Marconi and the invention of wireless communication
1995
It is my opinion that Radio, intended as the possibility of transmitting information overlong distance by means of free propagating electromagnetic waves, was a long and dificult parturiton, which began in the spring 1895 with the first experiments of Pontecchio, and ended in 1901, at Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland, with the first transatlantic transmission. In fact, if the activity Marconi carried out between 1896 and 1901, hadn't been successful, the experiments of the year 1895 would have just opened the way to the invention of Radio, because, as I'll say later on, the instruments were not yet syntonic, while ionosphere had not been discovered yet. The latter had a fundamertal role in very-long-distance communications, in particular in intercontinental communications, until the age of communication via satellite. As a consequence, as I said, the words "invention of Radio" does not identify a single event, but rather a whole period, which is described.