Editing Guglielmo Marconi (section)

====Demonstrations and achievements====
{{more citations needed section|date=December 2016}}
[[File:Post Office Engineers.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|[[General Post Office|British Post Office]] engineers inspect Marconi's radio equipment during a demonstration on [[Flat Holm]] Island, 13 May 1897. The transmitter is at the centre, the coherer receiver below it, and the pole supporting the wire antenna is visible at top.]]

Marconi made the first demonstration of his system for the British government in July 1896.<ref>{{cite web|title=Flickr Photo|url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/164193649/|date=9 June 2006}}</ref> A further series of demonstrations for the British followed, and, by March 1897, Marconi had transmitted Morse code signals over a distance of about {{convert|3|mi|km|0}} across [[Salisbury Plain]]. On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the first ever wireless communication over the open sea – a message was transmitted over the [[Bristol Channel]] from [[Flat Holm]] Island to [[Lavernock Point]] near [[Cardiff]], a distance of {{convert|3|mi|km}}. The message read "Are you ready".<ref>BBC Wales, {{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/historyhunters/locations/pages/3_1_flatholm.shtml|title=Marconi's Waves|access-date=20 January 2007|url-status=bot: unknown|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070120163444/http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/historyhunters/locations/pages/3_1_flatholm.shtml|archive-date=20 January 2007 }}</ref> The transmitting equipment was almost immediately relocated to [[Brean Down Fort]] on the [[Somerset]] coast, stretching the range to {{convert|10|mi|km}}.

[[File:Marconi in London.jpg|left|thumb|upright=0.8|Plaque on the outside of the [[BT Centre]] commemorates Marconi's first public transmission of wireless signals.]]

Impressed by these and other demonstrations, Preece introduced Marconi's ongoing work to the general public at two important London lectures: "Telegraphy without Wires", at the [[Toynbee Hall]] on 11 December 1896; and "Signalling through Space without Wires", given to the [[Royal Institution]] on 4 June 1897.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=23 January 1897|title=Telegraphy Without Wires|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/26120030|journal=[[Scientific American]]|volume=76|issue=4|pages=55–56|jstor=26120030}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=17 December 1897|title=Signalling Through Space Without Wires|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1623911|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=6|issue=155|pages=889–896|doi=10.1126/science.6.155.889|jstor=1623911|pmid=17740846|bibcode=1897Sci.....6..889.|last1=Preece|first1=W.H.}}</ref>

Numerous additional demonstrations followed, and Marconi began to receive international attention. In July 1897, he carried out a series of tests at [[La Spezia]], in his home country, for the Italian government. A test for [[Lloyd's of London|Lloyd's]] between The Marine Hotel in [[Ballycastle, County Antrim|Ballycastle]] and [[Rathlin Island]], both in [[County Antrim]] in [[Ulster]], [[Ireland]], was conducted on 6 July 1898 by [[George Stephen Kemp|George Kemp]] and [[Edward Edwin Glanville]].<ref name="Mollan">{{cite book|last1=Mollan|first1=Charles|title=It's Part of What We Are: Volume 1|date=2007|publisher=Royal Dublin Society|isbn=9780860270553|location=Dublin|page=1407}}</ref> A transmission across the [[English Channel]] was accomplished on 27 March 1899, from [[Wimereux]], France to [[South Foreland Lighthouse]], England. Marconi set up an experimental base at the [[Haven Hotel]], [[Sandbanks]], [[Poole Harbour]], [[Dorset]], where he erected a 100-foot high mast. He became friends with the van Raaltes, the owners of [[Brownsea Island]] in Poole Harbour, and his steam yacht, the ''[[Elettra (ship 1904)|Elettra]]'', was often moored on Brownsea or at The Haven Hotel. Marconi purchased the vessel after the Great War and converted it to a seaborne laboratory from where he conducted many of his experiments. Among the ''Elettra''{{'}}s crew was [[Adelmo Landini]], his personal radio operator, who was also an inventor.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Risi|first=Giacomo Bortolotti, Fabio|title=Adelmo Landini "Sasso Marconi Foto|url=https://www.sassomarconifoto.it/index.php/personaggi-del-sasso/adelmo-landini/|access-date=21 October 2020|language=it}}</ref>

In December 1898, the British lightship service authorised the establishment of wireless communication between the [[South Foreland]] lighthouse at [[Dover]] and the East Goodwin [[Lightvessel|lightship]], twelve miles distant. On 17 March 1899, the East Goodwin lightship sent the first [[CQD#History of wireless distress rescues|wireless distress signal]], a signal on behalf of the merchant vessel ''Elbe'' which had run aground on [[Goodwin Sands]]. The message was received by the radio operator of the South Foreland lighthouse, who summoned the aid of the [[Ramsgate]] lifeboat.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030656105;view=1up;seq=117|title=Marconi's Wireless Telegraph|first=Cleveland|last=Moffett|journal=McClure's Magazine|date=June 1899|pages=99–112}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/first-ever-radio-distress-call/|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/connecting-britain/first-ever-radio-distress-call/|archive-date=11 January 2022|url-access=subscription|url-status=live|title=This week in tech|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=17 March 2017|location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref>
[[File:SS Ponce Entering New York Harbor 1899, by Milton J. Burns.jpg|thumb|SS ''Ponce'' entering New York Harbor 1899, by Milton J. Burns]]

In 1899, Marconi sailed to the United States at the invitation of ''[[The New York Herald]]'' newspaper to cover [[1899 America's Cup|that year's America's Cup]] international yacht races off [[Sandy Hook, New Jersey]]. His first demonstration was a transmission from aboard the SS ''Ponce'', a passenger ship of the [[Porto Rico Line]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Helgesen|first=Henry N.|title=Wireless Goes to Sea: Marconi's Radio and SS Ponce|journal=Sea History|issue=Spring 2008|page=122}}</ref> Marconi left for [[England]] on 8 November 1899 on the [[American Line]]'s {{SS|Saint Paul}}, and he and his assistants installed wireless equipment aboard during the voyage. Marconi's wireless brought news of the [[Second Boer War]], which had begun a month before their departure, to passengers at the request of "some of the officials of the American line."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Marconi|first=Guglielmo|date=2 February 1900|title=Wireless Telegraphy|url=https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/annualreportofbo1901smit|journal=Smithsonian Annual Report, 1901|pages=294}}</ref> On 15 November the ''SS Saint Paul'' became the first ocean liner to report her imminent return to Great Britain by wireless when Marconi's Royal Needles Hotel radio station contacted her 66 nautical miles off the English coast. The first ''Transatlantic Times'', a newspaper containing wireless transmission news from the Needles Station at the Isle of Wight, was published on board the SS ''Saint Paul'' before its arrival.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Westman|first=Harold|title=Radio Pioneers 1945|publisher=Lindsey Publications|year=2006|isbn=1-55918-346-2|location=Bradley, IL|pages=25}}</ref>