marconi yacht elettra

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Elettra: The story of Guglielmo Marconi through his daughter Princess Elettra Marconi

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, William Lee, who notes that the radio documentary Elettra is now available to rent (A$5.10) or download via Vimeo . Note that this program has geographic restrictions and may be limited to streaming in Australia:

ELETTRA from Ronin Films on Vimeo .

Encouraged by her friendship with Australian broadcaster, Ben Starr, the Princess opens her home and her heart to recall and relive her family’s saga. Her own story is counter-pointed by her memories of her father and all he achieved. As a girl, Elettra watched her father create magic. For her, the use of radio technology to save the?lives of the Titanic survivors and to track down criminals was just part of her father’s wizardry. He had started a revolution. Wireless became the most fabulous invention of the 19th century: the public thought it was miraculous, and leading scientists of the day could not understand how it worked. Elettra inherited the Marconi empire when she was seven years old. Having spent her life travelling the world to promote her father’s legacy, the Princess now plans to turn her crumbling family palace in Bologna into a radiant academy for the arts and science. From the gardens of enchanted villas, to the corridors of the Vatican, we peek into the cracks of a new “Dolce Vita”, where nothing is quite what it seems. For all her joyful enthusiasm, the Princess has found little support for her plan in Italy’s dysfunctional ministries and is searching far beyond. Can she make her dream come true? Click here to view the trailer on Vimeo.

6 thoughts on “ Elettra: The story of Guglielmo Marconi through his daughter Princess Elettra Marconi ”

Looks like a very interesting video. I met Elettra back in 2009 in Rome: https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2009/09/meeting-princess-elettra-marconi.html

OMG – I should not attempt to post comments from the pub – in my message above… Contentment should read “content” LOL – OK now back to the beer!

This sounds interesting. Not that i would pay, but i cant even, because i live in the usa and its not available. I thought the internet was without borders, thats why we dont need shortwave anymore! Im sure there are workarounds but im getting the feeling all this ‘freedom’ is for cooporate interests, not mine.

A bit O/T, but welcome to the rest of the world – we’ve been putting up with that from US sources for years…

Back on-topic: I read Marc Raboy’s recent biography “Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World” earlier this year, and although it’s a bit of a slog – 700 or so pages, plus 100+ pages of notes & references – I can thoroughly recommend it. It’s comprehensive, quite readable & interesting, and does a good job of putting Marconi’s more troublesome aspects (to modern eyes at least e.g. his support for Mussolini) in historical context.

My only real complaint is that it occasionally gets a bit mixed up with terminology in places (mostly because some of it’s changed over the last 100 years or so!). But apart from that, it’s a good read, and probably the most thorough story of Marconi’s life & inventions yet published.

At the risk of being very off-topic, yes RonF is so right!

The USA has so many restrictions on IP contentment access that here at Freemans Reach I run two WiFi networks in my house. One in located in Australia ( where I live) and the other network pretends to be in Harrisburg PA (via a proxy service and DNS system) so I can access USA content that is blocked from the rest of the world. Without the PA based network most of the USA television, radio and media website content I would want to access would be blocked from me. My fav action is KROQ in LA, without pretending to be in the USA I have no access.

Prince of Wales and Princess Mary of Teck ( later King George V and Queen Mary) visiting Poldhu on 18 July 1903

The marconi centre, poldhu road * mullion * cornwall * tr12 7jb .

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Princess Elettra Marconi, daughter of radio inventor, visits InfoAge

Visit commemorated her father’s visit to the site 101 years ago.

On Monday, June 30, the InfoAge Science History Museum in Wall Township was host to Princess Elettra Marconi Giovanelli of Italy, the 84-year-old daughter of legendary Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi, the co-inventor of radio and 1909 Nobel Prize recipient.

The visit commemorated her father’s visit to the site 101 years ago to the day.

Her visit to InfoAge was the final stop on what was a two-week-long North American tour of various speaking engagements at universities, museums and historical sites. This included stops in Ontario and Massachusetts, and the conference “NJ: State of Invention” at Rutgers University. Associate Professor of Classics at Rutgers University T. Corey Brennan helped to organize the tour and accompanied the princess.

“This has been such an incredible two weeks, and our tour of InfoAge today was amazing,” the princess said.

The princess’ visit to Wall Township commemorated the 101st anniversary of her father’s visit to the site on June 30, 1913, when he inspected the progress of the site’s construction as the Belmar Receiving Station for the Marconi Wireless Company. It was Marconi’s vision to create a “wireless girdle” of communication around the Earth.

The Belmar Station, a National Historic Landmark now on the grounds of InfoAge museum, was the largest Marconi Station at the time. The station boasted six, 400-foot radio antenna towers that have since been taken down, along with a power station building, two cottages, a transmission room and a majestic three-story hotel that still exist today.

Princess Elettra Marconi was born in 1930 in Civitavecchia, Italy, and was the only daughter of Mr. Marconi and his second wife, Maria Cristina Marconi. She was witness to Mr. Marconi’s experiments on board his yacht, Elettra, before his passing in 1937 when she was 7 years old.

She acquired the title of princess by marriage to Prince Giovanelli, and has one son, Prince Guglielmo Marconi Giovanelli, who shares his mother’s passion to spread the story of Guglielmo Marconi. Princess Elettra Marconi was given a tour of the historic Marconi site and InfoAge museums. Afterwards, she was joined by museum staff, volunteers and dignitaries for a lunch in her honor. Her father was inducted into the InfoAge Wall of Honor and she was presented a copy of the plaque by InfoAge Director Fred Carl and Board Chairman Mike Ruane.

In presenting the plaque, Mr. Ruane said, “we are honored to have Princess Marconi present as we induct Guglielmo Marconi to the Wall of Honor.”

The tour is also an effort by Princess Elettra Marconi to raise funds for the restoration of her father’s house in Bologna, Italy. The princess hopes to restore the Renaissance-era palace and convert it to an academic center for students studying science, technology, engineering or medicine.

“I want to bring the building to life with students from America who can continue my father’s work,” the princess said.

This was the princess’ third visit to New Jersey, but her first visit to the historic Belmar Station and InfoAge Museum. The princess said of her visit, “this is a wonderful place, and I will come back with my son very soon.”

Guglielmo Marconi

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 27, 2023 | Original: December 2, 2009

circa 1910: Italian physicist and inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874 - 1937), who developed wireless communication. (Photo by Stock Montage/Stock Montage/Getty Images)

Italian inventor and engineer Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) developed, demonstrated and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and in 1901 broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal. His company’s Marconi radios ended the isolation of ocean travel and saved hundreds of lives, including all of the surviving passengers from the sinking Titanic. In 1909 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his radio work.

Guglielmo Marconi’s Early Years

Guglielmo Marconi was born in 1874 in Bologna, Italy. His father was a wealthy landowner and his mother was a member of Ireland’s Jameson family of distillers. Marconi was educated by tutors and at the Livorno Technical Institute and the University of Bologna.

Did you know? In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi—who was much more a tinkering engineer than a scientist—freely admitted he didn't really understand how his invention worked.

In 1894 Marconi became fascinated with the discovery by German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz of “invisible waves” generated by electromagnetic interactions. Marconi built his own wave-generating equipment at his family’s estate and was soon sending signals to locations a mile away. After failing to interest the Italian government in his work, Marconi decided to try his luck in London.

Guglielmo Marconi in England

The 22-year-old Marconi and his mother arrived in England in 1896 and quickly found interested backers, including the British Post Office. Within a year Marconi was broadcasting up to 12 miles and had applied for his first patents. A year later, he set up a wireless station on the Isle of Wight that allowed Queen Victoria to send messages to her son Prince Edward aboard the royal yacht.

By 1899 Marconi’s signals had crossed the English Channel. The same year, Marconi traveled to the United States, where he gained publicity offering wireless coverage of the America’s Cup yacht race from off the coast of New Jersey.

Guglielmo Marconi and the Transatlantic “S”

Marconi began to work on improving his wireless for a transatlantic broadcast. Many physicists argued that radio waves traveled in straight lines, making it impossible for signals to be broadcast beyond the horizon, but Marconi believed they would follow the planet’s curvature. (In fact, the waves do travel in straight lines but bounce off the ionosphere, approximating a curve.) After failed attempts to receive a signal from England on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Marconi decided to try a shorter distance, from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

The radio signal broadcast from Poldhu, Cornwall, was as powerful as Marconi’s team could make it—at full power, the equipment sent out sparks a foot long. Some 2,100 miles away, atop Signal Hill in St. John’s, Marconi attached an antenna first to a balloon, which blew away, and then to a kite on a 500-foot tether. On December 12, 1901, he picked up a faint three-dot sequence—the Morse Code letter “s.”

Guglielmo Marconi, the Nobel Prize and Titanic

In 1909 Marconi shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with the German physicist Karl F. Braun, the inventor of the cathode ray tube. Marconi’s accolades were not without controversy: many other men had claims (some dubious, some not) to the “Father of Radio” title. As early as 1895, the Russian physicist Alexander Popov was broadcasting between buildings, while in India Jagdish Chandra Bose was using radio waves to ring bells and trigger explosions. In 1901 the Serbian-American electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla said he had developed a wireless telegraph in 1893; in 1943 the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated four Marconi radio patents, citing Tesla’s prior work.

As shipping companies realized the radio telegraph’s usefulness for passenger communication, navigation reports and distress signals, Marconi Company radios—operated by trained cadres of “Marconi Men”—became standard equipment. When RMS Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, its Marconi operator was able to summon RMS Carpathia to the scene to pick up 700 survivors.

