Radio Ga-Ga
Our second Italian adventure began on a Tuesday morning in June of 2001. Our plan was to visit the central portion of Italy verses the northerly part we’d explored on our first visit. We left home mid-morning under the threat of a "Nor’easter" rainstorm. We had checked on an earlier flight but there were no seats available. We decided to go to the airport anyway just in case something might change, hopefully the weather. It was still raining when we arrived, pouring to be exact. Things were beginning to compound: our flight was delayed and hadn’t arrived from NY due to the weather. Not a great start but much better than our first to Italy when I was on crutches. We passed the time sitting by a window in a terminal bar enjoying a beer. The rain was blowing in sheets across the ramp. I was nervous at the thought that we wouldn't get out on time and in domino fashion, the arrangements we’d made, from flights to prearrangements in Italy, cars to hotels, would suffer.
Our Trans World Airlines flight (remember TWA?) departed about an hour behind schedule and arrived in NY/JFK in plenty of time to make the next leg of our journey to Milan. Why had I worried? It's certainly a waste of time but comes naturally hearing the announcements of flight
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| Former TWA Terminal at JFK |
Our time warp continued when we boarded a late model Boeing 767. It, like the terminal, was scheduled to be discontinued soon only to be resurrected years later as the long awaited Boeing KC-46 military refueling aircraft that entered service in 2019. The TWA terminal would also see a makeover reopening as a 512 room hotel that same year. We sat in center bulkhead seats to capitalize on the extra legroom which is always an advantage on lengthy flights. It wasn’t long before I’d struck up a conversation with an Italian gentleman from Rapello sitting beside me. He told us about Highway A26 from Milan that led to Genoa. We were planning to head to Liguria and learned that this route would be a much better drive with fewer tunnels, curves and lumbering Iveco trucks. Here we were wheels up and already making progress. With little else to do but sit back, we watched a movie. Old terminal, old aircraft, why not an old movie from 1966, Hotel Paradiso.
We landed at Malpensa Airport mid-morning, not long after Alec Guinness and Gina Lollobrigida had once again survived their affair at Hotel Paradiso. We were familiar with this terminal from our previous trip. After we exchanged currency, we rented a car, failing to notice it was missing a hubcap but with sufficient wheels, we were on our way. Our vacation had officially begun and soon confirmed when sometime later we made our first stop for gas - about $2 a quart. As I mentioned this was 2001; It gobbled up a 50,000 lira bill quickly!
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Italian Geography
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On our way south, our destination, Santa Margarita, I won’t admit we got lost in Genoa. No, it was more like disoriented. This I’ll acknowledge. Traffic was frantic with many tunnels. We hadn’t realized we needed to take the “Milano/Livorno” exit. It seemed to suggest going the wrong way, back north again. We looped around, reversing course a couple of times before I gave up and pulled over alongside a police car. The policewomen told us to turn around and get off the highway again. A ticket booth attendant then explained that we needed to head toward Livorno which was indeed south along the Tuscan coast. I clearly needed to know my Italian geography better, much better. Thankfully, we weren’t going as far as the Tuscan region that day. In fact, our destination wasn’t far from Genoa.
Following the coastline, we finally arrived in Santa Margarita by early afternoon and managed to maneuver our car into a small basement garage underneath the hotel. Our overnight room in Hotel Jolanda, though also small, was very nice. We were still new to travel in Italy but would soon acclimate to small spaces evidently standard in Italy and throughout Europe. Little things got our attention. Mare was amazed we could keep our Pope-like windows (more like doors because of their size) in our room and have no
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| Hotel Jolanda |
insect problem. We also figured out how to operate the air conditioner mounted high on the wall, something we were not familiar with then, but which have since made an appearance here in the States. As opposed to the out of reach controls on the unit, we needed to use a remote control which at first we confused with the TV remote. We had arrived on the Italian Riviera, a loving communion of natural bays, idyllic sea landscapes, green placid waters and old fishing villages that to this day maintain a vestige of their original soothing charm. It is this enduring allure coupled with a particularly mild climate and relaxed way of life that attracted the very ancient Ligures, through by comparison the not so ancient Romans, to luminaries the likes of Lord Byron and the Shelleys who drew inspiration from these surroundings. Farther south, near the port city of La Spezia, it would earn the title, “Gulf of Poets.”
