Twin Lights beacon was nation's first radio station

HIGHLANDS — The year was 1899, and an Italian American named Guglielmo Marconi placed a receiving station, complete with an antenna, at the Twin Lights, sending results of the America's Cup yacht races off the tip of Sandy Hook to editors at the New York Herald and demonstrating the wireless telegraph.

On May 17, the Twin Lights Historical Society hosted guest speaker Robert Lucky, chairman of the Marconi Society, to speak about Marconi's work both at Twin Lights and in the world of telecommunications.

According to the website, the Marconi Society, based at Columbia University in New York, is dedicated to "identifying telecommunications achievements that have contributed significantly to human progress."

"I got to know the Marconi family pretty well, and about four or five years ago I was elected chairman of the society," Lucky said in an interview after the presentation. "I enjoy talking about Marconi's early work and his involvement here in Monmouth County."

According to Lucky, his involvement with the Marconi Society stems from receiving the annual Marconi Prize in 1987. The $100,000 Marconi Prize, according to the website, recognizes achievements of those individuals from anywhere in the world whose aspirations, careers and accomplishments are characterized by a similar dedication."

"His presentation was really, really good and well received," said Margaret Carlsen, senior historian at the Twin Lights. "I certainly learned a great deal about the topic, and lectures like these afford visitors the opportunity to hear about other achievements here at Twin Lights; it is not just a lighthouse."

Lucky has led engineering work and research at Bell Labs and later Telcordia Technologies. He also has served on several advisory boards and is the chairman of the Technological Advisory Board of the Federal Communications Commission and a member of the Defense Science Board.

According to Lucky, Marconi sent the first radio signals in America.

"He was originally going to report on the America's Cup Races, which were not far from Sandy Hook, but the Spanish American War intervened," Lucky explained. "A week later, Marconi reported on the races, sending from Twin Lights what would be the first radio signals in America."

After Marconi's invention of the radio in 1899, the question became, Lucky said, what is radio good for?

"The telephone had been invented about 25 years earlier, and so Marconi began transmitting to ships at sea, ending what he called 'the loneliness at sea,' " Lucky said. "Soon enough, he put stations in Newfoundland and Cape Cod and Twin Lights, and he got his employees on various ships to run the wireless transmissions."

One of those ships, Lucky said, was the Titanic.

"On April 14, 1912, 1,500 people died because the radio operators screwed up," Lucky said. "Another ship called the Californian was in the Titanic's sight and sent about five ice warnings all day long, but the captain never saw the last four, paying the first one no mind. The Marconi messengers on board were busy sending passengers' messages to Cape Cod and Newfoundland and were interrupted by the Californian's radio operators."

According to Lucky, only one station could transmit at a time.

"The Californian signal interrupted the radio operator on the Titanic, who then told the Californian operator to 'Shut up, you bloody idiot,' " Lucky said. "That cost 1,500 people their lives, and when the Titanic began to sink, the Californian saw the flares in the sky and thought it was a party on the deck of the ship."

Lucky said the radio operators would then proceed to contact the Carpathia, which was headed to Europe and turned around to pick up people from the "unsinkable" ocean liner.

Stories like these enrich the history at Twin Lights by allowing visitors to experience other aspects of the historical site, Carlsen said.

"With the installation of the Marconi tower in 1899, Twin Lights served another purpose," she said. "With our series of lectures, visitors experience another side of Twin Lights, and that is good because everyone has different interests."

According to Carlsen, Twin Lights will host two more lectures in the fall, on gardens and other telecommunications achievements at the site.

"You don't realize how much of a role the Twin Lights had in the development of telecommunications in the 20th century until you hear these lectures," Carlsen said.

Lucky said the Marconi Society holds half a dozen yearly events such as forums and symposia to foster discussion about communications.

"We have sessions coming up in the fall in Paris on telecommunications in emerging nations in places like Africa," Lucky said. "And of course the Marconi Award will be given out in October in Bologna, Italy."

Bologna is the birthplace of Guglielmo Marconi, the man who used the Twin Lights as the first signal station for radio.

For more information on the Twin Lights, visit www.twin-lights.org.

Contact Erin Stattel at estattel@gmnews.com.