AWR Wavescan on Early Wireless in New Zealand

 

New Zealand - Early Wireless before Marconi!

Jeff: There has been much interest lately in the installation of a new Ampegon analog/DRM SW transmitter for Radio New Zealand Pacific, which is currently planned to be on the air by May 2024.  We hope that installation goes well, and congratulate the authorities in New Zealand for reinforcing their investment in DRM technology for digital radio broadcasting to the Pacific.  We thought it might be opportune to go back and review the very early history of wireless development in New Zealand when that country also led the world!  Ray Robinson has more.

Ray: Thanks, Jeff.  Yes, strange as it may seem, way back at the beginning of the wireless era, little New Zealand way down south was actually ahead of the experimental activities in Europe, with more people on the inventive scene than any other country in the world at the time. So, let’s return to the year 1888, seven years before Marconi came onto the scene in northern Italy.

Because, 1888 was the year in which George Kemp began his wireless experiments in the areas around Gisborne, in the central east coast of the north island.  At the time, Kemp was working for the New Zealand Post & Telegraph Department.  He was familiar with the workings of the telegraph and telephone, with its usage of electricity to convey a message along a long connecting wire.  He attempted to communicate with distant places by using long antenna wires for both the transmitter and the receiver, and by submerging them in the waters of the nearby river.  

In another experiment, he dipped the ends of the transmitting and receiving wires into the waters of two different wells. During the year 1894, at the time when the young Marconi was beginning to tinker with the idea of sending wireless messages through space, Ernest Rutherford at Canterbury University in Dunedin, South Island New Zealand, had already accomplished this.  Rutherford was successful in transmitting a signal a distance of 25 feet through several intervening walls.

Subsequently, Rutherford successfully transmitted a wireless signal over a distance of half a mile at Cambridge University in England.  This was a world distance record at the time.  Rutherford went on to a distinguished career in nuclear physics, for which he was ultimately knighted with the title ‘Sir’, and he was also awarded a Nobel Prize.

In the late 1890’s also down in Dunedin, several university students began their own experiments with wireless equipment.  In the year 1899, by which time Marconi had arrived on the scene over in England, one of the students, John Cooper, successfully demonstrated wireless transmissions at the university.  During the following year, three more students successfully transmitted a wireless signal from one room to another; and as a sequel, they hooked up their equipment in such a way that the receiver rang a bell at a distance of two hundred yards.

After these events, several more New Zealanders got into the act, with further successes in wireless transmissions.  James Logan sent a Morse Code message across Wellington Harbour; and seventeen-year-old Mr. J. L. Passmore built his own set of wireless equipment, and subsequently transmitted a Morse Code signal over a distance of six miles. Passmore Crescent, in the Dunedin suburb of Maori Hill, is named in honor of the Passmore family.

In the very early years of the 20th century, wireless events were under development in several countries of Europe as well as in Australia and New Zealand.  The Marconi Company at Chelmsford in England sent out a batch of electrical equipment for installation in New Zealand.  For the first time in the history of the Dominion, ‘wireless’ was given a public demonstration, and the event occurred at the Christchurch International Exhibition.

The Marconi Company successfully transmitted signals from the Exhibition in Hagly Park to the Islington Freezing Works, a distance of seven miles. This exhibition was opened on November 1, 1906, and it was open to the public continuously well into the new year 1907.

During the year 1908, three young men constructed their own wireless equipment, and they sent a goodwill message to the New Zealand Parliament in session, and also to the Postmaster General.  Using the initial letters of their last names, these three young men linked themselves together as the SHB Wireless Company of Dunedin.

Attempts at long-distance international communications then began, and the first successful transmission was made on February 3, 1908, when three Royal Navy vessels, Pioneer, Powerful and Psyche, relayed a message of goodwill between the Prime Ministers of New Zealand and Australia. One year later, a return message was sent between the two countries, this time direct from Sydney to New Zealand without an intervening relay ship in the middle of the Tasman Sea.

