36 Can You Hear Me Now? 1902

Three dots are all it took to prove that radio waves were real. Three dots in telegraph's Morse code is the letter “S” which is all that was said during the first radio broadcast ever heard in Canada. From Poldhu, England, a faint dot, dot, dot sound was heard 3,500 km away in St. John's Newfoundland, by Guglielmo Marconi. The radio was about to be born.

Heinrich Hertz was the German inventor who discovered radio waves in the late 1800's. He showed the world that energy could be sent from one place to another without using wires. He opened the door for Guglielmo Marconi to try to send sound through the air.

Guglielmo was an Italian inventor and businessman. At the age of 20, he became interested in radio waves. He thought that radio waves could be used to send sound through the air. He experimented with the telegraph. The telegraph sent Morse code sounds through wires using electricity. Guglielmo wanted to make telegraph signals that travelled through air, not wires.

Guglielmo believed that radio waves could travel through objects. Unlike light waves that cannot pass through something solid like a wall, radio waves can travel through everything. Guglielmo was excited to try to invent a radio because it meant that sound could be sent to all people, everywhere.

The Italian government was not interested in helping Guglielmo invent the radio. When they turned him down, Guglielmo went to England with his mother, who had good connections there. The British welcomed Guglielmo, especially the Post Office and the navy. He started a business in England in 1897, called the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company. The navy was his best customer because the radio was the only way they could talk to their ships when they were at sea. Things went very well for Guglielmo. He got rich, and his dream grew.

Next, Guglielmo wanted to create a worldwide radio network. He knew he needed to put many radio stations all over the world. Each station could send radio signals to the next one until these signals went all the way around the world. He thought he would first start at the Atlantic Ocean.

GUGLIELMO MARCONI HEARD THE FIRST RADIO SIGNAL SENT FROM ENGLAND TO CANADA

Scientists told Guglielmo his idea was not possible. They said it was too far for radio signals to travel across the ocean. Guglielmo knew he would need a tall and powerful station to send his signals such a long distance. Scientists also thought that radio waves travelled in straight lines. Planet Earth was not straight. It was curved. Scientists said that radio waves travelling in a straight line would end up in space. However, Guglielmo thought radio waves would follow the curve of the Earth. He wanted to prove that he was right, not the scientists.

Guglielmo was ready to start his experiments. He planned to use the tall and strong stations at Poldhu in England and Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the USA. However, before he could start, the antennas at both stations were blown down in big storms. The one at Poldhu got a new antenna, but Guglielmo had to travel to St. John's, Newfoundland to find another tall antenna to use on that side of the ocean. Guglielmo set up his equipment in an unused hospital building there. So that he could get his antenna high enough, he put it on a kite and flew it up in the sky. On December 12, 1901, Guglielmo told the world that he heard the letter “S” sent all the way from England to Canada.

Not everyone believed him, and many said he was not telling the truth. The Anglo-American Telegraph Company of Newfoundland thought it was true, though. They were frightened that Guglielmo would start his radio company there and put them out of business. They made him leave Newfoundland, so he went to Nova Scotia to start again, and prove to the world that radio was real.

Guglielmo was welcomed in Nova Scotia. He was given high land at Glace Bay to build his radio station. On December 15, 1902, he was ready to try again. This time, he sent his signal from Canada to England. It was a short greeting to the Times newspaper of London from one of its reporters, Dr Parkin, in Glace Bay. It was heard, so Guglielmo had the proof he needed. It took many more years of experimenting before scientists could use the wireless telegraph to send sound. They sent voices and music through it. Guglielmo knew he would become even richer if his company could make radios for everyone to buy.

As early as 1892, Nikola Tesla had already created the radio. Nikola had used radio waves to drive a toy boat through the water. He showed his radio boat to the world at an exhibition in 1898. He did not get patents for it, though. Guglielmo took Nikola's designs and claimed them as his own. He got all the patents for the radio. He took the rights to make and sell radios away from Nikola.

Next, Guglielmo began to build radio stations in other parts of Canada. The Canadian Marconi Company built stations in Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario. They built their stations in southern parts of Canada as well as the far Northern parts.

In 1909, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded a part of the Nobel Prize in physics for inventing the radio. He became known as the “Father of Radio”. However, in 1943, after both Guglielmo and Nikola were dead, the patent office looked again at Nikola Tesla's radio designs. They decided that Guglielmo's claim that he invented the radio was not true. They took the radio patents away from Guglielmo. They said that Nikola was the true inventor of the radio.

Even so, without Guglielmo Marconi's years of experiments, the radio would not have become the most important communication discovery ever. Without radio, there would be no television, cell phones, or the internet. Guglielmo was an important inventor, and he did not stop experimenting until the day he died in 1937.