After settling-in for a brief while, we were soon off.
We discovered a charming resort town. The seafront is its main attraction with a beach, lively harbor and promenade. Its attractiveness continues with clusters of palm trees scattered among grand buildings and brightly colored homes. A small but sturdy looking castle, built in the middle of the 16th century, today watches over the waterfront since its days as a lookout for pirates have long ended. In the old town behind the harbor, we came upon a pleasant shopping area worth exploring. It was in the tourist information office where we met a British couple. They told us about a local bus to nearby Portofino. We bought tickets and were soon on the bus that ran along the coast to Portofino about ten minutes away. It was a beautiful ride along a narrow coastal road. In spots, it was narrow enough that the driver would honk his horn before attempting a corner. From where we were dropped off, we walked downhill into beautiful waterfront Portofino. Arriving at Piazzetta Portofino, the central town square, it wasn't long
before we found a table at one of the many waterside cafes and were soon enjoying Peroni beers and olives. Embraced by Mediterranean greenery on the hills ringing the bay, we began to take in our surroundings. Long before the “selfie” had made its debut, we observed one woman in particular who acting like a model posed for a photographer to a background of Cartier and Gucci store finery. Sometime later, in striking contrast, we paused to watch a fisherman as he expertly maneuvered a shuttle wrapped with nylon cord and repaired his net. His small “make-a-living” fishing boat bobbed nearby while off in the harbor, a luxurious yacht registered in the Caymans, christened the "Golden Cell”, was sporting a party on the aft-deck. We hesitated to watch but no one hailed us to come aboard and join in. Besides, we were headed somewhere else, up by the local church of San Geogio, the dragon slayer and patron saint of Portofino. At one time, I’d believed that Guglielmo Marconi, the “Father of Radio” whom I’d learned about in grammar school, was buried in the little church cemetery out back but I’d been wrong, if not misinformed. But there was added reason to head that way. To get farther out on the peninsula, to its very end in fact, we walked around one side of the bay along Molo Umberto I toward a lighthouse located just about where land's end and the sea came together in a glorious view.
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| Columbus Statue in Downtown Santa Margarita |
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| Portofino Harbor |
before we found a table at one of the many waterside cafes and were soon enjoying Peroni beers and olives. Embraced by Mediterranean greenery on the hills ringing the bay, we began to take in our surroundings. Long before the “selfie” had made its debut, we observed one woman in particular who acting like a model posed for a photographer to a background of Cartier and Gucci store finery. Sometime later, in striking contrast, we paused to watch a fisherman as he expertly maneuvered a shuttle wrapped with nylon cord and repaired his net. His small “make-a-living” fishing boat bobbed nearby while off in the harbor, a luxurious yacht registered in the Caymans, christened the "Golden Cell”, was sporting a party on the aft-deck. We hesitated to watch but no one hailed us to come aboard and join in. Besides, we were headed somewhere else, up by the local church of San Geogio, the dragon slayer and patron saint of Portofino. At one time, I’d believed that Guglielmo Marconi, the “Father of Radio” whom I’d learned about in grammar school, was buried in the little church cemetery out back but I’d been wrong, if not misinformed. But there was added reason to head that way. To get farther out on the peninsula, to its very end in fact, we walked around one side of the bay along Molo Umberto I toward a lighthouse located just about where land's end and the sea came together in a glorious view.
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| The Portofino Lighthouse |
Continuing to follow a narrowing path, we found it dotted with beautiful villas and enchanting views. We soon passed Brown Castle, whose foundations date back to Roman times and then passed through a pine forest that deposited us at a spectacular viewpoint just below Portofino’s lighthouse. This lighthouse has become a beacon, not only helping ships navigate but attracting visitors and locals alike like moths to a flame. Here, it’s all about the fabulous view across the waters of the Ligurian Sea where occasionally you might catch a glimpse of a pod of dolghins and where once the Elettra cruised.
