7 Guglielmo Marconi 7shortwave wireless communication, which constitutes the
basis of nearly all modern long-distance radio.
Education and Early Work
Marconi’s father was Italian and his mother Irish. Educated
first in Bologna and later in Florence, Marconi then went
to the technical school in Leghorn, where, in studying
physics, he had every opportunity for investigating
electromagnetic wave technique, following the earlier
mathematical work of James Clerk Maxwell and the
experiments of Heinrich Hertz, who first produced and
transmitted radio waves, and Sir Oliver Lodge, who
conducted research on lightning and electricity.
In 1894 Marconi began experimenting at his father’s
estate near Bologna, using comparatively crude apparatuses:
an induction coil for increasing voltages, with a spark
discharger controlled by a Morse key at the sending end
and a simple coherer (a device designed to detect radio
waves) at the receiver. After preliminary experiments over
a short distance, he first improved the coherer; then, by
systematic tests, he showed that the range of signaling was
increased by using a vertical aerial with a metal plate or
cylinder at the top of a pole connected to a similar plate on
the ground. The range of signaling was thus increased to
about 1.5 miles (2.4 km), enough to convince Marconi of
the potentialities of this new system of communication.
During this period he also conducted simple experiments
with reflectors around the aerial to concentrate the radiated
electrical energy into a beam instead of spreading it in all
directions.
Receiving little encouragement to continue his experi-
ments in Italy, he went, in 1896, to London, where he was
soon assisted by Sir William Preece, the chief engineer of