Guglielmo Marconi’s Later Years and Legacy

For the next two decades, Marconi continued refining his inventions, experimenting with shortwave broadcasts and testing transmission distances aboard his 700-ton yacht, Elettra. He returned to Italy, became a supporter of Benito Mussolini and annulled his first marriage—to an Irish artist with whom he had four children—to wed an Italian noblewoman. In 1935 he toured Brazil and Europe defending Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia. He died two years later of a heart attack in Rome. In his honor, radio stations in America, England and Italy broadcast several minutes of silence.

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Marconi in Santa Margherita Ligure

Like early radio i mean, really early radio head for santa margherita ligure.

by James Martin

What’s a huge replica of the 1909 Nobel Prize awarded to Guglielmo Marconi doing on the side of an Italian Riviera castle built in 1550 to deter African pirates?

Marconi, an inventor who didn’t do well in school, was fascinated by radio waves and what you could do with them. According to his Nobel autobiography/biography :

In 1900 he took out his famous patent No. 7777 for “tuned or syntonic telegraphy” and, on an historic day in December 1901, determined to prove that wireless waves were not affected by the curvature of the Earth, he used his system for transmitting the first wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles.

Marconi had some close ties to the area. His yacht, the Electra , ( l’Elettra ) was often moored around Santa Margherita Ligure and the gulf of Portofino, where he conducted experiments based on his fascination with short-waves and radar in order to make navigation for such boats easier. In fact, if you walk into the Grand Hotel Miramare , a top hotel in Santa Margherita Ligure, you’ll see a plaque commemorating the 1933 experiments he conducted from the Hotel’s terrace, passing short waves between the hotel and the Electra.

Marconi in Santa Margherita Ligure originally appeared on WanderingLiguria.com Sep 22, 2011, updated: May 22, 2018 © James Martin

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Published: 20 July 2016

Technology: Revolutionary of radio

W. Bernard Carlson 1

Nature volume 535 , page 354 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

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W. Bernard Carlson hails a life of driven communications pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.

Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World

As inventor of the wireless telegraph, Guglielmo Marconi was a central figure in the development of twentieth-century communications. Yet how should we view him? As Nobel laureate? Entrepreneur? Fascist? In his grand, wide-ranging biography Marconi, Marc Raboy reveals a complex individual who played all these parts. By examining them, Raboy seeks to show how radio came to be intertwined with big business, imperialism and global politics in ways that still define electronic communications.

Marconi was born to privilege in 1874: his father was an Italian aristocrat, his mother a member of the Jameson Irish-whiskey dynasty. Educated in England and Italy, Marconi decided at age 20 to study the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s and verified experimentally by German physicist Heinrich Hertz some 20 years later. Marconi wanted to use these waves to develop a wireless telegraph system. He sent messages across his father's estate by using a Hertzian spark-gap transmitter to generate radio waves, which were detected by a version of the 'coherer' invented by French physicist Éduoard Branly (iron filings in a glass tube lined up in response to the waves). Marconi's breakthrough was in connecting these two devices to elevated aerials.

To commercialize this invention, Marconi's mother took him to England in 1896 to confer with her family, as well as William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office. A cousin, Henry Jameson Davis, helped Marconi to secure patents, launch the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company (later Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company) and seek capital. Marconi concentrated on increasing transmission distances; he had sent messages across the English Channel by early 1899.

Despite media acclaim and rising share prices, Marconi's company wasn't turning a profit. While his board dithered, Marconi decided to take a dramatic step to capture the ship-to-shore communication market. The Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla had promised to send a wireless message across the Atlantic (W. P. McCray Nature 497 , 562–563; 2013). Perhaps taking a cue from that, Marconi began working with British electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming (who later invented the vacuum tube), to build a powerful transmitting station in Cornwall, UK. In December 1901, Marconi beat Tesla by receiving in St John's, Newfoundland, a message sent from the Cornwall station.

Marconi's enterprise flourished, selling wireless apparatus to shipping companies and navies around the world. Anxious to prevent the British from monopolizing the new technology, German emperor Wilhelm II supported the creation of the company Telefunken to advance German radio inventors, and convened the first international telecommunications conference in Berlin in 1903. The Germans wanted all ships to be able to communicate with all shore stations, whereas the British insisted that the Marconi system should be accessible solely to Marconi customers. Drawing on his background as a scholar of ethics, media and communications, Raboy effectively traces how Marconi and his managers manoeuvred through this emergent world of communications policy.

Marconi became a scientific celebrity. He won a share in the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics. He served as Italy's head of radio operations during the First World War, and in 1919 represented the country at the Paris Peace Conference called by the Allied victors. Marconi found the negotiations frustrating, concluding that handling nature was easier than handling human nature. With his fellow Italian delegates, Marconi was also incensed that the Allies refused to cede to Italy the city of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) and the Dalmatian coast. He came away from the conference sympathetic to Italian nationalism.

That led him to support the Fascists, and in 1927 Benito Mussolini appointed him to head Italy's national research council; later, he became president of the new academy of science. Using records recently discovered in the government archives in Rome, Raboy provides a detailed account of Marconi's involvement in Fascism, including his tacit approval of excluding Jewish scientists from the academy. In the 1930s, Marconi conducted radio experiments from his yacht, Elettra , and built a powerful radio station for the Vatican. He died in 1937, and various companies continued to use his name until Marconi plc was purchased by Ericsson in 2006.

Raboy superbly traces every twist and turn of Marconi's life, showing us his influences, business strategies and shrewd management of his own public persona. Raboy skilfully locates his activities in the context of communications policy, the arms race between Britain and Germany, and popular culture. But has he made the case that Marconi networked the world, as his book's subtitle claims? He asserts that Marconi envisioned global communications from the outset, but provides little early evidence to support this. I suspect that, like other inventors, Marconi was mostly worried about getting his apparatus to work and finding customers. The big global vision came in the 1920s, with his company's success in transmitting worldwide.

Raboy is also curiously indifferent to details of the technology or Marconi's rivals. One of Marconi's early breakthroughs was learning how to tune circuits using 'jigger' coils. Raboy offers no explanation of how this invention worked or how tuning allowed Marconi to send private messages from one point to another. Would we settle for a biography of Pablo Picasso that didn't explain Cubism?

Similarly, Marconi's rivals — including Oliver Lodge in Britain, Tesla in the United States, and Adolf Slaby and Karl Ferdinand Braun in Germany — are quickly dismissed by Raboy. Yet Marconi was well aware that he was racing against these competitors: that is why he vigorously challenged them through patent litigation, advertising and newspaper interviews. Our networked world didn't spring from the mind of one genius, but from a social network of talented rivals, all contributing to the electronic communications that today both enrich and complicate our lives.

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Carlson, W. Technology: Revolutionary of radio. Nature 535 , 354 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/535354a

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Resting Place of Keel from Marconi’s Floating Lab Elettra to be “Museum Ships” Event Site

The resting place of the keel from wireless pioneer Guglielmo Marconi’s floating laboratory — the yacht Elettra — will be the site of a special event in conjunction with the annual Museum Ships Weekend Event , June 3-4, sponsored by the Battleship New Jersey Amateur Radio Station NJ2BB .

Marconi named his youngest daughter after the Elettra , which means “electron” in Italian.

The Elettra special event, under the sponsorship of the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation, will use the call sign IQ4FE. The Elettra operation will be part of a technical-cultural event at Villa Griffone, near Marconi’s birthplace in Bologna, Italy. Members of the Italian Amateur Radio Association (ARI) Fidenza Radio Club will operate from the vicinity of the Marconi Museum in Pontecchio, where the vessel’s keel is kept. — Thanks to Cristiano Cornini, IW4CLV, ARI Fidenza Radio Club President

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Lost Yacht of Italian Scientist to Be Recreated

By Sarah Lyall

July 17, 1988

The inventor of the wireless telegraph, Guglielmo Marconi, so adored his research ship that he named a daughter after her - Elettra -instead of the other way around. But the ship, which the scientist used as home and laboratory, was destroyed in World War II, and a piece of Mr. Marconi's history was lost with it.

Now, however, a group in Italy and the United States is building a replica of the Elettra, as a floating museum whose maiden voyage will take her to New York Harbor in 1992, the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first trip to the New World.

The ship, to be called the Elettra II, will be a near-exact reconstruction of the original, containing many of Mr. Marconi's documents and equipment, with a modern research laboratory and engine power that will allow her to travel around the world.

It was aboard the original Elettra, which Mr. Marconi bought in 1919, that the scientist explored short-wave radio and radar, perfecting the process he used in 1901 when he sent the first Morse Code letter, a faint ''S,'' across the Atlantic Ocean. (The S traveled from England to Newfoundland, and took three days to arrive). Source of Electrical Impulses

It was from the ship, too, that in 1930 Mr. Marconi sent out electrical impulses from Genoa, Italy, that lighted the Municipal Building in Sydney, Australia, 14,000 miles away.

And it was aboard the traveling Elettra that Mr. Marconi, born in Bologna, Italy, in 1874, and winner of the Nobel prize for Physics at the age of 35, lived as an international man whose work was his life.

''My father loved the sea and loved the yacht Elettra,'' said the ship's namesake, Princess Elettra Marconi Giovanelli, who lives in Rome and was in New York this week raising money for the project. In conversation, she always refers to the boat as the yacht Elettra, so there is no confusion. ''It was so beautiful, narrow with a lovely prow,'' she said.