And, the George Kemp we mentioned earlier – the one who had been experimenting with receiving and transmitting wires as aerials submerged in water - succeeded in contacting a passing ship, the Ophir, with his electrical equipment.  The Ophir had been equipped for wireless telegraphy, and the ship's wireless officer observed activity on the equipment, but he was unaware someone was trying to send him a message!

After the Great War, New Zealand continued to lead the way by featuring prominently in the very early experimentation with radio broadcasting.  Just one year after the famous KDKA was launched in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the first radio broadcast was made in New Zealand.

The now historic figure, Dr. Robert Jack, was Professor of Physics at the Otago University in Dunedin at the time.  He assembled his own radio transmitter and formed the Otago Radio Association, first going to air with music recordings on October 4, 1922.

The music was on gramophone records on loan from a local music shop.  The only known item of content in this historic first program was a recording of the popular song, "Hello My Dearie".

The first broadcast from this first radio station in New Zealand was heard as far away as Wellington, 500 miles to the north of Dunedin. Programming from this new station was on the air for two hours, twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.

This radio station received the first transmitting license in New Zealand with the original callsign being simply DN for ‘Dunedin’.  In fact the station claims to have been the first in the southern hemisphere, and the fifth oldest in the world, five weeks older even than the BBC.  Subsequent callsigns allocated to the station were 4AB and 4ZB, and from 1948 until the 1980s, it was 4XD, on 1431 kHz.

Here’s a clip of announcer Ivor Fennessy on 4XD on 2nd July 1982:

Today, the station just identifies as ‘Radio Dunedin’ without using a callsign.  Their frequency has changed too, but they are still on the air on medium wave with 2½ kW on 1305 kHz, as well as being on a couple of FM frequencies and streaming via the Internet.

On shortwave, Radio New Zealand Pacific is regularly heard in both analog and DRM modes across the Pacific and in western North America.  Until recently, the station utilized a pair of 100 kW transmitters at Rangitaiki in the center of the North Island – one being a hybrid analog and DRM unit, and the other an older analog-only unit.  That older analog-only one was decommissioned a few weeks ago and is now being disassembled and removed, to make way for the new Ampegon analog/DRM transmitter currently being shipped from Europe.  Installation and testing is expected in the Feb/Mar/Apr timeframe, with a planned on-air date of May 1st, 2024.

(Ray Robinson/AWR)

Ancient DX Report: 1906

During the year 1906, the ether was fairly buzzing with the Morse Code signals from wireless stations located on land all around the world, as well as on board ships in all seven of the world’s great oceans.  In fact, the first edition of a wireless directory was published by the United States Navy on October 1 of 1906 under the title Wireless Telegraph Stations of the World, and this directory is considered to be the very first comprehensive listing of official stations ever published.

            By taking a count from all available sources, it is estimated that there were more than 500 official wireless stations on land in more than 70 different countries, with well over 1,000 on board ships.  These listings are for official stations only, and there were an additional uncounted number of other stations on the air as well, including many amateur stations for which licensing was not required at that time.  Perhaps there was somewhere around 3,000 wireless stations on the air during this era.

            During the year 1906, three notable inventions altered the flow of wireless/radio development:-

                        * General Dunwoodie of the American army invented the crystal detector, know known                            widely as the cat’s whisker, which enabled tuned radio reception

                          * Lee de Forest patented a 3 element radio tube or valve, the audion as he called it, thus                         opening the way for a much wider usage of the vacuum tube in radio                                 development

                          * Archie Collins patented voice transmissions via an electric arc

     

            An important wireless conference took place in Berlin during the year, beginning October 2, with 100 delegates from 23 countries participating.  At this convention, the usage of a new emergency code was adopted, SOS, replacing the previous CQD.  The name radio was also adopted, replacing the earlier term wireless. 

            At this convention, a list of international callsign prefixes was drawn up, and letters of the alphabet were allocated to each country.  For example, wireless station callsigns beginning with the letter G indicated Great Britain, the letter J indicated Japan, the letters N & W indicated the United States.     

            We should note also that the Telefunken company established a wireless station near Nauen, in a swampland area some 25 miles north west of Berlin, during this year. 

