Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

Author:Erik Larson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Mystery, Non-Fiction, Murder, Telegraph, Technology & Engineering, True Crime, Science, 20th Century, Modern, General, United States, Wireless, Murderers, Adult, Great Britain, Radio, Europe, Inventors, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780307351920
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2006-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

TWO DAYS LATER, on Saturday, February 22, 1902, Marconi once again boarded the Philadelphia. The main purpose of this voyage was to return to Canada to close the agreement with the government, but he also saw an opportunity to counter the skepticism confronting his Newfoundland achievement. He installed a new and taller antenna on the Philadelphia to attempt to increase the range at which signals could be received from Poldhu, and invited the ship’s captain, A. R. Mills, to witness the tests. He abandoned the telephone receiver he had used in Newfoundland and attached his usual Morse inker, so that at least there would be a physical record of whatever signals came through.

Everyone by now accepted that Marconi’s system worked well over short distances, so the first messages exchanged with his shore stations caused little stir. It was on the morning of the second day, when the ship was precisely 464.5 miles from Poldhu, that things got interesting.

The equipment snapped to life. The receiver captured the message, “All in order. V.E.,” with V.E. being code for “Do you understand?”

Messages and S’s continued to arrive as per Marconi’s schedule.

At 1,032.3 miles the ship received this message: “Thanks for telegram. Hope all are still well. Good luck.”

Five hundred miles later the last message containing complete words arrived. “All in order. Do you understand?” But even at 2,099 miles from Poldhu the ship’s receiver continued to pick up distinct three-dot patterns.

Captain Mills saw the blue dots as they emerged from the inker. Marconi turned to him. “Is that proof enough, Captain?”

It was. The captain agreed to stand witness and signed the tape and a brief affidavit reading, “Received on S. S. ‘Philadelphia,’ Lat. 42.1 N., Long. 47.23 W., distance 2,099 (two thousand and ninety-nine) statute miles from Poldhu.”

On landing in New York, Marconi told a gathering of reporters, “This merely confirms what I have previously done in Newfoundland. There is no longer any question about the ability of wireless telegraphy to transmit messages across the Atlantic.” In an interview with H. H. McClure, Marconi said, “Why, I can sit down now and figure out just how much power, and what equipment would be required to send messages from Cornwall to the Cape of Good Hope or to Australia. I cannot understand why the scientists do not see this thing as I do.”

But the voyage had brought forth a troubling revelation, which Marconi for now kept secret. He had discovered that during daylight hours, once the ship was more than seven hundred miles out, it received no signals at all, though reception resumed after dark. He called this the “daylight effect.” It seemed, he said, that “clear sunlight and blue skies, though transparent, act as a kind of fog to powerful Hertzian rays.”

A couple of months later, still mystified and frustrated by the effect, Marconi was less judicious in his choice of words. “Damn the sun!” he shouted. “How long will it torment us?”

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