In Washington, the Smithsonian Institution plans to link an exhibit on the information revolution to the Elettra II with a ham radio to allow communication between ship and museum. It is also planning a traveling exhibit to go with the Elettra as she sails. Construction Set for October

According to estimates, the ship will cost $30 million to build, $10 million of which has been raised in Italy, the project's organizers said. It is being designed by Franco Anselmi Boretti, a Florentine who in 1973 designed a boat for Adnan Khashoggi (not, however, the boat recently bought by Donald Trump).

''I feel very emotional, bringing to life something that was so badly destroyed,'' Mr. Boretti said.

The boat has been designed, after more than a year of research. In October, construction will begin at La Spezia, a shipyard in Ligurnia, the home province of Christopher Columbus.

Gioia Marconi Braga, another of Mr. Marconi's children, said the scientist continued Columbus's work because, ''My father brought the continents together.'' Mr. Marconi died in 1937; three of his four children are still alive.

Mrs. Braga, chairwoman of the Marconi International Fellowship Council, which gives annual awards for work in communication science, recalled how, as a girl, she was barred from her father's ''office'' on Elettra, except on special occasions. Then, she would slip on headphones and hear voices from New York and Australia.

''The Elettra was more than just a pleasure craft for my father,'' she said. ''She was first and foremost his laboratory; and, the nature of his work made it essential for him to have moving targets to receive or to transmit the signals he was experimenting with.''

At a reception at the Italian Cultural Institute, on Park Avenue and 68th Street, last week, guests sipped champagne, met Mr. Marconi's daughters and admired a cake replica of the Elettra II.

''My father loved America so,'' Princess Giovanelli said.

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Guglielmo Marconi

1 Biography
2 Professional Honors
3 Photo Gallery
4 Further Reading

Marconi was born in Italy in 1874 to Giuseppe and Annie Jameson Marconi. His father was a prosperous Italian landowner and his mother was from a wealthy Irish family of whiskey distillers. Because Marconi applied himself only in the subjects that he was fascinated by--physics and chemistry--he dropped out of several schools and was largely educated by private tutors in at the family's residences in Livorno and Bologna, Italy. In 1894, after reading articles about electromagnetic, or radio, waves, and Heinrich Hertz 's death, he began thinking about building a device to transmit long and short bursts of radio waves over long distances. He understood that this method of communication would be faster than telegraphy and less cumbersome because no wires would be involved.

His parents let him use the upper floor of their Bologna home, Villa Griffone, as a laboratory. Over the summer and fall of 1895, Marconi duplicated Hertz’s short-range experiments and then succeeded in sending signals over longer distances he took his ideas and equipment to London, where William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, supported his continuing experiments and demonstrations. Marconi eventually raised money privately and established the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company in London.

By 1899 Marconi was constructing wireless stations on both sides of the English Channel and in 1901 he installed transmitters powerful enough to send messages across the Atlantic. The following year he established a company in New York. He lived a transatlantic existence, working in both Europe and the United States.

Marconi was widely recognized for his work in his own time. In 1909 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Grateful Titanic survivors presented him with a gold medal in recognition of his work in radio , which helped save their lives in the 1912 disaster. Marconi and his wireless stations were illustrated on dozens of different cards sold with packs of cigarettes, and he had at least two brands of cigars named after him.

Unlike many other radio pioneers, Marconi was a savvy businessman. He went to great lengths to control his own patents as well as those of others in the field. By 1912 the Marconi Company essentially controlled the global wireless communications industry. This virtual monopoly led to corruption charges in the effort to build communications networks across Europe.

Having a longtime passion for the sea and the intellectual solitude that it offered, in 1919 Marconi bought a yacht and renamed it Elettra ("Amber," a natural spark generator). A state-of-the-art floating laboratory, Elettra became the site of his research breakthrough in the early 1920s on shortwave, or high frequency, radio transmission. This finally made long-distance wireless commercially competitive with cable telegraphy and greatly expanded the communications capacity of the earth's electromagnetic spectrum. Besides his research, Marconi also hosted many parties aboard the ship, with guests ranging from laboratory assistants to royalty.

In addition to his scientific and business interests, Marconi retained his loyalty to his native country, establishing wireless networks in Italy's imperial expansion in Libya in 1911-12, and serving militarily and politically during World War I. He undertook many diplomatic missions as a government representative, serving as a member of the Italian War Commission to the U.S. Government and delegate to the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919. In 1923 he became a member of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party in 1923, which he supported for the rest of his life.

Marconi died in 1937. The day after his death wireless operators and broadcasters around the world shut down their transmitters for two minutes of global radio silence.

Professional Honors

Marconi was elected an honorary member of the Institute of Radio Engineers, one of IEEE's precursors, on August 14, 1917. Among the many honors he received were the Nobel Prize for physics in 1909; the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts; and the 1932 Kelvin Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The Italian government decorated him with the Italian order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus and the Grand Cross of the Crown of Italy. In 1915 he was nominated Senatore of the Kingdom of Italy. In the United States, he received the Franklin Institute's Franklin medal, the American Association of Engineering Societies' John Fritz medal, and the Medal of Honor of the Institute of Radio Engineers .

Photo Gallery

Guglielmo Marconi and George Kemp

Marconi with his radio equipment on the Elettra , c. 1930

Marconi on the Elettra

Marconi with Pope

Marconi at Poldhu

L’Elettra di Guglielmo Marconi, la nave dei miracoli

LA NAVE DEI MIRACOLI

In Italia purtroppo non c’è una cultura marinara forte come in altri paesi, dove con delle sottoscrizioni anche volontarie è stato possibile recuperare inportanti “cimeli”; come per esempio in Francia dove in poco tempo sono stati raccolti i fondi per acquistare la nostra nave scuola “GIORGIO CINI”, di costruzione francese, che ora naviga superba nei mari di Bretagna con il “BELEM”. Certamente però i nostri politici hanno perso l’occasione di creare una nave-museo (vedi il CUTTY SARK a Greenwich, il VICTORY a Portsmouth, il CONSTITUTION a Boston, il FRAM ad Oslo, ecc.) polo d’attrazione per raccogliere la storia di Marconi e della radio, invenzione che ha completamente rivoluzionato la navigazione, la vita e la sicurezza di uomini e mezzi in mare.

A diciott’anni Marconi ha dato inizio alle ricerche ed agli esperimenti di trasmissione delle onde “hertziane”, intuendo la possibilità di invio a distanza di messaggi intellegibili senza l’impiego di fili, come richiedeva invece il telegrafo; dopo alcune prove in laboratorio a Pontecchio, nell’estate del 1895 riuscì a trasmettere la lettera “S”, in alfabeto morse, ad una distanza di 1,5 Km… era iniziata l’era della radiofonia. Ma “nemo profeta in patria”: Marconi infatti non venne preso in considerazione dal competente ministero italiano e quindi l’anno successivo si trasferì in Inghilterra, patria della madre; qui trovò gli appoggi per proseguire gli esperimenti trasmettendo a distanze sempre maggiori ed ottenendo quindi il primo brevetto – inglese – per la telegrafia senza fili. Nel 1897 fondò la prima società marconiana, la Marconìs Wireless Telegraph Company, che fabbricava gli apparecchi trasmittenti e riceventi e istruiva i tecnici per l’istallazione delle stazioni radiotelegrafiche, sempre più numerose sia a terra che sulle navi.

La definizione data da D’Annunzio all’ELETTRA – candida nave che navigava nel miracolo e animava i silenzi – calza ottimamente con la realtà; insieme casa e laboratorio per Guglielmo Marconi, questo splendido panfilo bianco al quale l’umanità intera deve molto era infatti noto in tutto il mondo.

Lo yacht venne ordinato dall’Arciduca d’Austria Carlo Stefano, ufficiale dell’I. R. Marina, al Cantiere Ramage & Ferguson Ldt. di Leith in Scozia ed il progetto fu affidato agli ingegneri Cox e King di Londra, che disegnarono un elegante scafo dalle linee filanti, prua slanciata in avanti a klipper con bompresso e poppa stretta e rotonda; in coperta una lunga tuga centrale in mogano e teak, sormontata da un fumaiolo leggermente inclinato verso poppa e due alberi armati con rande, come era abitudine dell’epoca.

Lo yacht, varato il 27 marzo 1904 col nome di ROVENSKA, a ricordo della località (sull’isola di Lussino) dove l’arciduca aveva una lussuosa villa in cui solitamente abitava, venne intestato alla moglie, l’arciduchessa Maria Teresa, ed iscritto al k.u.k. Yacht- Geschawader, battendo quindi bandiera della Marina da guerra fino al 1909.

Sempre con lo stesso nome nel 1910 lo yacht venne aquistato da Sir Max Waechter – passando sotto bandiera inglese -, e nel 1914 fu rivenduto a Gustavus H.F. Pratt. Con lo scoppio della grande guerra lo yacht fu militarizzato e trasformato in nave da pattuglia e scorta, e quindi impiegato nella Manica, tra l’Inghilterra ed i porti di Brest e Saint Malò.

Cessate le ostilità il ROVENSKA fu messo in disarmo a Southampton e messo all’asta, così nel 1919 – per 21.000 sterline – Guglielmo Marconi potè acquistarlo. Sottoposta a notevoli lavori di risistemazione la nave venne quindi riclassificata e, ancora sotto bandiera inglese, salpò da Londra nel luglio 1919 al comando del comandante Raffaele Lauro, giungendo a Napoli in agosto. Lo yacht fu poi portato a La Spezia per essere trasformato in nave-laboratorio sotto la direzione dell’ammiraglio Filippo Camperio: a bordo vennero infatti sistemate trasmittenti e riceventi, nonchè alzati gli alberi per le antenne.

