During the year 1900, which many people
would identify as the first year in the new century, multitudes of
wireless signals in Morse Code were noted in many countries on five wide spread
continents. Long distance coverage for
wireless transmissions began to increase quite rapidly; and in addition,
wireless equipment was installed into a large numbers of ships, mainly naval
vessels, though some cargo & passenger ships as well.
In
England for example, Marconi reported that his manufacturing company had
supplied transmitting & receiving equipment for 26 ships and six coastal
stations. In addition Captain Jackson of
the Royal Navy at Devonport on the south coast of England provided an
additional 19 sets for navy usage during this same time period.
In October, Marconi commenced work
on the construction of two major coastal wireless stations, a larger one at
Poldhu and a smaller one at the Lizard, both on the Cornwall coast. The large
Poldhu station was designed for international communication, and the smaller
Lizard station was designed as a fill in for Poldhu as needed, and also to
check on the actual performance of Poldhu.
Germany opened its first permanent
wireless station as a maritime coastal station on Borkum Island on February
19. Then, half-a year later, two more
wireless stations were opened in Germany for mutual communication, one at
Kugalbake at the mouth of the River Elbe, and the other 30 miles distant on the
island of Heligoland.
Russia
also opened its first maritime wireless stations during the year 1900, one at
Hogland Island and the other 25 miles distant at Kymi on the coast of
Finland. The Finnish station operated in
Morse Code on 1155 kHz.
Over
in the Americas, there were three successful attempts at wireless communication
by voice. In the Spring of the year
1900, the Canadian born Reginald Fessenden established a wireless station for
the Weather Bureau on Cobb Island in the Potomac River some 50 miles south of
Washington DC. On December 23, he
successfully transmitted the human voice over a distance of one mile from one
end of the island to the other with the use of two wireless masts 50 feet
tall. Due to the fact that this
transmission was via spark wireless, the voice comprehension was almost
unintelligible.
It
is also claimed that Archie Collins successfully transmitted the human voice
over a distance of one mile across the Delaware River in the United States
during the year 1900. For this event, he
used the spark transmitter that he had developed during the previous year.
Down
in South America the Catholic priest Padre Landell de Moura made several
successful voice transmissions on the edge of Sao Paulo in Brazil. He conducted his experiments in the vicinity
of the hill Santana; and on June 3, he made a successful transmission to the
down town area, Avenida Paulista, a distance of 5 miles, and this was reported
in the city newspaper.
De
Moura had invented three different though related systems of transmission &
reception and an examination of his circuitry reveals that he was at that time
actually a little ahead of his fellow inventors in Europe and the United
States.
De
Moura gave technical names to his inventions, which in English could be
described as follows:-
1.
Anematophone A wireless telephone
2.
Teletition A wireless
telegraph
3.
Wavemeter A wave transmitter
Down
in Australia, successful wireless experiments were independently conducted in
three different states. Mr. Henry W.
Jenvey, Post Office Engineer for the state of Victoria, sent a telegram to a
fellow experimenter on November 17, in which he mentions the success of some of
his own wireless experiments.
Early
in the year 1900, Mr. W. P Hallam of Hobart, the capital city of the island
state of Tasmania, conducted successful wireless transmissions between ship and
shore; and up in Queensland, the navy conducted successful transmissions
between the gunboat HMQS “Gayundah” and the shore based navy depot at Kangaroo
Point, in suburban Brisbane, the state capital.
Over
in Europe, the Belgian passenger ship, “Princesse Clementine”, was fitted with
Marconi wireless equipment which was called into action for several wireless
experiments over progressively increasing distances, at 50 miles & 60 miles
and then 90 miles. The German luxury
liner, “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” was the first passenger ship in the world to
be fitted with wireless, on February 28, 1900, and their new equipment achieved
a distance of 60 miles.
The
Russian navy vessel “General-Admiral Apraksin” carried personnel for the
installation of the wireless station on the island of Hogland but it became
stranded in the frozen waters of the Gulf of Bothnia at the end of April. A rescue ship was summoned by wireless, the
icebreaker “Yermak”, which came and freed the ice bound “Apraksin”.
Off
the east coast of Africa, wireless equipment was installed into 5 vessels of
the British navy. This equipment was a
blending of wireless equipment from English Marconi & German Siemens which
had been imported into South Africa during the Boer War. The 5 navy vessels established a new distance
record for wireless, covering a distance of 250 miles from Delgoa Bay in
Mozambique to Johannesburg in South Africa.
It should be mentioned though, that this accomplishment was made in a
cascade relay, from one ship to another.
Next
month, you will hear another bulletin of Ancient DX News, and this time it will
cover the year 1901.
(AWR Wavescan/NWS 191 via Adrian Peterson)