            (This station at Nauen is still on the air today, with the programming of Adventist World Radio, including our DX program Wavescan which is heard from this station every Sunday at 1530 UTC on 11750 kHz at 250 kW.  In addition, our sister DX program in the Italian language is also heard from Nauen each Sunday at 1000 UTC on 9610 kHz at 100 kW.)

            The most intense usage of wireless anywhere in the world during the year 1906 took place in the United States, where its is recorded that more than 100 stations were on the air, operated by the navy and the army, and also by several different commercial organizations. 

            In order to establish a flow of communication after the devastating earthquake in San Francisco on April 18 and the massive fires that followed, the navy vessel USS “Chicago” handled an outward flow of messages in Morse Code from San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island thence to Mare Island and  onward to the nationwide system of landline connections.  The fires also destroyed the wireless station PH in the Palace Hotel and it was re-established at nearby Russian Hill. 

            Marconi engineers warned that their Atlantic coast wireless station was endangered by cliff erosion; and the  transmission towers operated by Pacific Wireless on Mt Tamalpais near San Francisco were felled by a jealous competitor.

            On January 1, the Canadian born Reginald Fessenden established wireless communication from his new station at Brant Rock, 2 kW on 100 kHz, with his equally new station at Micrahanish in Scotland; but, this Scottish station was destroyed in a storm in December.

            On December 21, 1906, Reginald Fessenden presented a public demonstration of his wireless equipment with an experimental broadcast before an invited group of local dignitaries.  This event is definitely and clearly chronicled in the verified details of history.

            In question though, are Fessenden’s touted Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve broadcasts from this same station a few days later.  Much evidence has been piled up, both for and against, the accuracy of Fessenden’s subsequent claims that he did indeed make these two intentional radio broadcasts, as historical firsts.

            However, several maritime historians provide an item of information that does not seem to get quoted by researchers delving into the Fessenden controversy.  These maritime historians state that the wireless operator aboard the new American passenger liner “Kroonland” heard Fessenden’s Christmas Eve broadcast while out in nearby Atlantic waters.  It is true, the ”Kroonland” report could be revisionist history, but further research might also reveal the veracity of this claim.

            A postcard dated June 14, 1906, shows the Lee De Forest wireless station at 42 Broadway in New York, and it contains the hand written message: “Aboard steamer on ocean we just received message about weather reports by wireless.”  This card might almost qualify as an early QSL. 

            On November 1, the Christchurch International Exhibition in New Zealand opened at Hagley Park, with 400 acres of international displays and exhibits from all around the world.  This Christchurch exhibition was visited by two million people, citizens and international visitors, before closure on April 15 of the following year 1907.  It should be remembered that the total population of New Zealand itself was only one million at the time.

            Two Marconi representatives, Captain Walker and Engineer Dowsett, established two wireless stations, one at the Christchurch exhibition in Hagley Park and the other at a distance several miles away.  Newspapers in both Australia and New Zealand announced in advance that a wireless exhibit would be staged at the Christchurch International Exhibition.

            Two early experimenters in Australia were Mr. C. P. Bartholomew and Mr. E. F. G. Jolley, both of whom constructed their own equipment.  Bartholomew lived in the Sydney suburb of Mossman; and Jolley set up two wireless stations in two houses one mile apart in the country town Marlborough, 100 miles north west of the state capital Melbourne. 

            There was also an experimental set of wireless equipment on board a local steamer at sea between Mt Nelson and Tasman Island, off the coast of Tasmania.

            The big wireless event in Australia during the year 1906 was the two way transmission of signals between Victoria and Tasmania, a distance of 150 miles across Bass Strait.  And that story is scheduled for presentation here in Wavescan a few weeks from now.

 (AWR Wavescan/NWS 255)

The Story of an Old Newfoundland Postcard

Did Marconi Really Hear the Letter 'S' Across the Atlantic ?

It was on Thursday December 12 in the year 1901, that Marconi claimed to have successfully received a wireless transmission from Poldhu in Cornwall at his temporary listening location near St. John’s on the North American island of Newfoundland. 