Marconi voleva disporre di un mezzo che gli consentisse di effettuare ricerche e relativi esperimenti nel miglior modo possibile: era nata l’ELETTRA, una stazione mobile, su cui poteva lavorare ad ogni ora del giorno in raccoglimento ed isolamento, indipendente da curiosità e distrazioni di sorta, con notevole facilità di spostamento, risolvendo così problemi di portata e di effetti direzionali. Le sue esperienze dovevano essere effettuate a distanze diverse in modo da controllare l’efficacia delle trasmissioni secondo la lontananza tra emittente e ricevente; per maggiore comodità il laboratorio venne collegato direttamente con la cabina dello scienziato.

L’arredamento di bordo era consono alle esigenze di lunghi soggiorni ed adatto ad ospitare illustri ospiti per necessità di rappresentanza; tra questi ricordiamo re Vittorio Emanuele III, re Giorgio V d’Inghilterra ed i Sovrani di Spagna. Oltre all’armatore, la nave era in grado di ospitare comodamente sei ospiti, nonchè sei ufficiali, sei sottufficiali e diciotto marinai.

Iscritta col nuovo nome di “ELETTRA”, il 27 ottobre 1921 , al compartimento marittimo di Genova (numero di matricola 956) e quindi al Real Yacht Club Italiano, il passaggio definitivo sotto bandiera italiana venne formalizzato in data 21 dicembre.

Nell’aprile del 1920 mentre il panfilo navigava nel golfo di Biscaglia gli ospiti di bordo, grazie alla trasmissione dalla stazione broadcasting Marconi di Chelmsford, per la prima volta poterono sintonizzarsi per sentire via radio l’orchestra dell’Hotel Savoy di Londra, quindi il concerto del soprano Melba al Covent Garden: la “radio” era una realtà. L’invenzione della valvola termoionica di Fleming, suo collaboratore, gli consentì infatti la realizzazione della “radio” come oggi la conosciamo.

Gli esperimenti proseguirono per raggiungere traguardi ancora più concreti. Marconi non aveva dimestichezza con le formule, la sua era una mente intuitiva e pratica, che lo spingeva a tentare quello che gli accademici ritenevano impossibile: inviare segnali nello spazio tra punti non visibili fra loro. L’ELETTRA divenne fucina di studio per le migliori applicazioni delle onde hertziane corte e cortissime, consentendo il continuo progresso delle radiocomunicazioni.

Nel 1922 L’ELETTRA svolse una campagna di esperimenti nel Nord America, nel 1923 lungo la costa occidentale dell’Atlantico per sperimentare le ricezioni a distanze sempre maggiori della nuova stazione su onde corte a fascio di Poldhu (Cornovaglia). Marconi dimostrò così che un segnale poteva essere captato ad oltre 4000 chilometri con trasmissione a potenza ridotta: onde di 92 metri con potenza di 6 Kw.

Per conto del Governo inglese, nel 1924 lo scienziato iniziò sull’ELETTRA gli esperimenti con onde corte di 36-60 metri, con una potenza di 12 Kw, coprendo la distanza di 4130 kilometri. Vennero quindi realizzati i collegamenti radio normali ad uso pubblico tra l’Inghilterra ed i suoi “domini”: il Canada (24 ottobre 1926), l’Australia (8 aprile 1927), il Sud Africa (5 luglio 1927), l’India (6 settembre 1927). Gli importanti risultati raggiunti a bordo dell’ELETTRA fruttarono tra l’altro un ricco contratto tra il Governo e la sua Compagnia. Inventore delle società multinazionali, Marconi possedeva un notevole senso degli affari rivelandosi infatti anche grande capitano d’industria e diceva: “Il denaro è un’unità di misura. Chi non si fa pagare non sa misurare il prodotto del proprio lavoro”.

Nel gennaio del 1930 vennero imbarcati nuovi apparecchi con soluzioni d’avanguardia nella radiofonia a grandi distanze ed il 26 marzo successivo, alle ore 11,03, avvenne il “miracolo”: dall’Elettra ancorata a Genova presso lo Yacht club italiano, per mezzo del piccolo tasto, conservato oggi al Museo del mare di Trieste, Guglielmo Marconi inviava nell’etere gli impulsi che, dopo 14.000 miglia, giungevano in Australia per accendere le lampade del Municipio di Sidney! L’esperimento è stato recentemente ripetuto dal Presidente della Repubblica Luigi Scalfaro a Genova – questa volta con il laser – proprio per celebrare a 65 anni di distanza il “genio” di Marconi.

Lo scienziato era inesauribile e nel 1931 iniziò gli studi sulle microonde della gamma inferiore al metro, effettuando gli esperimenti tra S. Margherita Ligure e Sestri Levante. Così nel 1932 fu realizzato il collegamento tra S. Margherita e l’ELETTRA e successivamente quello col radiofaro di Sestri, mediante onde di 63 centimetri; si stabiliva così la possibilità per una nave di accedere ad un porto in qualsiasi condizione atmosferica, valendosi della rotta segnata dal radiofaro.

Uno degli ultimi esperimenti a bordo dell’ELETTRA avveniva nel luglio del 1937 con la messa a punto del radiofaro a micro-onde; ma il 20 luglio 1937 Guglielmo Marconi moriva, lasciando ancora incompiuti i suoi studi, ma all’umanità una via ben tracciata per il progresso della comunicazione.

Marconi, resosi conto delle sue precarie condizioni, temeva per la conservazione della “sua” ELETTRA, ma nel 1937 la nave-laboratorio fu acquistata per 820.000 lire dal Ministero delle poste e telecomunicazioni che ne voleva garantire la conservazione. La Soc. Marconi italiana donava poi allo Stato, in occasione del primo anniversario della sua scomparsa, gli impianti di R.T. che erano a bordo del panfilo.

Nel 1939 l’ELETTRA veniva portata nell’Arsenale marittimo di La Spezia per lavori di ripristino e di riclassifica; nell’imminenza dell’entrata in guerra dell’Italia fu trasferita a Trieste, considerata città sicura da incursioni nemiche, giungendovi il 9 giugno 1940; qui fu custodita dalla S. p. A. di navigazione Italia fino all’8 settembre del 1943; successivamente il panfilo venne requisito dai tedeschi, inviato in cantiere per essere trasformato in unità di impiego bellico prima con la sigla “G. 107” e quindi “N.A. 6” ed armato con due mitragliatrici binate da 20 mm ed una da 15 mm. Inutili risultarono le molte proteste italiane; venne concesso unicamente di sbarcare le apparecchiature radio ed i materiali utilizzati da Marconi per i suoi esperimenti grazie anche al tacito appoggio del capitano Zimmermann della Kriegsmarine, che si rendeva conto della loro importanza storica. Tale materiale venne poi imballato ed occultato dal professore Mario Picotti, che temeva un successivo sequestro dei cimeli marconiani, riuscendo così a celarli in 19 casse in posti diversi ma sicuri della città anche nei giorni di occupazione delle truppe titine nel 1945; nel 1947 quasi tutto fu spedito al Museo della scienza e della Tecnica di Milano.

Il 28 dicembre del 1943 l’ELETTRA partì da Trieste in missione di pattuglia e scorta lungo le coste della Dalmazia. La sera del 21 gennaio 1944 la nave giunse nella valle di Diklo, vicino a Zara, ormeggiando e forse restando incagliata; fatto sta che la mattina successiva i ricognitori aerei l’individuarono e quindi giunsero i cacciabombardieri alleati che centrarono la nave con le bombe e la mitragliarono: l’ELETTRA si adagiò tristemente sul basso fondale, restando in parte emersa. Da quel momento fu oggetto di continue “visite”, con consenguente asportazione di tutto il materiale che poteva essere sottratto e quindi ridotta a “nudo” relitto, che in base al trattato di pace divenne proprietà della Repubblica Iugoslava. I resti dell’ELETTRA andavano sempre più deperendo anche per l’asporto delle parti metalliche, ma ancora impossibile risultava un accordo con la vicina Repubblica per il recupero della nave, nemmeno facendo leva sul valore morale che tale imbarcazione aveva per gli italiani. Solo nel 1959 la Iugoslavia permise dei rilievi tecnici sulle possibilità di recupero della nave, consentendo poi la restituzione senza contropartite, grazie all’intervento diretto del maresciallo Tito su sollecitazione dell’allora nostro Ministro degli esteri Segni.

Nel 1962 l ‘ELETTRA fu quindi riportata a galla e rimorchiata alla banchina del Cantiere S. Rocco di Muggia, presso Trieste; tutto sembrava procedere al meglio per ridare dignità a questa nave… ma l’aspettava ancora una tragica fine!

