Italy celebrates The 100th Anniversary of Radio: August 1995
by Mauro Minenna, IEEE Member, TInet / Bari, Italy
Pontecchio, Italy, In this small town in 1895, a young and almost unknown inventor named Guglielmo Marconi and a farm worker from a local villa were discussing the timing of a rifle shot.
Two kilometers away from the men stood a bizarre apparatus that was supposed to transmit electric pulses through an antenna made from a long cable. Next to the farmer, an equally bizarre device was to receive those pulses. Guglielmo told the farmer to watch the nearer machine and shoot his rifle if it received any signals.
The test began, the signals were sent and the farmer fired his rifle, a successful transmission had been achieved.
A hundred years later on March 30, 1995, the president of the Italian Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, used a radio-controlled laser to trace the signature of Marconi on the roof of the Sidney Opera House in Sidney, Australia. It was the start of the celebrations for the centenary of the invention of radio transmission.
Centenary Events
The Guglielmo Marconi Foundation, located in this same town where Marconi held his fledgling experiments, is in charge of the celebrations. The foundation announced that, "during 1995 a huge amount of events of the greatest importance have been organized."
Guglielmo Marconi (left) and George Kemp shortly after the successful transatlantic test of 1901. The 10-inch induction coil spark transmitter is on the right, with Morse inker and "grasshopper" key in the center
Recent events included the radio-astronomy exhibition, "Radio, from Marconi to the Music of the Stars," held in Bologna, and the conferment of the Marconi Prize during the Marconi international fellowship congress by President Scalfaro.
RadioExpo
Among the public events in Marconi's honor, the Radiexpo Exhibition in Bologna will host a spectacular show from June 9-18 to promote and relaunch radiodiffusion. The Radiexpo will be also in New York for the inauguration of the "Casa Italiana" at the Columbia University from October to November. An itinerant exhibition called "100 years of radio" will be in Rome between Sept. 30 - Dec. 10, and in Stockholm Dec. 13 during the conferment of Nobel Prizes.
Scientific Conferences
Several scientific events will be held in the fall, including many conferences. Bologna will host the European Microwave conference, the First European Personal and Mobile Communications Conference and the 34th FITCE European Telecommunications Congress for European Community telecommunications engineers. In December, a conference on "Marconi and the Organization of Scientific Culture" will be held in Rome by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, one of Italy's most important scientific associations.
After the rifle incident, young Marconi unsuccessfully offered his invention to the Italian government. When they weren't interested, he had to patent his invention abroad and so he emigrated to London. There he patented radio in 1896 and founded Marconi Telegraph Company Ltd. a year later. In Marconi's honor, the U.K.-based IEE will hold an international conference in London on 100 years of radio history from Sept. 5-7.
Back To Italy
In 1898 Marconi was called back to Italy by the minister of the Italian navy. As a naval officer, he conducted some of his most important experiments aboard navy ships. To honor his achievements, the Italian navy has organized several specails cruises this year.
"Marconi always showed to be proud of his belonging to the Italian navy and he had from the navy all the support he needed to demonstrate the soundness of his arguments and of his scientific investigations and the scientist made all his inventions available for free to the Italian navy," said Sea-Captain Leoni of the Italian navy. "The Italian navy in this centenary year has dedicated the spring cruise of the Amerigo Vespucci to Guglielmo Marconi."
Naval Exhibitions
The ship carries an exhibition on the centenary that will be open to the public. Leoni said other units of Italian navy are presently cruising all over the world with similar exhibits.
Radio transmissions brought to the sea the same services telegraphy provided on land. Radio quickly showed its usefulness to the public during famous shipwrecks like the ones of Florida and Republic in 1909 and of the Titanic in 1912.
This generated widespread interest and fundraising, and in a short time radio broadcasting technology was widely available. Radio broadcasting started a society of global communication, and the electromagnetic waves emitted a century ago in that villa in Pontecchio continue to travel, from the farm worker with a rifle to the farthest corners of Earth.
For More Details...
The Guglielmo Marconi Foundation can be reached by e-mail: fgm@promet8.cineca.it.
The Foundation also has a Website: http://promet12.cineca.it/htfgm/text.html
Source: http://www.institute.ieee.org/INST/aug95/marconi.html
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