Radio Broadcast (Nov 1926-Apr 1927)

Looking* Back Over Thirty Years of Radio the Art Through Times and Progress — The Swing from hong Waves and High Power to NOT since the July, 1925, Radio Broadcast have we been privileged to present an article by Senatore Marconi. In the issue referred to, the article, " Will Beam Stations Revolutionise Radio? " described in the great scientist's own words his experiments with beam transmission, and his feeling of the future of radio transmission along these lines. In the present article, which is in part an address delivered by Senatore Marconi in Bologna, Italy, at the commemoration exercises of the thirtieth anniversary of his first patent in wireless telegraphy, Mr. Marconi describes how wireless has progressed since the earliest days and tells more about his own part in the recent development of beam transmission. He pays, it will be noted, graceful tribute to other investigators in this field, to whom much is owing. — The Editor. AT THE BRIDGWATER," ENGLAND, "SISTEMA A FASCIO" STATION "Sistema a Fascio," as some are well aware, being the Italian for "Beam System." The five masts to the left are for reception from Canada, while the five to the right are for receiving signals from South Africa INCE February, 1896, the date of my departure from Bologna after the first experiments in wireless telegraphy I carried out at the Villa di Pontecchio, my life has been spent far from that city. My absence has been caused by the force of events, which has been greater than that of my will. Radio telegraphy, which appeared to me destined to connect the thought of all the peoples of the world, required for its development a very great space, and I chose for my first laboratory, the Atlantic Ocean. From my youth, I would almost say from my boyhood, the experimental discovery of electric waves made by Hertz, in confirmation of the mathematical hypothesis of Maxwell regarding the electromagnetic theory of light, and the brilliant pursuit of such researches made by our great Bolognese physicist, Augusto Righi (to whose memory I always bow with devout admiration) had fascinated my mind, and I soon had the idea, I might almost say the intuition, that these waves might in a not distant future furnish mankind with a new and powerful means of communication which could be utilized not only across continents and seas, but also on ships with a vast diminution of the dangers of navigation and with the abolition of the isolation of anyone crossing the sea. The happy results obtained over noteworthy distances by means of electric waves have been, in my opinion, due in great part to the discovery made by me in 1895 of the effect of the so-called "antennas" or "raised aerials" connected with both transmitting and receiving apparatus. Such a device was naturally the consequence of a happy inspiration and our mind never forgets, however great the absence, the place where a first happy inspiration was born. But during my forced absence from Bologna the nostalgia of my native city often invaded my mind; often enough during the eighty-six times I crossed the Atlantic, during the long periods of time spent in the solitudes of Canada and of Ireland, my thoughts which to many seemed fixed on the study of the apparatus which I had before me, flew far away instead, flew to my dear Bologna, to which I am bound by the most sacred affections and the dearest memories. Since 1 left Bologna in 1896 and obtained my first Patent of Invention on the and of June in that year, what immense difficulties have had to be surmounted to attain the purpose which I had set myself, and in which my faith was never shaken, even when illustrious scientists had to express the most discouraging opinions! It had been objected that the curvature