Guglielmo Marconi

It was an article suggesting the possibility of using radio waves to communicate without wires which inspired Guglielmo Marconi, the father of wireless, to work on ways to convey message via telegraph wires.

In 1894, he started experimenting using comparatively crude apparatus;
an induction coil for increasing the voltage with a spark discharger
controlled by a Morse key at the sending end and a simple coherer (a device designed to detect radio waves) at the receiver. After preliminary experiments over a short distance, he first improved the
coherer. Then, by systematic tests, he showed that the range of signalling was increased by using a vertical aerial with a metal plate or cylinder at the top of a pole connected to a similar plate on the ground. The range of signalling (2.4 kilometres) convinced Marconi of potential
of this new system of communication.

Unable to receive adequate encouragement in Italy, he went to
London where he was assisted by Sir William Preece. Marconi filed for a patent in 1896 and the following year gave a series of successful demonstrations. He was able to send signals over a distance up to 14.5 kilometres.

Most mathematicians at that time believed that the curvature of the earth would prevent sending a signal much farther than 200 miles. When Marconi actually was able to transmit across 

the Atlantic Ocean in 1901, people were stunned. It opened the door to a rapidly developing wireless industry. Though much remained to be learnt about the laws of propagation of radio waves around the earth and through atmosphere, it was the starting point of
the vast development of radio communication, broadcasting, and navigation services that took place in the next
50 years.

In 1902, Marconi received messages from a distance of 1,125 kilometres by day and 3,200 kilometres by night. He was the first to discover that transmission conditions are more favourable at night than during the day. In the same year, Marconi patented the magnetic 

detector in which magnetization in a moving band of iron wires is changed by the arrival of a signal causing a click in the telephone receiver connected to it. Subsequently, he also developed and
patented the horizontal directional aerial. These devices improved the efficiency of the communication system. Marconi continued to refine and expand upon his inventions in the next few years, and then turned towards the business aspects of his work. He had formed the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in London. He already had contracts with a number of shipping lines. He had installed his wireless transmitters in the navies of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy and had a contract to provide wireless
telegraphy to the US Navy.

In 1909, he won the Nobel Prize in physics. He shared it with Karl Ferdinand Braun whose modifications to Marconi’s transmitters significantly increased their range and usefulness. In 1910, he received messages at Buenos Aires from Ireland over a distance of 9,650 kilometres using a wavelength of about 8,000 meters. This helped in establishment of long-distance stations, which finally allowed Marconi to send the first radio message from England to Australia in 1918. Marconi played an active role in World War I and represented Italy at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Although he continued to perform experiments in the new field of radio, which evolved from wireless telegraphy, his later efforts were mainly directed to affairs of state. When he died in 1937 in Rome, he was accorded the unique tribute of a two-minute silence by all radio stations throughout the world.