This was the real beginning of wireless telegraphy and from that moment on Marconi’s star began to rise. It was not long before he was telegraphing over a space of eight miles, the aerials at both ends being held up in the air by kites.
These astounding results had reached the ears of German scientists and through the pull of the former German Emperor, now plain Mr. Hohenzollern, things were fixed so that Dr. Adolph Slaby, of the Charlottenburg University, was allowed to be present while Marconi was sending and receiving messages.
The learned doctor deliberately swiped Marconi’s ideas and on returning to the land of kultur he bent his energies toward outdoing and undoing the young inventor who showed him how to telegraph without wires. Of course, Dr. Slaby invented a system of wireless telegraphy and this was quickly used on the ships of what was formerly the German Navy.
But Marconi’s fame as the real inventor of the wireless telegraph had too sound a bottom for his detractors to hurt him much and he went right on about his work without the slightest caring whatever. He was next invited by the King of Italy to visit his native land and to make some experiments there. A shore station had been put up at Spezia and a couple of war ships were fitted with wireless equipments. In the tests which followed Marconi broke the record for wireless and his achievement was the talk of the world.
Wireless, like its inventor, was on the upgrade and in England Marconi’s Wireless Telegraphy Company, Limited, as it was at first called, was organized for the purpose of installing his system on ship and shore stations. Stations at Bournemouth and at Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight, about 14 miles apart were put up and Marconi did a great deal of experimenting and increased his range to 18 miles when he sent to and received messages from an out-bound steamer.
No one could shut his eyes to the value of wireless at sea and Lloyd’s, the great shipping corporation, had two stations put up at Ballycastle and Rathlin Island on the northern coast of Ireland where experiments were conducted to further test the reliability of the system in all weathers.
The Kingston Regatta was the next event in which wireless figured and the Daily Express of Dublin arranged with Marconi, or his company, to install his apparatus on a ship and report the races to the shore station for the benefit of their readers; and this was done without a hitch. Talk about a scoop! Here was a wireless scoop. Can you beat it!
About this time the Prince of Wales, afterward King Edward VII, met with an accident and he went aboard the royal yacht Osborne to recuperate. Could Marconi fit up a station on it and also in the royal residence Osborne where Queen Victoria was staying so that communication might be kept up between them? Of course he could and he did it with much satisfaction and pleasure to his royal patrons and credit to himself.
The next installations of note were made by the Marconi Company at South Foreland Lighthouse and East Goodwin Lightship which lay off the Goodwin Shoals about a dozen miles away. This was in December, 1898, and very shortly after a steamer was stranded on the shoals. A C Q D signal was instantly flashed from the lightship to the lighthouse and brought help that saved the ship with its cargo which together were worth a quarter of a million dollars.
Bigger things were now in order and greater distances were to be spanned. Early in 1899 Marconi set up a station at Dover on the English coast and another at Wimereaux on the French coast. The distance between these stations was 30 miles but Marconi had no trouble in sending messages forth and back across the English Channel.