"In my opinion it would be a mistaken policy to introduce legislation to prevent amateurs experimenting with wireless telegraphy (which the authorities were contemplating). Had it not been for amateurs, wireless telegraphy as a great world-fact might not have existed at all. A great deal of the development and progress of wireless telegraphy is due to the efforts of amateurs."
John Ambrose Fleming, the inventor of the diode valve, also wrote to the Editor of W.W. as follows:
"It is a matter of common knowledge that a large part of the important inventions in connection with wireless telegraphy have been the work of amateurs and private research and not the outcome of official brains or the handiwork of military or naval organisations. In fact we may say that wireless telegraphy itself in its inception was an amateur product. Numerous important inventions such as the crystal detector, the oscillating valve, the triode valve—have been due to private or amateur work. If full opportunities for such non-official research work are not restored, the progress of the art of radio telegraphy and radio telephony will be greatly hindered."
Professor W.H. Eccles wrote:
"Improvements and invention must be stimulated to the utmost. It is not impossible to devise laws to impose restrictions upon the emission of wireless waves as will preclude interference with the public radio service of the future (R.F.I. & T.V.I.?!!) and yet allow liberal opportunities for the experimental study of wireless telegraphy."
NOTE. The above passages are taken from WORLD AT THEIR FINGERTIPS by John Clarricoats, O.B.E., G6CL, published by the R.S.G.B. in 1968.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE 1921 TRANSATLANTIC TESTS
Most commercial experimental transmissions in wireless telegraphy before World War I were carried out on the "long" wavelengths, though they were not called that at the time. Transmissions by amateurs in the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. on the other hand were made around 200 metres (1.5MHz). In the U.S.A. amateurs were permitted to use a D.C.input of 1,000 watts to the anode of the final stage of their transmitters. In the U.K. the maximum power allowed was 10 watts and the combined height and length of the transmitting aerial was not to exceed 100 feet. So when the first attempt to span the Atlantic was made in February of 1921 it was natural that the American stations should do the transmitting and the Europeans the listening.
About 25 U.S. amateur stations participated in the tests, which took place early in the morning on the 2nd, 4th and 6th of February 1921. Although about 200 European stations had indicated their intention to listen only 30 actually submitted logs. And not a single one of them was able to report hearing anything that could be attributed to the American transmissions.