Marconi never claimed that he invented the radio all alone. There were a number of others working in the field, from Nickola Tesla to Nathan B. Stubblefield, all of whom demonstrated communication without wires. These other guys can take a walk, though.... because Marconi is the one who put it all together. He demonstrated his first wireless, in Italy, in 1895. He was the world's first ham; an engineer and an ace tinkerer, with the managerial smarts to found a gigabuck industry.

Most people associate Marconi with his dramatic test of transatlantic transmission, that gave wireless a permanent commercial role. This didn't happen until 1901. The transmitter, a huge spark coil, was in England, and the receiver, using an antenna held high aloft by a kite, was in Newfoundland. The first signal, sent one way, was a simple 'S' in Morse - three dits.

Marconi's first receivers were coherers, a sort of crystal radio. Early antennas were treated as giant "condensers" (capacitors), with as much wire as was sane to hang as the "aerial" half, and our mother Earth as the ground. At these wavelengths, you couldn't put up too much wire. Radio stations tended to be on rather large plots of land. Marconi, however, soon designed the space-saving antenna that still bears his name, a vertical with counterpoise, often operating at DC ground.

Marconi Wireless contracted with many ships, including the Titanic. This doomed vessel's radio call was MGY, the M standing for Marconi. Titanic wasn't the first to use SOS, and in fact sent initial calls with CQD, Marconi's original distress signal. One of the two "Marconi Operators" survived the sinking, and, despite frostbite, insisted on taking his turns at Carpathia's key. Anyone who thinks that news media were any different 80 years ago should look at some of the surviving radiograms - "TALK TO NO ONE X WILL PAY TOP PRICE FOR YOUR STORY AR" was typical!

Shoreside, a young Marconi operator named David Sarnoff had just gotten off his shift at the key when he saw headlines of the sinking. He rushed back to the New York station to be of service. Later, when Sarnoff had siezed Marconi Wireless in a Congressional action, and when he had become the owner of mighty RCA, and when he was thus the Bill Gates of his time, he boasted that he'd personally copied Titanic's initial distress call. He hadn't, but nobody argued with him...