Il Ministero delle poste e telecomunicazioni fece predisporre uno studio per la ricostruzione della nave: l’Ufficio tecnico della Navalgenarmi di Monfalcone, eseguiti i rilievi dettagliati dello scafo, presentò nel novembre del 1962 un progetto ed una specifica di lavori per la ricostruzione integrale del panfilo – almeno nell’aspetto esteriore come era all’epoca di Marconi – del laboratorio e dell’appartamento del Senatore. Era prevista la sua riclassifica come nave navigante con motore diesel da 400 CV, prevedendo il completo rifacimento del fasciame dell’opera morta, delle strutture di prua e del trincarino dei bagli di coperta e delle paratie trasversali e longitudinali della nave. I preventivi di spesa erano pesanti ed iniziarono polemiche a non finire con soluzioni diverse per la nave, senza però tener conto della realtà oggettiva dello stato dello scafo. Per dieci anni vi furono solo polemiche e la ruggine frattanto camminava e corrodeva; mentre si avvicinava il centenario della nascita di Guglielmo Marconi (1974) vi fu un risveglio di interessi per la nave anche all’estero, sollecitato soprattutto dall’ammiraglio Virgilio Spigai, Presidente del Lloyd Triestino, intervenuto presso il Presidente del Consiglio dei ministri on. Andretti, che prometteva il suo interessamento. Nell’ottobre 1972 a villa Grifone di Pontecchio veniva dato l’annuncio ufficiale della ricostruzione dal Direttore generale delle Poste e telecomunicazioni, a seguito dello stanziamento apposito di 2 miliardi e 400 milioni. L’anno successivo l’Arsenale triestino – San Marco veniva incaricato di mettere il relitto in bacino per iniziare i rilievi e prendere le opportune decisioni definitive. Non disponendo dell’originale venne così ricostruito il “piano di costruzione” della nave e furono effettuati tutti i controlli sullo scafo sotto la direzione dell’ing. Oddo Oddone. Si giunse alla conclusione dell’impossibilità di rendere la nave ancora navigabile, date le norme internazionali di sicurezza che ne avrebbero modificato l’aspetto esterno; era invece possibile una sua ricostruzione originale come “galleggiante”, senza propulsione propria, da spostare al traino. Non era però possibile per lo stato avanzato della corrosione utilizzare molto della vecchia Elettra, per cui risultava più conveniente ricostruire la nave a strutture saldate per mantenere inalterato l’aspetto esterno.

Il nuovo progetto e relativo preventivo di lavori (7 miliardi circa) superava però ampliamente quanto in precedenza stimato e stanziato dal Governo per cui – dato che poco sarebbe stato utilizzato della vecchia Elettra – tutto si bloccò nuovamente ed il progetto fu accantonato e decisa invece la demolizione!

Il 18 aprile 1977 il relitto venne di nuovo messo in bacino e sotto la direzione dell’ing. Oddone del Ministero, con la consulenza dello scultore Marcello Mascherini e di un architetto lo scafo venne tagliato in varie porzioni; si cercava così di accontentare tutti e nessuno, disperdendo parti della nave nei vari posti d’Italia, opera che non è ancora terminata!

Vediamo ora dove sono finiti i diversi pezzi dello scafo ed i cimeli dell’Elettra:

ROMA-FUCINO: Il blocco poppiero comprendente anche l’elica ed il timone è stato inviato a Telespazio a Fucino ed è sistemato nella Piana del Fucino.

ROMA: al Museo delle poste e telecomunicazioni c’è la dinamo a vapore. All’EUR invece è stata ricostruita la cabina in cui lo scienziato aveva effettuato i suoi esperimenti.

PONTECCHIO MARCONI: la sezione trasversale costituita da sei ordinate è stata sistemata nel giardino della Villa Grifone di Pontecchio, sede della Fondazione Marconi.

MILANO: al Museo nazionale della scienza e della tecnica sono conservate gran parte delle apparecchiature di bordo.

VENEZIA: l’impianto propulsivo costituito dalla macchina alternativa e dalle caldaie è conservato nelle sale del Museo storico navale di Venezia.

SANTA MARGHERITA LIGURE: una parte dello scafo è alla Villa Durazzo.

TRIESTE: all’entrata del Museo del mare è sistemata la sezione trasversale centrale della nave, costituita da due ordinate, unitamente all’ancora. Nella sala dedicata a Marconi alcune apparecchiature tra cui l’ecometro, alcune valvole ed il tasto con cui lo scienziato trasmise l’impulso per accendere le luci a Sidney.

A Padriciano, vicino a Trieste, in una palazzina dell’ex campo profughi sono stati recentementi trasferiti gli alberi della nave, prima nel castello di S. Giusto in un ambiente troppo umido. L’alberetto, ottimamente restaurato dall’artigiano Aldo Franceschini, è stato adibito da poco ad alzabandiera nel piazzale antistante l’International maritime academy di Trieste.

Resta ancora in Arsenale S. Marco tutta la prua – circa 8 metri di altezza per 19 di lunghezza – destinata alla città, ma che non ha ancora trovato adeguata collocazione. (ndr 09/2004: Dal settembre 2000 la prua dell’ELETTRA è stata posizionata definitivamente di fronte alla sede del Centro Radioelettrico Sperimentale intitolato a Guglielmo Marconi nell’Area di Ricerca di Padriciano)

Ed inoltre un pezzo della fiancata è conservato come monumento presso il Palazzo delle poste di Mestre, mentre a Muggia la “Fameia muiesana” conserva il tornio di bordo, ben ripulito. Una piccola sezione di scafo è presso il Circolo Marconi di Sidney ed ancora singoli piccoli pezzi sono sparsi in altre località.

L’ultimo aiuto per la conservazione dei cimeli marconiani si deve a Fulvio Anzellotti, amministratore delegato della VN SpA Veneziani, che ha fornito il trattamento completo (speciali preparati trasformatori di ruggine per lo scafo e Resina 2000 per impregnare e proteggere il legno e quindi su entrambi i materiali la protezione trasparente Wood Gloss) per la conservazione degli alberi e della prua dell’Elettra.

Certamente non molti forse oggi hanno presente l’importanza dell’ELETTRA nella storia navale, ma questa nave laboratorio ha consentito a Guglielmo Marconi di rivoluzionare l'”andar per mare”. Il 12 dicembre 1901 il telegrafo senza fili di Marconi collegava la sponda europea con quella americana dell’Atlantico, superando la “montagna d’acqua” di 250 kilometri costituita dall’Oceano nonchè la curvatura del globo. Nel 1912 il naufragio del TITANIC impose agli occhi del mondo la straordinaria utilità della sua invenzione; solo grazie alla radio infatti i 706 superstiti della tragedia poterono essere soccorsi in tempo e salvati. Da quel momento l’SOS ne ha fatta di strada, garantendo sicurezza in mare in ogni punto della terra.

La radio ha poi consentito anche un diverso impiego delle stesse imbarcazioni nei traffici commerciali: ancora nel nostro secolo infatti una nave partiva per la sua destinazione e non poteva ricevere comunicazioni fino al suo primo scalo e non sempre attuali. Con le prime stazioni radio è stato quindi possibile indirizzare le imbarcazioni dove c’erano richieste per il trasporto di carichi, rendendo tutto più veloce ed economico. Si è poi arrivati a guidare le imbarcazioni nelle entrate nei porti tramite i radio fari anche in condizioni di non visibilità; più tardi si arriverà al radar.

Certamente è per questi motivi che il “Times” di Londra definì Guglielmo Marconi, che ricevette quindici lauree ad honorem e fu nominato senatore e Presidente del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche e dell’Accademia d’Italia, “l’uomo più significativo della nostra epoca” e l’ELETTRA era per tutti i popoli il simbolo del progresso sul mare. Purtroppo per incapacità non siamo stati in grado di far sì che questo simbolo divenisse una testimonianza perpetua!

Caratteristiche tecniche yacht “Elettra” (ex Rovenska)

Piroscafo ad 1 elica e 2 alberi Cantiere di costruzione: Ramage & Ferguson Ldt – Leith (Inghilterra) Anno costruzione: 1904 Lunghezza fuori tutto: 67,40 metri Lunghezza del ponte: 198′ (60,35 m) Lunghezza tra le perpendicolari: 56,36 m Lunghezza al galleggiamento: 184′ (56,08 m) Larghezza massima fuori ossatura: 8,38 m (27’6″) Altezza al ponte di coperta: 5,18 m (17′) Immersione a pieno carico: 5,00 m Macchina: Ramage & Ferguson Ltd – Leith – a vapore a triplice espansione e 3 cilindri. 126,9 5 Cavalli nominali e 1000 Cavalli indicati. Capace di imprimere una velocità di 12 nodi. 2 caldaie monofronti Ramage & Fergusson Ldt Tonnellaggio di stazza netta: 232,18 t Tonnellaggio di stazza lorda: 632, 81 t Dimensioni di stazza: 63,40 x 8,31 x 4,96 metri Nominativo: I B D K – Itl. Iscritto al compartimento marittimo di Genova – N° Matricola: 956 Classificazione: 100 A. 1.1. Navigazione: lungo corso Ultimo armatore: Ministero delle comunicazioni – Direzione poste e telegrafi – Roma.

Articolo di Mario Marzari

Pubblicato su Nautica 403 di Novembre 1995

Barbara, regina delle centenarie

Da Giorgio V al cantiere Valdettaro: Vera Mary, la rinascita di una Signora del mare

Barbara, cento anni di navigazione

Vele Storiche Viareggio, i vincitori del 18° raduno

A Viareggio il Museo Galleggiante della marineria, dal 12 al 15 ottobre 2023 torna il 18° raduno delle Vele Storiche

Case Files: Guglielmo Marconi

Introduction

With a knack for mechanical tinkering, Guglielmo Marconi had built his first telegraph transmitter by age 16. As a gifted amateur, Marconi had a wireless transmitter that could span 2,000 meters by age 21. This extraordinary young scientist would go on to make the world a smaller place. With wireless communication, distant lands became closer.

