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"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N720, December 11, 2022
The Story of the Wireless Operator who Sent the First Morse Code Transmission Across the Atlantic
Tomorrow, Monday, December 12, (2022) is the anniversary of one of the world's great wireless events, for it was on that date in the year 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi achieved the first transmission of a wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean. On this, the 121st anniversary, we examine that historic event once again, and we present the story of the Wireless Operator who sent that original Morse Code signal from Poldhu in Cornwall, England to St. John's in Newfoundland, North America, a distance of 2,128 miles.
There are many critics who like to suggest that Marconi did not hear the three dots that form the letter S in Morse Code on that historic occasion, and that instead he heard the crash of the lightning strikes during the strong and windy thunderstorms. However, we would suggest that the critics are forgetting two important matters; propagation across a saltwater pathway, and the wintry weather pattern.
The available technical information indicates that the Morse Code signal was transmitted from the Marconi wireless station at Poldhu on approximately 366 metres, mediumwave 820 kHz. The fan shaped circular antenna was supported from masts standing 160 feet high, and the power to the antenna is estimated at somewhere between 60 kW and 100 kW.
The Marconi receiving system at Signal Tower near St. John's in Newfoundland was a 500 ft. trailing wire supported from a kite, and a wireless receiver that he described as a simple coherer detector with a telephone earpiece. According to the entries in Marconi's diary, he and his assistant George Kemp heard the S across the Atlantic some 20 different times during their two days of successful experimentation, Thursday and Friday, December 12 and 13, 1901.
Back during the year 1957, my young wife and I were traveling with my parents on a journey north from Port Augusta in South Australia towards the outback desert areas, a location where my Mother spent her childhood years. My Father had the mediumwave car radio tuned to a program of pleasant music, and we were amazed when the announcer gave the station identification as 2YA Wellington, in New Zealand. In those days 2YA was on the air with 60 kW on 570 kHz.
That radio signal had traveled 2,100 miles across the saltwater Tasman Sea from Titahi Bay in the North Island of New Zealand to the fringe desert areas of Australia, it was midday in New Zealand and mid-morning in South Australia. That remarkable long distance radio reception in the South Pacific with a clear listenable mediumwave signal in full daylight illustrates the fact that the Marconi signal over a saltwater pathway in the middle of winter from England to Newfoundland was not an exaggeration. They identified the signal on 20 separate occasions.
The Wireless Operator at the Marconi wireless station in Poldhu on that epic occasion back in December 1901 was 16 year old Sidney Benjamin Maddams. He was born in England on April 17, 1885, and as a young man he learned Morse Code at the Government Telegraphy School in London. His first work assignment was with the Central Telegraphy Office, which employed 5,000 men and women on their London and provincial circuits.
Young Maddams was assigned the responsibility of sending the letter S in Morse Code at 15 minute intervals from 3 pm to 7 pm (GMT-UTC), for three days beginning on Wednesday, December 11 (1901). On the first day (Wednesday), Marconi and Kemp listened in, but heard nothing. However, on the Thursday and Friday they heard the signal on at least a score of occasions.
Less than two years later (1903), young Sidney, now 18 years old, was in San Francisco on the west coast of the United States where he built a wireless communication station in the Palace Hotel for another noted wireless pioneer, Dr. Lee de Forest. Maddams stayed on at this station as an operator, though it was the other operator, Tim Furlong, who assigned the rather logical callsign PH (Palace Hotel) to this new station.
Five years later (1908), Maddams heard music on the wireless for the very first time. This historic music broadcast was coming from one of the ships in the Great White Fleet that was anchored in the Bay area.
Their music transmission came from the ship's brass band, and also from gramophone recordings, and the melody that Maddams remembered hearing was the tuneful Merry Widow Waltz. That was the music you heard at the beginning of our program today. Maddams reported his monitoring observations to the San Francisco Examiner newspaper and they awarded him $10 for his news report.
Two years later (1910), Maddams was on service in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he married Laura Marian Townsend in the St. Andrews Cathedral. He was 25 and she was 23. They subsequently celebrated the birth of two children, Marion and George.
After a short stint at sea as the Wireless Officer aboard the Hilonian, Maddams secured an appointment as the operator at the new Marconi communication station at Kahuku on the northern edge of the main island of Oahu. That station was built by Arthur Isbell, though Maddams gave it the original callsign HU.
Two years later (1912), the Federal Telegraph Company constructed their own wireless communication station at Heeia Point at the bay on the east coast of the main Hawaiian island of Oahu, and they appointed Maddams as the manager and chief operator. Interestingly, his wife Laura was also an operator at the same station.
Two more moves took them to Sonoma and then to Palo Alto, both in California, and then back again to Honolulu where he served with Mackay Radio, from which he retired in 1943. At the end of an illustrious wireless and radio career, Sidney Benjamin Maddams died in Honolulu at the age of 84.
You will hear more about the Hawaiian communication wireless/radio stations at Kahuku and Heeia in the New Year.