            It is stated that the radiating equipment at Poldhu was a 75 kW spark transmitter, which was operating somewhere in what we would today call the longwave or maybe the mediumwave band.  The signal was fed into a temporary vertical fan antenna system. 

            The receiving equipment at the old hospital building near Cabot Tower on Signal Hill St. John’s Newfoundland, was a longwire antenna held aloft by a balloon or a kite, a simple untuned coherer detector, and a set of headphones.  It is suggested that the transmitter was radiating on several harmonic frequencies in addition to the emission on the fundamental frequency, and it is quite probable that the receiver was also receiving some of the untuned harmonics as well as the fundamental.

            That event is dated exactly 111 years ago tomorrow, Monday December 12, 2012.  However, all throughout these many years, it has been quite popular to deny the veracity of the event, and to declare that Marconi & his assistant George Kemp did not actually hear the letter S transmitted across the Atlantic from England, but instead, they simply heard the crash of static produced by strong winter storms.   

            It is true, in the headphones, the actual sound of static and the sound of a spark from a distant wireless transmitter were quite the same in that era.  However, there is a real difference between the irregular sounds created by lightning and the regular rhythmic sound of a continuous stream of the letter S, three dots, in Morse Code. 

            We should remember also, that both Marconi & Kemp listed in their diaries the times & the dates when they state that they heard the letter S from England.  The Marconi diary shows that he heard the signal from Poldhu on 14 separate occasions during the Thursday & Friday; and the Kemp diary shows that he heard the signal on 11 separate occasions, a total of 25 times altogether.

            In addition, it is known that lower frequency radio transmissions in the middle of winter at a low sunspot count can cover quite long distances, as is revealed also in observed mediumwave coverage during similar conditions in Australia & New Zealand.

            However, in the middle of last year, an interesting original postcard was offered on eBay, and the message on this postcard tends to confirm the fact that it was believed in Newfoundland at the time that Marconi did indeed achieve what he said he achieved.

            The message was written in black ink onto a 2d (two penny) Newfoundland postal card with the printed postage stamp in orange showing a portrait of Queen Victoria.  The message was written on January 15, 1902, just a little over a month after Marconi’s stated reception of the wireless signal from England.  The card was addressed to Mr. William Codner at 18 Wickford Street, St John’s, though the sender did not give his own name nor complete address.

            This card was posted at Broad Cove NS, indicating North Shore to distinguish it from another place with a similar name, and it was carried by the old Conception Bay Railway.  Three postal cancellation dates show January 18 & 20, 1902.  The message on the card reads as follows:

Dear Sir,

You will please tell your friend the adjutant who is (at) St Johns that a  mistake was made in referance of date of first message wireless telegraphy received in Newfoundland.  For factule information, please mention right date first message across the Atlantic was received from Lizard Point in Cornwall at 11:20 am Wednesday the 11^th November 1901.
(Two illegible initials) 
            The writer accuses the Adjutant of making a mistake regarding the correct date for the 1^st Morse message across the Atlantic, but he himself makes several mistakes, due no doubt to his reliance upon his own memory, and not checking up on the accuracy of the information.  We would see the mistakes on this 110 year old postcard as follows:-

 1. The write spells the word “reference” incorrectly, as “referance”.

2. He also spells the word “factual” incorrectly, as “factule”.

3. There were 2 Marconi wireless stations located on the southern coast of Cornwall, 6 miles apart.         The station at Lizard was subsidiary to Poldhu.  The Poldhu station was the one that Morsed the          letter S to Newfoundland, not the Lizard station.

4. The 11^th of November in the year 1901 was not a Wednesday, instead it was a Monday.

5. It is true, that Poldhu did send the letter S to Newfoundland on Wednesday the 11^th of December, but the Marconi/Kemp diaries and subsequent news reports indicate that the signals on the 1^st day           were not received reliably at St. John’s.  The 1^st verified reception, it is stated, was on the next           day, Thursday, December 12, 1901.

