persuaded the Colonel to look also at the new drawings.  As Colonel Corput looked at the "H"-building drawings, a broad smile crept across his face, and the drawings for the 900-foot building quickly found a resting place in his wastepaper basket.  And so the present "H"-building was born. 
    And speaking of buildings, there is also a story about those many cubical wooden structures spread throughout the Evans Area.  The form factor for these buildings originaled at Fort Hancock as shelters for test models of the SCR-268, one radar per building.  I 

The author at the museum of the Twin Lights Historical Society, Highlands, New Jersey.

Conspicuous Lettering 

    Occupancy of the Belmar site started during the 1941-42 winter under the name of Signal Corps Radar Laboratory, a name conspicuously posed in large lettering for all to see from the public raod passing by the headquarters building.  The Fort Monmouth laboratory counterpart was called the Signal Corps General Development Laboratory.  But the word "Radar" in the marquee did not stay up for many months, for winging its way up from Washington came the message that the word "radar" was classified, and great were the bonfires as tens of thousands of envelopes and letterhead stationary became a part of the atmosphere. 
    On March 31, 1942, the new site was designated as the Camp Evans Signal Laboratory, commemorating the late Paul Wesley Evans.  On April 16, 1945, the name was shortened to Evans Signal Laboratory.  And so concludes my prologue. 

Reporting a Race 

    The topology of my story now shifts some fifteen miles north of Belmar to a place called Twin Lights, Highlands, New Jersey, the highest point of land on the Atlantic seaboard.  Again, my story will be of Marconi first and the U. S. Army second. 
    It was the fall of 1899.  On both sides of the Atlantic, excitement ran high as Sir Thomas Lipton, with his British Shamrock, challenged the U. S. yacht Columbia, in what later became known as the America's Cup Race.  It was to be their first meeting of many more to come.  Young Marconi, working for the New York Herald newspaper, hoped to bring ship-to-shore radio coverage of a race in which British seamanship challenged that of a former colony.  The Highlands at Navesink overlooking Fort Hancock, New Jersey, was selected as the site for the receiving station.  Marconi's friend, W. W. Bradfield, was to man the receiving station while Marconi would be at sea

About the Race: 

"Ire Yacht Races. 
                                                      Hotel Marlborough, Oct. 31st, 1901. 
The Manager, 
M. W. T. Co. Ltd., 18, Finch Lane, 
London, E. C. 
Dear Sir, 
    I have waited until my return to New York before replying to your letter of the 9th instant as I wished to procure a chart of the Yacht Race course so as to be able to give you as precise particulars of distances as possible. I enclose with .this a sketch to make matters as clear as I can. 
    As you are aware I established the land stations, one being on the Jersey coast situated at the Highlands of Navesink and the other on the Long Island shore at Long Beach, the distance between them being twenty nautical miles. The New England Wireless Tel. Co. erected a station at Galilee, distant about three miles from our Jersey station and twenty two from Long Beach. 
    The land station of the Deforest Interests was situated at Sandy Hook about four miles from Navesink and nearly twenty miles from Long Beach. 
    I naturally made long Beach the principal receiving station and took charge of it myself. 
    The heights of aerials were approximately the same at all these stations namely about 120 feet. 
    The various ship stations were as follows: 
    1. The Marconi Co. on board the "Mindora" with a total available height of 115 ft. 
    2. The New England Co. on board the schooner "Maid of the Mist" in tow of a tugboat. Height over 100 ft. 
    3. The Deforest Co. on board the tug "Edna Crewe." Height about 100 ft. 
    We were supplied with apparatus for working with a comparatively short wave length, the receiving jigger being No. 306 which has a secondary 60 ft. long. This would probably be the most efficient arrangement

Signal Corps Interest 

    Returning now to the 1899 race and Marconi's radio triumph in its coverage, it is of historical interest to note that an ever-alert Signal Corps was also on the scene. Special Orders No. 213, Headquarters of the Army, dated September 12, 1899, directed Sergeant Walter R. Taylor to temporary duty at the Highlands of Navesink during the yacht races "for the purpose of carrying out special instructions of the Chief Signal Officer of he Army." 