Just who was Guglielmo Marconi? How did he adapt Hertz's discovery of radio waves to his own work? And how did Marconi's determination and perseverance factor into his success with wireless telegraphy?

Beyond Visual Range

Marconi first approached the Italian Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs to demonstrate the advantages of his wireless method versus the existing system of land-based cables and met with no success. Switching his attention to the United Kingdom, Marconi used his family connections in London who put him in contact with British experts, who in turn introduced him to Dr. William Preece, Chief Engineer of the General Post Office. Preece, who had himself been experimenting with alternative transmission methods, was very cooperative and helpful. He offered Marconi any necessary working space and assisted at the first public demonstration of wireless telegraphy. During this time, work was proceeding on the patent application titled "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and an Apparatus therefore." The patent was filed on June 2, 1896, and finally published as British Patent No.12039 on March 2, 1897. In July 1896, the transmission range had grown to 400 meters and newspapers had published news of the discovery to wide acclaim.

Trials were made which demonstrated the efficiency and dependability of wireless transmission across open water, opening up the possibility of dispensing with underwater cables. Observers from the maritime services were impressed; up to that time communication between ships at sea was limited to visual signals, either semaphore flags or signal lights that could be obliterated by fog. Now messages could be transmitted beyond visual range.

Among the audience were observers from Italy who now reversed themselves and asked that Marconi demonstrate his invention in his native land. The result showed successful transmission from La Spezia Naval Base over 18 kilometers to a ship at sea; the barrier of communication over the horizon to a receiver out of sight was surpassed in July 1897. Marconi, at the age of 23, was hailed as a national hero.

In 1897, the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, the forerunner of Marconi's Wireless and Telephone Company, was established in London and connections to the nationally owned General Post Office were ended.

Interested in learning more about Guglielmo Marconi? Learn More About His Benjamin Franklin Award

The Next Threshold

The next technical challenge was to increase the distance for transmission across seas and oceans. In December 1897, signals traveled up to 29 kilometers from a station on the Isle of Wight out to ferry boats in the English Channel, a locale know for treacherous weather conditions. On March 27, 1899, the bad weather was shown inconsequential as the first international transmission was made from South Foreland, near Dover, to the village of Wimereaux, near Boulogne. Now the navies of France, Britain, and the United States became very interested in the new technology and its strategic importance. Successful trials of ship-to-ship communication during maneuvers followed, and during the Boer War, which broke out in October of that year, ship-based wireless was put to valuable use.

At the turn of the century, the Marconi Company began to have some commercial success and the goal of passing the next threshold—transatlantic communication—was declared. This commitment was a daring undertaking for the young company but Marconi immediately pressed ahead. Land for the eastern station was found on a headland at Poldhu in the far southwest of England and land for the western station on a cliff-top near South Wellfleet on Cape Cod, close to the easternmost point in the United States. This arrangement provided a clear path for wireless transmission across the ocean. Work began on the powerful transmitters and enormous masts required for the project. A 25 kw power plant was built at Poldhu together with a system of 20 200-foot masts arranged in a 200-foot diameter circle. The same installation was built in Cape Cod. Before the systems could be tested, they fell victim to the fierce weather in their exposed locations: first the almost completed Poldhu aerial toppled and the masts at Cape Cod collapsed a month later. As usual, with Marconi's determination, rebuilding of a new, stronger aerial at Poldhu began immediately.

Another problem, that of signal interference, had to be overcome before transmissions across the ocean could be feasible. The high power necessary for longer range caused the signal to be diffused and interfere with other exchanges taking place between ships and shore. Marconi's patent number 7777 enabling selective wavelength tuning removed this problem.

Concerns grew about the signal power required for Poldhu-to-Cape Cod transmission, a distance of 4,000 km, and the decision was made to reduce this distance by moving the western terminal north to Newfoundland, Canada, an unimpeded 2,880 km from Poldhu. A station was built on Signal Hill, St. John's. On December 12, 1901, in the midst of a gale, with kites and aerials in danger of damage, Marconi detected and his assistant George Kemp confirmed the faint clicks of Poldhu's first transatlantic signal. This was an extremely memorable moment.

Marconi's success was celebrated in Canada and the United States. With financial incentives offered by the Canadian government, Marconi built his next, more powerful station in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Transatlantic wireless service was established in December 1902.

A Critical Time

In March 1905, Guglielmo Marconi put his obsession with wireless aside long enough to marry the Honourable Beatrice O'Brien, a 19 year-old of Irish descent and impoverished circumstances. Their honeymoon at the family's Irish castle was shortened by Marconi's return to work. He planned to establish a new transatlantic station, with a 300 kw power plant at Clifden on the west coast of Ireland.

The year 1908 was a critical one for Marconi with his company facing a series of cash flow, litigation, and technical problems. In addition, his marriage was beset with tragedy and tension. His first daughter, Lucia, had died in infancy and his second, Degna, was born in the middle of the company's turmoil.

Yet again Marconi's determination came through. He assumed management of the company and restored its stability. Some personal satisfaction came in December 1909 with him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Transatlantic Travels

Now the next frontier in wireless communication—air-to-ground transmission—was about to be reached. Trials involving transmitters and receivers in balloons had been ongoing but the first direct air-to-ground message was sent from a bi-plane overhead to a station on Long Island, New York. The first air-sea rescue followed as a Marconi operator was able to telegraph for help from the damaged airship America in mid-Atlantic.

The focus moved to South America and further records were set with transmissions from Buenos Aires to Clifden traveling 6,400 km in daytime. During this time, when he was in Buenos Aires, Marconi's son, Giulio, was born.

The Clifden-to-Glace Bay route became the dominant passage for the rapidly increasing transatlantic wireless traffic. Later upgrades to the stations at Poldhu and Cape Cod were made to supplement their operation.

The practical use of wireless telegraphy continued to be for ships at sea, both commercial and military. Most vessels carried Marconi operators to service the communications. The effect of speedy information on military tactics and strategy was profound with Britain, Italy, France, Germany, and the United States using the latest equipment. These flourishing developments sent Marconi traveling throughout the world.

Established Industry

Wireless telegraphy was now an established industry with Marconi's companies becoming profitable and the associated factors of commerce—competition and litigation—taking Marconi's time away from invention. Outstanding patent disputes were resolved and ongoing disagreements with the German company, Telefunken, were settled just months before the outbreak of World War I.

As an Italian citizen, Marconi remained in England in 1914 but returned to Italy in 1915 to wartime service in the army, navy, and ultimately, the diplomatic corps. After the war, in 1919, Marconi purchased a large steam yacht, the Elettra , which became his laboratory and a floating home. His newest topics were the possibilities of short-wave radio, sonar detection, and microwave transmission. His faltering marriage finally ended in 1924 and in 1927 he married the much younger Maria Cristina Bazzi-Scali, a descendent of Vatican aristocracy. His third daughter, Elettra, was born in July 1930.

Illness struck Marconi in 1927 with his first of four heart attacks that kept him weak and confined to care in Rome for a number of years. Recovering in 1933, Marconi took a round-the-world trip with his wife and at every stop found himself celebrated and honored.

His dedication to his work—on microwaves, "blind" navigation, and the promise of radar—continued until his death. He died in Rome on July 20, 1937. On July 21, the day of his funeral, radio operation throughout the world was silent for two minutes to honor its foremost inventor.

Landline Telegraphy

Telegraphy has three elements: a transmitter, a receiver, and a conducting medium.

In landline (cable) telegraphy, the originating message is encoded at the transmitter in the Morse code using a system of interrupted electric current. The receiver detects the series of interruptions and, via an electromagnet, converts them to audible clicks that reflect the coded message. The operator then translates the click patterns to Morse code equivalents and then to the original message.

Landline telegraphy relies on wire (cable) to carry the pulsed electric signals, a method limited by the distance and terrain cable can cover.

Electromagnetic Radiation

Heinrich Hertz experimentally confirmed Maxwell's prediction of electromagnetic radiation traveling at the speed of light. His Oscillator (transmitter) used the electric charge from a Leyden jar to create a spark between conductors and powerful electrical waves in the area around the spark.

The Hertz Resonator, consisting of separated conductors attached to copper sheets, completed the experiment by detecting radiation through the air from the sparking Oscillator. The quick electric surge of each spark created a changing electromagnetic radiation that induced an electric current in the Resonator.

Basic Wireless Telegraphy

In wireless telegraphy, the conducting medium is not wire but simply air. The transmitting antenna radiates the electromagnetic field created by the originating current from the spark coils—at the speed of light in every direction. This signal is then available to any receiving antenna within its range.

A receiving antenna reverses the process, converting the airborne electromagnetic radiation it detects to an electric current which is translated at the receiving station.

The Morse key consists of a hand-operated electrical switch, a battery, and a receiver, called a sounder. Both sending and receiving circuits are grounded.

Pressing the key (switch) at the sending location sends an electric current to the antenna. The signal is picked up by the receiving antenna and electric current is sent to the sounder. At the sounder, the current magnetizes a hinged tab that connects to another with a loud click. Release of the sending key discharges the magnets and the hinged tab springs away, causing another click.

An experienced operator can send a Morse code "dot" with a quick key strike (causing two close clicks) or a long key depression for a "dash" (two more separated clicks). The transmitted message is "read" by discerning the "dots" and "dashes" and translating the code.

Improving Wireless Telegraphy

The road to improving wireless telegraphy involved: (1.) strengthening and refining the transmitted signal and (2.) increasing the sensitivity of the detecting apparatus.

