Marconi's 1901 trans-Atlantic radio transmission questioned
It's accepted that in 1901 Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, the letter "S", three clicks, tapped out in Morse code. Don Kimberlin now questions that accomplishment in a well written and researched article, "Investigating Radio's Roots: What Did Marconi Hear? The World's Most Heralded Radio Failure." The article is in .pdf form:
http://www.oldradio.com/archives/jurassic/marconi2.pdf (external link)
There's do doubt Marconi's team transmitted a single "S" from Poldhu in Cornwall, near Land's End. But did Marconi actually receive it? Or did he and the sole witness to the event hear something else? Something they mistook for the signal? I've written many times how difficult it is to determine radio firsts; Marconi's claim now proves equally hard to establish. Time to rewrite the history books. Again.
Update. In response to my question to Don, How could an experienced operator like Marconi confuse telegraph dashes for lightning produced static?, Kimberlin responds:
Tom:
How did Marconi might mistake lightning for his desired signals? The key lies in the sound he wanted to hear.
Perhaps I didn't speak enough to the point of the way they had tuned the Poldhu spark transmiter. At the time, their financial strain was such that in order to minimize stress on the Poldhu transmitter, they had reduced the duty cycle of the spark to such a short period that each "key down" on the transmitter produced only a very short "click" of transmission, not the "buzz" we are accustomed to expect from a Type B emission. That way, heating and possible damange while producing maximum power at Poldhu was reduced.
Certainly, Marconi had heard lighting before, but here he was expecting merely a train of 3 clicks in an earphone. They could as easily have come from a natural source as from his transmitter.
I think what is key here is to have some understanding of just how much more favorable a south-north equatorial transmission path is than an east-west one. I may be more sensitive that difference than most people who are not HF propagation specialists, merely because I worked in AT&T's HF radio plant at Fort Lauderdale, FL -- a place that ran largely north-south paths in the equatorial region. It meant we could run commerciallly suitable links most any day of most any part of the solar cycle - high or low - while the AT&T plants at New York and San Francisco often had days of downtime, particularly in lows of the solar cycle.
And, December 12, 1901 was the lowest of low -a day of absolutely zero sunspots.
Since writing the article, it has crossed my mind there could have been a minor geomagnetic storm, which would be highly unlikely, and I can't rule out one of the annual meteor showers, and I intend to correspond with an expert or two on those. I rather expect their opinion will be neither of those as a cause on 12/12/1901.
Don Kimberlin