Apparatus Test 

    On September 26, 1899, a Mr. Carl Kinsley wrote to Sergeant Taylor, "I find that Marconi won't be in condition to make any tests until Monday. All his apparatus has not yet arrived. It seems necessary to make another attempt to reach the light ship and to try our apparatus. 
    "I will come down to Babylon Wednesday evening. Please see Southard and have him on hand at 5:30 Thursday morning. 
    "Please call for my mail at the Babylon P. O. and return Capt. Wildman's mail to Governors Island.

"I enclose $5.00. Get 10 panes cheap 8 x 10 in. of window glass to make condenser. 
                                                      Yours truly, 
                                                      (S) Carl Kinsley" 

Proving a Claim 

    I do not know who Carl Kinsley was, but since Sergeant Taylor's orders also included a short trip to Schenectady, New York, there is room for the reader to guess, if he wants to. How the experiment went, I do not know. 
    More than three decades later, the life lines of Marconi and the U. S. Army Signal Corps again intersected, but this time it was your author who put to sea, not, however, to race Sir Thomas Lipton. In 1931, Marconi put forward claims that he had detected his 550 megacycle signals at a distance of five to nine times the optical line-of-sight. Many people doubted these claims. To prove or disprove these claims, the Signal Corps set up a 400 megacycle radio transmitter 

References for first part of story: 
    References: My list could exceed the length of this story. Suffice it to say, it includes many official Army documents and historical files. I have studied books on the lives of Marconi, Sarnoff and Armstrong. Reference to back copies of the Asbury Park Press has also been helpful; also a short report by Col. Edward T. Hale and discussions with others who lived and worked in the time frame involved. Credit is due also to Monmouth County Historical Association (Freehold, N.J.) and the Twin Lights Historical Society. Finally, I should also mention my recent series of short historical tales called "Tales of Yesteryear," most of which have appeared in SIGNAL Magazine. And, as mentioned in the text, my references also include Volumes I and II of the British publication, The Wireless World. 
 

Radar Demonstration 

    Quite appropriately, a very important radar demonstration was also made from this Marconi site some years later. It was during November, 1939. The demonstration was for the Secretary of the Army, Harry A. Woodring, and Generals George C. Marshall and Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, together with Chief Signal Officer Joseph O. Mauborgne. The potential of early-warning radar was dramatically shown to this .top "Army Brass." A flight of B-17 bombers was tracked to the end of Long Island and back. (The one-way distance covered 138 miles). The success of this test led to early and expedited production of this radar, the SCR 270's and 271's. The first sets of this type were operational in Panama by June, 1940, and a year later in Hawaii. It was an Hawaiian-based SCR-270 which heard the warning, albeit unheeded, of the Japanese approach to Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. 
    And so ends another chapter of "Tales of Yesteryear." 

    1. Bulletin; Twin Lights Historical Society. 
   2. Book; by Degna Marconi, My Father Marconi. 
    3. Numerous official Army documents and historical  records. 
    4. Proc. of the IRE, July, 1934, W. D. Hershberger. 
    5. C & E Digest, November, 1959 (Air Defense Com- 
        mand), by A. L. Vieweger and A. S. White. 
    6. Files; Monmouth County Historical Association,  Freehold, N.J. 
    7. Stories in SIGNAL, by Harold A. Zahl, April, 1969, 
        and November, 1969. 
    8. Unpublished: "A Tale of Two Crises," by Harold A. Zahl. 
    9. Marconi-Pioneer of Radar, by Douglas Coe, Julian  Messner, Inc., New York. 
    10. Letter from Mrs. B. Hance, Assistant Historian, The Marconi       Company Limited, Chelmsford, Essex, England, dated March 16, 1970, with copy of letter from Mr. W. W. Bradfield, Marconi Company, dated October 31, 1901. 
     11. Mr. S. Podlusky, USASCS Museum.

Reprinted from SIGNAL October 1970, Official Journal of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.