The strength of the sending signal was mostly dependent on the power of the spark source. Marconi built power plants with increasing capacity, reaching 25 kW at his Poldhu station. Parabolic reflectors were used to concentrate and redirect the signal. Increasingly high, precariously located antennas were installed in the mistaken belief that antenna height exponentially increased signal transmission distance. The steel masts at the Poldhu station were 250 ft high.

The Branly coherer was the first instrument used to detect radio signals. It relied on the phenomenon that loose metal filings will merge and become a conductor in the presence of a weak electric current caused by radio waves. The coherer consisted of a glass tube containing nickel and silver filings with terminals fused into each end of the tube. A hammer arrangement was also attached to disrupt the metal after each passage of current, making it ready to react to the next signal received. Marconi built on the coherer principle to build and patent increasingly sensitive magnetic detectors.

Marconi Magnetic Detector

Marconi's magnetic detector, nicknamed the "Maggie," consists of a continuous iron band moving through a glass tube to which permanent magnets are attached. The tube is spirally wound with insulated copper wire; the wire terminals of this primary coil are connected between the antenna and a grounded connection. A secondary coil of insulated wire is wound on a spool which surrounds the primary; its wires are connected to headphones.

In the detector's operation, each section of the iron band is magnetized as it passes the permanent magnets and moves on. When each radio signal reaches the primary coil, the magnetism in the passing iron band changes. The changing magnetism induces a current in the secondary coil, resulting in a clicking sound in the earphones.

Acknowledgement

In 1918, Guglielmo Marconi was awarded the Franklin Medal in Engineering for "the application of radio waves to communication."

Count V. Macchi de Celere, "Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the King of Italy," accepted the Franklin Medal on Marconi's behalf at the Award ceremony in May 1918.

Thomas C. Mendenhall also received a Franklin Medal that year—in Physics—for "contributions in the field of physical research and contributions to our knowledge of physical constants and electrical standards."

The Guglielmo Marconi presentation is made possible by support from The Barra Foundation and Unisys.

This website is the effort of an in-house special project team at The Franklin Institute, working under the direction of Carol Parssinen, Senior Vice-President for the Center for Innovation in Science Learning, and Bo Hammer, Vice-President for The Franklin Center.

Special project team members from the Educational Technology department are: Karen Elinich, Barbara Holberg, Margaret Ennis, and Jay Treat.

Special project team members from the Curatorial department are: John Alviti and Andre Pollack.

The project's Advisory Board Members are: Ruth Schwartz-Cowan, Leonard Rosenfeld, Nathan Ensmenger, and Susan Yoon.

Read the Committee on Science and the Arts Report on awarding of The Franklin Medal to Guglielmo Marconi.

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Elettra Marconi together with her father Guglielmo

text Matteo Parigi Bini

Elettra Marconi and her special bond with Forte dei Marmi

Our interview with the daughter of the great scientist guglielmo marconi.

He loved Forte dei Marmi and Versilia very much, where, on board his steam yacht Elettra , he met Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali, his future wife. We are talking about Guglielmo Marconi, ‘the father of radio’, but not only. He is one of the most important Italian scientists of all time. Born out of that love was Elettra, named after the yacht where Marconi lived and worked together with his wife and daughter, two of the crucial female figures in his life, along with his mother, the first to believe in him and encourage him in his research work. With Maria Cristina - or just ‘Cristina’, as Marconi usually called her - and Elettra, he often frequented Forte dei Marmi. To tell us about these sweet memories, in the year in which we celebrate 150 years since the birth of the great inventor, is Elettra Marconi herself, Princess Elettra, from her marriage to Prince Carlo Giovanelli, who passed away in 2016. It was 1937 when her father died suddenly in Rome, a few hours after accompanying Cristina to catch the train to Versilia, where they would have celebrated Elettra’s seventh birthday. She still loves to return to Forte dei Marmi, where it all began.

Can you tell us about the meeting between your father and your mother?

They met for the first time in Versilia. She and a friend of hers had been invited to an evening on board the yacht Elettra . My mother was 25 years old, she had long blonde hair that framed big blue eyes, and that evening she wore a red dress, she was beautiful. My father sent a motorboat to pick them up on shore. He welcomed all the guests and the moment their eyes met as my mother climbed the ladder turned into an encounter that lasted a lifetime.

You lived the first years of your life on board the Elettra. Did you ever take part in any of your father’s experiments?

Sometimes he called me and my mother while he communicated via radio with the most distant countries, Australia, Africa, China... to let us hear when the sound was crisp and clear, it was amazing. Then there was the period in which he worked on the invention of radar. He had two buoys placed on the bow, then we helped him put up some white sheets so that he couldn’t see anything and, looking at the radar, he gave the helmsman instructions to pass exactly in the middle. He called it ‘blind navigation’. He wanted to enable those who sailed to do so without risking collisions with other ships, rocks and icebergs. He wanted to protect the lives of seafarers (unfortunately the invention of radar did not arrive in time to completely avoid the Titanic tragedy, but it was thanks to Marconi’s radio that they managed to call for help and save the survivors, ed. ). Then there are also other inventions that he was working on and that he would certainly have completed if he had not died so soon.

Among these there could also have been the cell phone...

It can’t be ruled out. In 1931 he invented the first radio telephone for Pope Pius. It was a kind of precursor of the cell phone, and he already imagined a world where we could talk to each other remotely with “a little box in our pocket”.

What relationship did your father have with Forte dei Marmi?

I know that there are memories of the Elettra moored at Franceschi’s Capannina, even if, in reality, he had time to see little more than the birth of what was one of the great innovations in Versilia, so he only spent a couple of evenings there with my mother. However, he loved Forte dei Marmi deeply, because that is where my mother had grown up, which is why we returned often. This is how it became a special place for me too, which I still love today .

Inspiration

Guglielmo Marconi

(1874-1937)

Who Was Guglielmo Marconi?

Guglielmo Marconi was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and inventor credited with the groundbreaking work necessary for all future radio technology. Through his experiments in wireless telegraphy, Marconi developed the first effective system of radio communication. In 1899, he founded the Marconi Telegraph Company. In 1901, he successfully sent wireless signals across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving the dominant belief of the Earth's curvature affecting transmission. Marconi shared with Karl Braun the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died in Rome in 1937.

Early Life and Education

Born on April 25, 1874, in Bologna, Italy, into a wealthy family, and educated largely at home, Guglielmo Marconi possessed a strong interest in science and electricity. In 1894, he began experimenting with radio waves as a student at the Livorno Technical Institute. Incorporating the earlier scientific work of Heinrich Hertz and Oliver Lodge in electromagnetic radiation, he was able to develop a basic system of wireless telegraphy. Though not a scientist, Marconi recognized the value of wireless technology and was adept in putting the right people together to invest in it. In 1897 he received his first patent in England.

Groundbreaking Work and Nobel Prize

Marconi founded the London-based Marconi Telegraph Company in 1899. Though his original transmission traveled a mere mile and a half, on December 12, 1901, Marconi sent and received the first wireless message across the Atlantic Ocean, from Cornwall, England, to a military base in Newfoundland. His experiment was significant, as it disproved the dominant belief of the Earth's curvature affecting transmission.

Beginning in 1902, Marconi worked on experiments that stretched the distance that wireless communication could travel, until he was finally able to establish transatlantic service from Glace Bay in Nova Scotia, Canada, to Clifden, Ireland. For his work with wireless communication, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Braun in 1909. Not long after, Marconi's wireless system was used by the crew of the RMS Titanic to call for assistance.

Marconi held several positions in the Italian Army and Navy during World War I, starting the war as a lieutenant in 1914 and finishing as a naval commander. He was sent on diplomatic missions to the United States and France. After the war, Marconi began experimenting with basic short wave radio technology. On his beloved yacht, Elettra , he conducted experiments in the 1920s proving the efficacy of the "beam system" for long-distance communication. (The next step would lead to microwave transmission.) By 1926, Marconi's "beam system" had been adopted by the British government as a design for international communication.

In addition to his groundbreaking research in wireless communication, Marconi was instrumental in establishing the British Broadcasting Company, formed in 1922. He was also involved in the development of radar.

Later Years and Death

Marconi continued to experiment with radio technology in his native Italy until his death, on July 20, 1937, in Rome, from heart failure.

In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that some of his patents’ source of discovery was questionable and as a result restored some prior patents to other scientists, including Oliver Lodge and Nikola Tesla, predated some of his findings. The Court’s decision had no effect on Marconi’s claim that he was the first to produce radio transmission, he just couldn’t claim credit for their work.

Personal Life

Marconi married for the first time in 1905, to Beatrice O'Brien, the daughter of Edward Donough O'Brien, 14th Baron Inchiquin. He and Beatrice had three children—a son, Giulio, and two daughters, Degna and Gioia—before their union was annulled in 1927. That same year, Marconi wed Countess Bezzi-Scali of Rome, with whom he had one daughter, Elettra, named after his yacht.

In his spare time, Marconi reportedly enjoyed cycling, motoring and hunting.

