Guglielmo Marconi's Influence On Radio Communication

Inspired by Heinrich Hertz’s experiments on radio waves, Guglielmo Marconi, a twenty-two year old man in Italy, experimented in his parent’s attic until he created and later patented the first radio, which could transmit radio waves a little more than a mile away. Marconi then traveled to England, where his invention could be more easily funded, and although his radio equipment almost got destroyed by suspicious customs officers in Dover, Marconi was able to create a radio that transmitted Morse code signals almost four miles away. Many credit Guglielmo Marconi as the inventor of the radio; however, Marconi’s invention would have been successful without Nikola Tesla, an engineer behind the early development of the technology needed to build
When the military first started to use the radio, a combination of mules, men on horseback, and wagons had to be used to transport a radio system because the equipment was so bulky and heavy. The radio set’s size and weight made it hard for radios to be hauled around battlefields and limited its use on land; however, the U.S. Navy heavily utilized radio communication because it allowed them to communicate with generals on other ships and troops stationed on shore. Even before the United States formally entered World War I, Woodrow Wilson ordered the U.S. Navy to censor incoming radio messages and monitor the plans of the countries at war. Once the United States entered World War I on April 7, 1917, Woodrow Wilson banded the use of radio for amateur or commercial purposes, and the stations had to be either closed down or given to the government for military purposes. Both the Allies and the Central Powers relied on radio technology for to receive and send war updates, to make strategy changes, to warn troops of an attack, and to maintain contact between forces in the air, on land, and in the sea. When soldiers were in the hospital healing or not in combat, music and news were broadcasted over the radio as a source of entertainment. Radio also made it possible for Woodrow Wilson’s proposal for lasting peace in Europe, his Fourteen Points speech, to be broadcasted from the U.S. congress floor across the Atlantic Ocean and into Western Europe and Russia, which further shows how radio technology made wartime communication more immediate and efficient. Overall, radio technology transformed the way military communicated between air, land, and sea forces, the way troops spent their time when not in battle, and the way political leaders were able to present their ideas to a larger audience (White