10 January 2001: Celebrating the centenary of Marconi's first long distance wireless transmission

Press Release - 10 January 2000

Celebrating the centenary of the world's first long distance wireless transmission
On 23rd January 2001 from 2.30pm, Porthcurno Museum of Submarine Telegraphy will be going "on air" to mark an important date in the radio calendar. Radio experts will establish a temporary wireless station (GB2PK) to mark the centenary of Marconi's first long distance contact between the Isle of Wight and Bass Point on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.

Visitors to the museum will be able to listen in to the re-enactment of the historic transmission taking place at Bass Point Wireless Station, organised by the National Trust.

Cornwall has played a major role in the development of radio. On January 23rd 1901, Marconi proved that radio waves could travel around the curvature of the earth when he received signals from a wireless station on the Isle of Wight at the Lizard Wireless Station at Bass Point. Later that same year, on December 12th 1901, MarconiÕs station in Newfoundland, Canada received wireless signals sent from his station at Poldhu on the Lizard, a major event in world communications.

Porthcurno's own connection with radio goes back to almost the same date. The Valley was the home of BritainÕs major telegraph station from 1870 and by the early 20th century had a total of 14 submarine cables linking Britain to the rest of the world. By 1902, the Eastern Telegraph Company had become concerned that Marconi's wireless successes were a potential threat to the monopoly of cable communications. This led them to "spy" on Marconi's experiments from 1902 and they established a wireless station at Porthcurno to listen in to the transmissions of the station on the Lizard. Eventually in 1929 Eastern Telegraph company and other cable companies merged with Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company to form Imperial & International Communications Ltd, renamed Cable & Wireless in 1934.

More Radio events will be organised at Porthcurno Museum of Submarine Telegraphy during the summer and in December 2001.

The museum is open in winter Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, 10am - 5pm, 6 days a week from 2nd April and 7 days in July and August. It is managed by the Trevithick Trust.

For further information, please visit our website: http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/
or contact Mary Godwin on 01736 810 478, Mark Steadman on 01736 810 811
or Michael Pickering on 01736 810 966.

For further information about the National Trust's events on the Lizard, please contact Debbie Peers, Press Office, National Trust Regional Office, Cornwall, on 01208 265 225.

To read about news and events at Porthcurno, click here.
To read other press releases, click here.

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