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| At "Land's End" Near Portofino |
The Elettra was a steam powered yacht owned by Marconi. With its dual masts fore and aft of a single smokestack, slung with antenna wires, its deck arrayed with experimental contraptions, it had served as his floating research laboratory in his exploration of what was known as “wireless telegraphy.” Marconi packed the Elettra with cutting-edge experimental radio equipment with the goal of enhancing communications at sea. It cruised these waters passing this lighthouse often to occasionally anchor in Santa Margarita and Portofino. Long before voice and pictures were ever transmitted, this nascent technology first made it possible to send Morris Code, not through lines on telephone poles which had been the case but over great distances through the air. Marconi was a great experimenter although not a theorist. Like many before him and many who would follow, he built upon
the discoveries of others including Heinrich Hertz and his discovery of electromagnetic waves, Georg Ohlm’s work with current flow, and that of Sir Oliver Lodge for his invention of the “coherer” radio wave detector.
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| The Elettra Floating Laboratory |
the discoveries of others including Heinrich Hertz and his discovery of electromagnetic waves, Georg Ohlm’s work with current flow, and that of Sir Oliver Lodge for his invention of the “coherer” radio wave detector.
Marconi was an Italian electrical engineer, inventor, scientist, and entrepreneur who sought to develop long-distance wireless telegraphy into a profitable business. He was educated in Bologna and Florence before entering technical school at Livorno, down the coast from Portofino. He studied physics there, investigating the bourgeoning interest in electromagnetic wave technology and the mathematical formulas and experiments conducted by earlier scientists. By the twenty, he was experimenting at his father's estate at Villa Griffone near Bologna. His father thought it was time wasted while his Irish mother supported and encouraged him in his trial and error technology. Tinkering in his second floor laboratory, he converted mere theories and observations into a demonstrable fact by fashioning a receiver and a coherer based spark transmitter. It was with his brother’s help that he performed an early experiment that
sent and received a signal, enough to ring a bell just a few miles away over a hill. When the bell rang, his brother fired a rifle to let Guglielmo know the signal had been received. Invisible radiation triggered by a spark jumping across a gap in a DC electric circuit had caused a second spark at the receiver approximately 1.5 miles away. This was something of great moment, a great leap forward and certainly a confidence builder. He knew then that he was on to something, on the threshold of messaging by electromagnetic waves. Exactly how it worked was yet a mystery and would remain so for some time. This was, after all, well before the realization that the vibration of electrons in the antenna generated the electromagnetic waves that flew across that hill at the speed of light. Electrons? Ever so gradually the range achieved in his wireless experiments grew year by year, especially after he thought to ground his antennas.
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| Young Guglielmo Marconi |
Much like the first words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, it was the technical achievement, not what was said in the transmission, that was so amazing for the time. No, they were not monumental words, nothing to go ga-ga over like the words accompanying man’s first steps on the moon. Their casualness was almost as though the invention’s operation was in doubt, just another test. Bell had called for his assistant in 1876: "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” In Marconi’s case in 1897, like the first “ga-ga” sounds a baby might utter when trying to communicate, his coded dots and dashes proved to be historic when he successfully sent the first-ever wireless transmission over open sea. From his location in Flat Holm Island in the British Channel, he sent the brief message “Are you ready?” all of 3.7 miles over the channel inlet to a receiver station at Lavernock Point in Wales. Again, the public may not have understood how it worked or that it would eventually change their world but ever so gradually, even absent today’s twenty-four hour drone of instant news, word of his feat spread. While word got around, it didn’t result in financial support, however. It remained a hard sell. Unable to find backing in Italy, Marconi had taken his experiments to England in 1896 where he continued conducting demonstrations that led to that over water test, just mentioned, and where he filed his first patent. The distance the signals could be detected soon grew to nine miles and in another year to eleven miles.
