Guglielmo Marconi

- a summary of the life of Guglielmo Marconi often termed the father of radio" or wireless, detailing his early pioneering work, from his first transmissions to crossing the Atlantic and later developments.

Marconi is often called the "Father of Radio" for the many developments he made to radio, and although he probably did more than any other person to advance radio technology, he freely admitted that he did not invent it. However he left behind him a great legacy, with a company that made many wireless sets from commercial equipment to domestic sets that are collected by vintage wireless enthusiasts.

Marconi's childhood

Guglielmo Marconi was born on 25th April 1874 in Bologna in Northern Italy. His father was a wealthy Italian and his mother came a Scottish and Irish family of brewers and distillers.

Marconi's mother loved to travel and the young Guglielmo accompanied her on many of her trips. As a result the young Marconi received private tuition, and later he attended a school in Florence. He found his work difficult, but still managed to progress to the Technical Institute of Leghorn where he was more successful, and developed an interest in physics.

Unfortunately Marconi left the Institute without any formal qualifications but he managed to undertake some studies and experiments at home. As a result his mother she arranged for one of their neighbours, a noted physicist named Professor Righi to act as an adviser. It was through this contact that Marconi's interest became focused on the newly discovered Hertzian Waves.

Marconi's wireless experiments

With Marconi's interest fired with ideas of Hertzian Waves, he started by repeating the experiments of Heinrich Hertz who had discovered the presence of the waves. Marconi soon realised that the sensitivity of the coherer (the device used to detect the radio waves) was crucial to the range which could be achieved. As a result he set about trying to improve its sensitivity by a process of trial and error and he achieved a considerable degree of success.

Marconi made other discoveries and improvements and eventually he was able to detect signals at distances up to about two kilometres.

Realising the possibilities this offered for communications he offered the idea to the Italian authorities but they were not impressed and they dismissed the idea.

Move

Marconi was not deterred by his rejection, but in order to be able to exploit his idea he moved to England with his mother in February 1896. Through the connections of a relation he was introduced to William Preece the Chief Engineer of the Post Office. Preece was keenly interested in wire-less forms of communications and had performed a number of experiments himself.

Marconi undertook a number of demonstrations to officials from the Post Office and also the War Office. Later demonstrations were also made to the press.

Up until this time the new Hertzian or radio waves used by Marconi had not been put to any real use. Then in 1897 it was decided to test the new system and see if it could provided a reliable link across various stretches of water. If this was successful it would save on the installation of expensive submarine cables. In some of the first of these tests across the Bristol Channel, Marconi's system proved to be very successful, further enhancing his image.

Marconi open for business

With the success of these tests interest in the possible uses of radio grew, and in July 1897 Marconi decided that he had to launch his own company. Named the "Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company Limited" its foundation allowed him to borrow further money to allow further tests and development to be performed. With financial backing behind him he continued his developments and tests.

With the range increases he made it was decided to attempt to make the first international radio link by transmitting across the English Channel in 1899 from Wimereux near Boulogne in France to South Foreland near Dover in England. However it also enabled new discoveries to be made because the transmissions were picked up over 130 kilometres away in Chelmsford at the company factory.

Atlantic challenge for Marconi

The success of the cross channel transmissions lead Marconi to believe that transmissions could be made across the Atlantic. After many setbacks transmission tests were commenced between Poldhu in Cornwall England and a receiving station near St Johns Newfoundland.

Tests commenced in December 1901 and through many difficulties and high levels of static the transmissions were just picked up, proving transmission across the Atlantic was possible.

Further transmissions

Marconi had to terminate his transmissions to Newfoundland for legal reasons he moved his station to Cape Breton Island. Now using this station he introduced a news service to create some revenue.

The main area of business for Marconi's company was to provide communications systems for ships. With the transatlantic link established more ships took the Marconi system on board. The first commercial installation on a merchant ship was completed in 1900, and by 1902 seventy ships had Marconi systems on board.

Short waves

The initial long distance transmissions had been made using very long wavelengths, typically in excess of 2000 metres. Then in the early 1920s the short wave bands were starting to be exploited. Many professionals including Marconi started to experiment with these bands carrying out many experiments.

With proof that the short wave bands could provide reliable communication over long distances the British Government decided that it needed to install an Imperial Wireless Network. The Marconi Company approached the British Government and offered to link up the Empire with short wave stations in England, Canada, India, South Africa and Australia. As the technology was very new and there was a high risk of failure the Government insisted that Marconi bore all the risk of failure. Once installed the system was very successful, and very reliable.

Marconi's final years

In later life Marconi became more involved with politics and the interests of his native Italy. He had been appointed to the Italian Senate in 1914, but in later life he undertook diplomatic missions for his country.

His last years were very troubled with the increasing tension of the 1930s. To add to this his health started to fail and he suffered a number of heart attacks. Finally he died on 20^th July 1937 at the age of 63. This was the end to a brilliant career spanning true pioneering work in the field of radio, and the service of his country he loved.