             What is the writer of the card trying to say?  In spite of his 5 mistakes, he is endeavoring to state that the 1^st reception of a trans-Atlantic wireless signal occurred at 11:20 am Newfoundland time, on Wednesday December 11, 1901.  It is true, there are reports that the signal was heard on that date, though neither Marconi nor Kemp considered that the reception was sufficiently attested, due to the many changing propagation conditions.  On this the 1^st day, several attempts were made at reception, but many logistical problems intervened, including the fact that a large balloon broke loose, taking the long antenna wire with it.  Continuous attempts at reception on the 1^st listening day were impossible.  

            Why did the unidentified writer write to Mr William Codner?  Was Codner the editor, or maybe the reporter, for the local newspaper in St John’s?  Who was the Adjutant?  Was he interviewed about these Marconi events by the local newspaper?

            I guess we will never know, but the postcard, with all of its mistakes, does throw light onto the fact that at least one Newfoundlander at the time believed that Marconi did indeed receive the letter S across the Atlantic on that memorable occasion.  Maybe the radio historians should be arguing as to which day should be listed as the 1^st day of reception (Wednesday December 11, 1901 or Thursday December 12, 1901), rather than questioning as to whether a signal was heard at all.

(AWR/Wavescan/NWS 198 via Adrian Peterson)
(photo/Daily Dope.Net)

World's Oldest QSL Card

As far as is known, the world's oldest radio card was printed in the year 1901, and it shows a photo of the radio inventor, Guglielmo Marconi. This card is quite small, measuring just 2¼ inches by 1½ inches; that is, less than one quarter the size of a regular postcard.

Marconi was born at Bologna in northern Italy on April 25, in the year 1874. His mother was an Irish heiress, and his father was an Italian businessman. It is said that young Marconi was fluent in both languages, Italian and English, without a trace of an accent in either language.

Quite early, Marconi became interested in the usage of electricity and he read all of the documents he could find about the exploits of others in the transmission of wireless signals without the usage of a conducting medium. He also studied under another Italian inventor who was making preliminary experiments with wireless transmission.

Initially, young Marconi conducted his own earliest wireless experiments indoors at the two storeyed family home in northern Italy. That was in the year 1894. Then, in the following mid year, Marconi transferred his experiments to an outdoor location on the family's large property in northern Italy. Here, he was able successfully to transmit a wireless signal for more than a mile, with a high hill lying in between the primitive transmitter and the equally primitive receiver. That was in 1895.

During the following year, the twenty two year old Marconi went to England where he presented successful demonstrations at several different locations before government and business leaders. He formed his own wireless company in England, and he then established two demonstration wireless stations on the island of Wight.

Quite soon afterwards, Marconi went back to Italy where he gave several successful demonstrations to high ranking officers in the Italian navy. Some of these demonstrations were made on navy vessels at sea. Then he went back to England again where he established a factory for making wireless equipment.

One of his great achievements was the transmission of a wireless signal from his huge wireless station located at Poldhu in Cornwall England, with reception across the Atlantic Ocean at Signal Hill, near St John's in Newfoundland. This wireless signal travelled 2,000 miles, and it circumnavigated a mountain of water 125 miles high, due to the curvature of the earth. We know today of course, that the signal across the Atlantic was reflected off the ionized layers of the ionosphere.

Marconi established several large wireless stations in Europe, Canada and the United States, and several other companies also established competing wireless stations in several different locations.

In 1909, at the young age of thirty five, Marconi won a shared Noble Peace Prize; and in the same year he was appointed a lifetime Senator in the Kingdom of Italy. Twenty years later, he received a hereditary title as a Marquess in the Kingdom of Italy.

In 1912, he lost the sight in one eye in an automobile accident; and he died at the age of 63 in the year 1937. At the time of his death on July 20, all radio stations throughout the world went silent for two minutes as a mark of respect for the man who is honored these days as the "Father of Radio".

Thus, the world's earliest wireless card, printed in England in the year 1901, is a very significant card to all radio historians. It was issued to honor Marconi way back then, when he was just twenty seven years old, and already making himself a name in the wireless and radio world.
(NWS#21 via Adrian Peterson-AWR)