The Waipawa Mail FRIDAY, JULY 23, 1937. THE WIRELESS WIZARD.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXV, Issue 6, 23 July 1937, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail FRIDAY, JULY 23, 1937. THE WIRELESS WIZARD.

passing of Marchese Gugliehno Marconi removes from this scene of activities the world’s greatest figure in wireless and radio development. Son of an Italian country gentleman and a woman of County Wexford, Ireland, he leaves a name to posterity as the man who, perhaps, did most of all men to make possible the twentieth century civilisation. He gave the world radio telegraphy. Many times it has been asserted that he was not the inventor of wireless, but developed or even pirated his ideas from the discoveries of Clerk Maxwell, of Hertz (who first discovered the existence of radio waves), of Oliver Lodge, Righi, Popolf and others. In spite of all this doubting it will go down as history that Marconi was able to harness, first of all men, the terrific new power which the world was discovering. In 1895, when aged only 21, he experimented at his father’s country house, near ■Bologna, and, using crude and inefficient apparatus, went from success to success until he communicated by wireless signals over a. distance in excess of one mile. He early made use of the system of earthing and of high aerials. Marconi went to London in 1896, and took out the first patent ever granted for wireless telegraphy based on the use of electric waves. He experimented and demonstrated 1 his results before Post Office officials, first of all such demonstrations being carried l out on the roof of the G.P.0., St. Martin’s le Grand. Salisbury Plain was the next scene of experimental work, then Bristol Channel—first across-water transmission —was conquered, reception being recorded up to nine miles. Next year he returned to Italy and experimented, under Royal patronage, with signals from the land to warships twelve miles at sea. In July, 1897, a company was formed in London to acquire all Marconi patents in all. countries except Italy. The first commercial use of radio came in 1898, with Marconi’s reporting of the Kingstown regatta for the Dublin “Express.” Queen Victoria used it to communicate from the Isle of Wight to the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII., the same year. In 1899 its first humanitarian purpose, rescuing life at sea, occurred, when the G<oodwin lightship was struck by a steamer and sent out calls to the land station for lifeboats. The South African War saw radio’s first military uses. By 1900 Marconi was sending messages up to 200 miles, but he believed —in the face of all scientific opinion —that radio waves could be received anywhere on the earth’s surface, despite its curvature, and, on his first attempt in 1901 ho proved this by sending signals from Cornwall to Newfoundland. That may he regarded as the climax to Marconi’s career. He went on patenting' and improving, instituting the first wireless newspaper on the transatlantic liner in 1904, starting regular radio transmission between England and America in 1907, discovering that night reception was very much better than day, making the first use of shortwave radio by means of a “ beam ” in 1916, and sending the first message to Australia in September, 1918. He won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909. He served during the Great War in the Italian Army and Navy, and was an Italian plenipotentiary at Versailles and signed the [ Peace Treaty in 1919. He was awarded many foreign Orders and decorations in recognition of his invention of wireless telegraphy, and was created, in 1929, a hereditary marquis by the King of Italy. Marconi, since 1930, had devoted his energies to development of ultrashort and micro-waves. He took two years to overcome obstacles involved in the facts that they would not- follow the earth’s curvature but travelled in straight lines, and were subject to interference by any body in their path. The waves were hot, and killed mice and birds, and could penetrate fog. In 1933 he said he was on the track of the “death ray,” but could

see no likelihood of its practical development for some time to come. Trvo years later he was experimenting with a short-wave beam with which he stopped motor car or aeroplane engines in motion. Better known, however, is his invention of 1934 of radio navigation for ships and aeroplanes, also of a radio beacon for ships, lighthouses and aeroplanes, which would automatically light lamps or ring bells on approach of each other.