QUICK FACTS

Name: Guglielmo Marconi
Birth Year: 1874
Birth date: April 25, 1874
Birth City: Bologna
Birth Country: Italy
Gender: Male
Best Known For: Through his experiments in wireless telegraphy, Nobel Prize-winning physicist/inventor Guglielmo Marconi developed the first effective system of radio communication.
World War I
Technology and Engineering
Business and Industry
Science and Medicine
Astrological Sign: Taurus
Nacionalities
Interesting Facts
Guglielmo Marconi's wireless system was used by the crew of the Titanic to call for assistance.
Guglielmo Marconi was also involved in the development of radar.
In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Guglielmo Marconi's radio patent invalid because work by other scientists, including Nikola Tesla, predated some of his findings.
Guglielmo Marconi's only child with Countess Bezzi-Scali of Rome, daughter Elettra, was named after his yacht.
Death Year: 1937
Death date: July 20, 1937
Death City: Rome
Death Country: Italy

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CITATION INFORMATION

Article Title: Guglielmo Marconi Biography
Author: Biography.com Editors
Website Name: The Biography.com website
Url: https://www.biography.com/inventors/guglielmo-marconi
Access Date:
Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
Last Updated: January 22, 2021
Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
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COMMENTS

Elettra (1904 ship)
Elettra. (1904 ship) Elettra was the name of Guglielmo Marconi's steam yacht - a seaborne laboratory - from which he conducted his many experiments with wireless telegraphy, wireless telephony and other communication and direction-finding techniques during the inter-war period.
Elettra (nave 1904)
Nave laboratorio di Marconi. Panfilo Elettra cabina esperimenti. La nave, salpata da Londra nel luglio 1919, giunse a Napoli in agosto e quindi portata a La Spezia per i lavori di trasformazione in laboratorio scientifico. La nave, ribattezzata Elettra, venne iscritta nel Registro Navale Italiano il 27 ottobre 1921, mentre il suo passaggio ...
Elettra: The story of Guglielmo Marconi through his daughter Princess
ELETTRA from Ronin Films on Vimeo. Encouraged by her friendship with Australian broadcaster, Ben Starr, the Princess opens her home and her heart to recall and relive her family's saga. Her own story is counter-pointed by her memories of her father and all he achieved. As a girl, Elettra watched her father create magic.
History
After the war Marconi used the site for his shortwave experiments, with transmissions by Charles Samuel Franklin to Marconi on the yacht "Elettra " in the Cape Verde Islands in 1923 and near Beirut in 1924. The results of these experiments took the world by surprise and quickly resulted in development of the Beam Wireless Service for the ...
Elettra, la nave di Marconi: storia, caratteristiche e che ...
Guglielmo Marconi, famoso per invenzioni come la radio e il telegrafo senza fili, lavorò e visse per molti anni a bordo di una nave-laboratorio lunga 67 metri, chiamata Elettra e varata il 27 marzo 1904. Le origini di questa nave, le sue caratteristiche e la vita di Marconi si sono intrecciate e hanno portato l'inventore italiano a sviluppare numerosi esperimenti che si sono poi rivelati ...
Princess Elettra Marconi, daughter of radio inventor, visits InfoAge
Princess Elettra Marconi was born in 1930 in Civitavecchia, Italy, and was the only daughter of Mr. Marconi and his second wife, Maria Cristina Marconi. She was witness to Mr. Marconi's experiments on board his yacht, Elettra, before his passing in 1937 when she was 7 years old.
Guglielmo Marconi
For the next two decades, Marconi continued refining his inventions, experimenting with shortwave broadcasts and testing transmission distances aboard his 700-ton yacht, Elettra.
Guglielmo Marconi
Marconi operating a radio Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi at work in the wireless room of his yacht Elettra, c. 1920. In spite of the rapid and widespread developments then taking place in radio and its applications to maritime use, Marconi's intuition and urge to experiment were by no means exhausted.
Marconi in Santa Margherita Ligure
Marconi had some close ties to the area. His yacht, the Electra, ( l'Elettra) was often moored around Santa Margherita Ligure and the gulf of Portofino, where he conducted experiments based on his fascination with short-waves and radar in order to make navigation for such boats easier. In fact, if you walk into the Grand Hotel Miramare, a top ...
Technology: Revolutionary of radio
Guglielmo Marconi on his yacht, Elettra, in 1922. Credit: General Photographic Agency/Getty Marconi was born to privilege in 1874: his father was an Italian aristocrat, his mother a member of the ...
Resting Place of Keel from Marconi's Floating Lab Elettra to ...
05/22/2017. The resting place of the keel from wireless pioneer Guglielmo Marconi's floating laboratory — the yacht Elettra — will be the site of a special event in conjunction with the annual Museum Ships Weekend Event, June 3-4, sponsored by the Battleship New Jersey Amateur Radio Station NJ2BB.. Marconi named his youngest daughter after the Elettra, which means "electron" in Italian.
Lost Yacht of Italian Scientist to Be Recreated
And it was aboard the traveling Elettra that Mr. Marconi, born in Bologna, Italy, in 1874, and winner of the Nobel prize for Physics at the age of 35, lived as an international man whose work was ...
Guglielmo Marconi
Marconi was born in Italy in 1874 to Giuseppe and Annie Jameson Marconi. His father was a prosperous Italian landowner and his mother was from a wealthy Irish family of whiskey distillers. ... Having a longtime passion for the sea and the intellectual solitude that it offered, in 1919 Marconi bought a yacht and renamed it Elettra ("Amber," a ...
L'Elettra di Guglielmo Marconi, la nave dei miracoli
Uno degli ultimi esperimenti a bordo dell'ELETTRA avveniva nel luglio del 1937 con la messa a punto del radiofaro a micro-onde; ma il 20 luglio 1937 Guglielmo Marconi moriva, lasciando ancora incompiuti i suoi studi, ma all'umanità una via ben tracciata per il progresso della comunicazione. Marconi, resosi conto delle sue precarie ...
Guglielmo Marconi
Marconi set up an experimental base at the Haven Hotel, Sandbanks, Poole Harbour, Dorset, where he erected a 100-foot high mast. He became friends with the van Raaltes, the owners of Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, and his steam yacht, the Elettra, was often moored on Brownsea or at The Haven Hotel. Marconi purchased the vessel after the ...
Marchese Guglielmo Marconi
From 1921 on Marconi had used his steam yacht Elettra as home, laboratory, and mobile receiving station in propagation experiments. In 1932 he discovered that still higher frequency waves (microwaves) could be received at a point much farther below the optical horizon than had been predicted by any theory. This phenomenon was exploited in later ...
Case Files: Guglielmo Marconi
As an Italian citizen, Marconi remained in England in 1914 but returned to Italy in 1915 to wartime service in the army, navy, and ultimately, the diplomatic corps. After the war, in 1919, Marconi purchased a large steam yacht, the Elettra, which became his laboratory and a floating home. His newest topics were the possibilities of short-wave ...
Elettra Marconi and her special bond with Forte dei Marmi
Elettra Marconi with her mother Maria Cristina Bezzi-Scali. Can you tell us about the meeting between your father and your mother? They met for the first time in Versilia. She and a friend of hers had been invited to an evening on board the yacht Elettra. My mother was 25 years old, she had long blonde hair that framed big blue eyes, and that ...
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi's only child with Countess Bezzi-Scali of Rome, daughter Elettra, was named after his yacht. Death Year: 1937 Death date: July 20, 1937
Tver Oblast Map
Tver Oblast is a region in Central Russia, which borders Smolensk Oblast to the southwest, Pskov Oblast to the west, Novgorod Oblast to the north, Vologda Oblast to the northeast, Yaroslavl Oblast to the east, and Moscow Oblast to the southeast. Photo: Belliy, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo: Florstein, CC BY-SA 3.0.
2023 Wagner Group plane crash
2023 Wagner Group plane crash. On 23 August 2023, an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with ten people onboard crashed near Kuzhenkino in Tver Oblast, approximately 100 kilometres (60 mi) north of its departure point in Moscow. Among the victims were Yevgeny Prigozhin, Dmitry Utkin and Valery Chekalov, the key figures of the Wagner Group, a ...
Crash of an Antonov AN-22A in Tver: 33 killed
The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A) was established in Geneva in 1990 for the purpose to deal with all information related to aviation accidentology.
List of rural localities in Tver Oblast
Map of Russia with Tver Oblast highlighted. This is a list of rural localities in Tver Oblast.Tver Oblast (Russian: Тверска́я о́бласть, Tverskaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast).Its administrative center is the city of Tver.From 1935 to 1990, it was known as Kalinin Oblast (Кали́нинская о́бласть), named after Mikhail Kalinin.

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Guglielmo Marconi

Professional Honors

Photo Gallery

Further Reading

L’Elettra di Guglielmo Marconi, la nave dei miracoli

Caratteristiche tecniche yacht “Elettra” (ex Rovenska)

Barbara, regina delle centenarie

Da Giorgio V al cantiere Valdettaro: Vera Mary, la rinascita di una Signora del mare

Barbara, cento anni di navigazione

Vele Storiche Viareggio, i vincitori del 18° raduno

A Viareggio il Museo Galleggiante della marineria, dal 12 al 15 ottobre 2023 torna il 18° raduno delle Vele Storiche

Case Files: Guglielmo Marconi

Introduction

Beyond Visual Range

The Next Threshold

A Critical Time

Transatlantic Travels

Established Industry

Landline Telegraphy

Electromagnetic Radiation

Basic Wireless Telegraphy

Improving Wireless Telegraphy

Marconi Magnetic Detector

Acknowledgement

Connect with Firenze Made in Tuscany

Elettra Marconi and her special bond with Forte dei Marmi

Inspiration

Guglielmo Marconi

Who Was Guglielmo Marconi?

Early Life and Education

Later Years and Death

Personal Life

QUICK FACTS

CITATION INFORMATION

Nobel Prize Winners

Crash of an Antonov AN-22A in Tver: 33 killed

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