QCWA: Marconi's Observations

The SIGNAL CORPS BULLETIN - April to June 1939

Intimate Observations of Marconi

     Wireless was first introduced to America by the late Marchese Guglielmo Marconi, Senatore of Italy, President of the Royal Academy of Italy and of the Italian National Council of Research---intimate friend of rulers, church dignitaries, executives, and engineers in all countries. Only a few, however, have been privileged to know the intensely human Marconi and of his association with his fellowmen and fellow workers.

     Mr. Marconi visited America with a set of instruments in 1899 to report the international yacht races. His eagerness to get his apparatus set up was balked by formalities of the Customs office, and after he bad climbed up and down the steep steps of the customhouse a half dozen times, he said with a weary smile, "When does the next boat leave for Liverpool? This is too much of a rush for me."  But eventually he got his trunks released, and the races were reported with, great, success.

     Marconi was his own operator, and while sending a message with the letter "J" he had to look up the telegraphic characters on a card. "Why wasn't he named Robert," he said with a chuckle, "instead of John?"  After the races a group of reporters and yachtsmen met on the transmitting yacht Ponce, and spent an hour or two with Signore Marconi, where he sat at the piano and played, running the range between popular songs and light opera, voted by all as "a prince of a good fellow."

     Marconi was a hard worker, and required long hours and patient attention to duty from his subordinates.  But he so fired them with zeal reflected from his own tireless efforts that they were an especially loyal group. In 1912 a group of American Marconi engineers was sent to England to study the huge Marconi transmitters there, preparatory to installing duplicates in our American high-power stations. Day after day Marconi would come to the station with mysterious packages under his arm---sometimes a new form of Spark gap. or a jigger for receiving which would then be tried out in practice.  One cold, rainy night, Marconi came in quite unexpectedly, having walked several miles from the railway station, but carrying the usual package.  Everyone eagerly watched while he unwrapped---not a condenser nor a new magnetic detector, but, a dozen phonograph records.  "I thought you young men from the States be rather lonely out here," he said, "So I have brought you some  gramaphone records."  So saying, he placed the first record on the machine, and the home-sick  Americans heard the strains of Everybody's Doing It Now.

     Marconi was scrupulously truthful, and that meant that everything had to be checked for accuracy. This is well shown by an incident in his reception of the first signals across the Atlantic, in 1901. He and his assistant were in the cold stone room provided for them in a Newfoundland barracks, and Marconi was tuning again and again for the signal he desired.  Nothing but crashes and clicks of static were heard, until suddenly Marconi heard three faint buzzes, with the low-pitch rhythm that identified the signals with distant Poldhu.  Again and again he heard them, but, giving no sign to his assistant, he handed over the headphones and said, "Mr. Kemp, do you hear anything?"  Even when Kemp checked his observations, Marconi would give out no statement as to his success until both he and Kemp had again received signals the following day.

     Marconi was, always willing to give reporters the news of an invention or a new record of transmission, but prophecies and the like, were his greatest antipathy.  One day he made the serious mistake of using obvious sarcasm. "Gentlemen," said he to reporters, "You seem to want me to tell you something new, so I will.  I have been talking with Mars, but don't tell anyone about it."  To his surprise, his words were taken in dead earnest , and the newspapers of the world blazoned forth the story of "Marconi tallking with the stars."  That experience taught him not to joke---with reporters.  "It's strange," he said, "if I describe all actual invention I may get a little space in the papers, although the foreign ones will be sure to say their countrymen thought of it first, but if I hand them a package, every newspaper in the world will devote column after column to it."

     One of the most famed rescues at sea where radio played a part was that of the steamship Titanic, in 1912.  Marconi was at that time in New York, and when the survivors finally reached that city, they gathered under the balcony of the apartment where, Marconi lived and shouted in chorus, "We owe our lives to you." Then a special delegation presented Marconi with a gold medal.  An American young lady, whose father was among the rescued, tried to throw her arms around Marconi to kiss him.  He, to hide his emotion, turned to the medal.  "I will always treasure. this medal," he said, "First because it means so much to me, and second, because it makes me appear good looking."

     Marconi's quiet humor extended  to every one of his intimates, even to the highest dignitaries. One evening he was entertaining a high official of the church and was receiving broadcast entertainment from a frame aerial hidden in the chandelier.  The prelate could see no

antenna coming into the room, and asked if the electric signals came in through the window.  "No, for you see it is closed," said Marconi. ''Then how do they  get in?'' insisted his Eminence. "You can answer better than I can", said Marconi, "for you are in more intimate relationship with things of divine origin."

     Throughout all the adulation that was heaped upon him, the honors he received, the incredibly swift growth of the new art of which he was the father, Marconi never got out of touch with those later youthful enthusiasts in the field of radio. In 1925 the American Radio Relay League sent a representative to Scotland in an attempt to receive signals from American amateurs.  They were successful, for a number of United States stations were logged.   The Wireless Society of England gave a dinner In London in honor of the achievement which Marconi attended.  On that occasion he said of amateurs: "I am

never so happy as when I am talking with the young men of today who are so eagerly working on wireless communication and testing, just as I did.  I have never lost touch with that side of my career, and never shall."

     Some years later he again voiced the same opinion at the "Century of Progress" in Chicago.  Two days had been designated as "Mar-coni Days,” and at the close of the strenuous schedule, he insisted on visiting an amateur station which had been set up in the Palace of Transportation.  When the startled boys saw their visitor they forgot schedules and everything else and showed him proudly around their exhibit.  As he was about to leave he noticed a partly built transmitter, and said, "That is certainly a fine piece of work.”

     "But, Mr. Marconi," said the lad, "it can't be very good for I am only an amateur."

     “That may be so,”  replied the Senatore.  "But, remember, I am only, in amateur myself."

     The Institute of Radio Engineers not only owes its existence to the art which Mr. Marconi founded, but also was honored from time to time with  scientific contributions from him.  One of these was delivered in person, in .1920, when he was the recipient of file Medal of Honor of the Institute, at a joint meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.  This lecture was on the then new subject of short-wave communication, and a beam transmitter on a turntable was demonstrated showing how, with waves almost as short as 1 meter, the transmitter could be turned toward the receiver to give a signal, or turned a few degrees off, in which case nothing would be heard.  This lecture was a history-making one in radio circles and Marconi was asked why he gave it first to America instead of to London or Rome. "Because I feel under a deep sense of obligation to America,” he replied.   When I was unknown, in 1901, I was received enthusiastically bv American scientists, and they tendered me most unexpected banquet when I received the first signals across the Atlantic.  So todav I am giving to America and its two great electrical societies the first information and the first demonstration on my new beam apparatus."

     The first wireless station built under Marconi’s direction by the newly formed American Marconi Co. was at Babylon, Long Island.  It was a mere shack, and was used chiefly for experimental work.  Years later, it was abandoned, and forgotten until 1931, when Edwin H. Armstrong, of superheterodyne fame, rediscovered it, in use as a paint shop, and presented it to RCA.

     Marconi was also honorary president of old time radio operators and engineers.  In December, 1931, on the thirtieth anniversary of his first wireless conquest of the Atlantic, the V.W.O.A. presented him with a special gold medal, to which he replied, “I am deeply touched at having been conferred such a generous token of appreciation by the V.W.O.A., the component members of which are particularly close to me, and I wish to assure you that your valuable gift will be treasured amongst the most cherished rewards I have ever received.”

Page updated January 3, 2004   page created July 4, 1999