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| Working the Kite Antennas at Saint John's |
Looking to achieve what experts at the time said were impossible results, he gambled in Dec 1901 to save his fledgling company and kick-start the wireless industry that would eventually lead to voice, images, TV, and ultimately on into the digital age. Marconi's greatest triumph, call it “The Mother of all Experiments,” was achieved when he succeeded in passing a simple signal across the Atlantic from England to Canada. He had secretly begun construction of special stations in 1900, one a receiver site
at Saint John’s in Newfoundland, the most easterly point in North America, and a transmitter site 1800 miles away overlooking Poldhu Cove in Cornwall, England.
Both of his elaborate transmitter and receiver antenna farms were unexpectedly damaged in storms. His response that 12th of December day was to improvise. Under strong wind conditions, a kite was launched in Newfoundland with a 155 meter long antenna wire. The wind quickly blew it away. A second kite was soon launched at the end of another antenna wire. The kite bobbed and weaved in the sky, making it difficult for Marconi to adjust his new Italian Navy coherer based receiver, so he decided to use an older untuned receiver. For this experiment, he was cued on when the message would be sent. In a cable he requested that the single letter ‘S’ (dot, dot, dot) be transmitted continuously from 3–7 pm from England. If you were a betting man, the safe bet was that a signal could not travel any great distance before it would skip out into space because of the earth’s curvature. This is what that day’s men of science had concluded. They believed the waves traveled in a straight line, unaware how the ionosphere affected the signal.
Analysis of the equipment used, the frequency, nature of the antennas, time of day, and other technical factors has stirred controversy among contemporary scientists and engineers about this experiment that continues to this day. Was it even technically possible to hear the signal? Certainly not today with so much electromagnetic energy constantly being pumped into the atmosphere verses the pristine ether of Marconi’s day when his was the only signal around. Marconi wrote in his laboratory notebook: “Sigs [signals] at 12:30, 1:10 and 2:20 (local time).” This notebook, today held in Marconi Company archives, is the only remaining proof that the signal was heard. Some have gone so far as to say that Marconi deluded himself into believing he occasionally heard the rhythm of three dots and deceived the world into believing that crackling gibberish of static was in fact the Morse code letter ‘S’ he so desperately wanted to hear. However, a sworn affidavit by his assistant, George Kemp, stated he also heard a faint keyed ‘S’. Reminiscent of Monday morning quarterbacks, today we know that signals can indeed travel across the Atlantic. Absent other witnesses back there in 1901, if you believed a radio signal could travel this distance, you did so as an act of faith grounded on the integrity of one man - Marconi.
Marconi knew then that he could establish communication with ships at sea from both sides of the Atlantic. He went on to develop, demonstrate, and market the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph. For his pioneering work, he and German Professor Karl Braun shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraph. Galileo had initiated modern science and now another Italian genius, Marconi, had changed the world by revolutionizing international communications.
The role played by Marconi Co. wireless in maritime rescues would raise public awareness of the value of radio, start an industry, and attendant to it, bring fame and fortune to Marconi. This was particularly the case with the sinking of the Titanic on 15 April 1912. On the ill-fated night when she sank, two radio operators were on duty aboard the Titanic, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride. Of note,
they were not employed by the White Star Line, owners of the Titanic, but by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company. Two hours after the Titanic sank, survivors were rescued by the Cunard Line’s RMS Carpathia in response to the Titanic’s wireless calls for help. The Carpathia then kept radio contact with Marconi Company in NYC for 72-hours as it made its way toward the U.S. with the 705 rescued passengers and crew (total passengers and crew 2229), including junior wireless operator Harold Bride. Marconi had arrived in NYC only days earlier. In a twist of fortune, Marconi was offered free passage on that fateful first voyage of the Titanic, but decided to take the RMS Lusitania instead, three days earlier. As his daughter would later explain, he had paperwork to do and preferred the public stenographer aboard the Lusitania. As fate would have it, that decision undoubtedly saved his life. When the Carpathia docked in New York, Marconi went aboard to talk with Bride. The surviving operator told Marconi how he and Philips had continued to signal for help sending the distress message “CQD, Help we are Sinking” until told they had done their duty by the captain. Philips, unfortunately, had died of hypothermia when he slipped from an overturned lifeboat.
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| Depiction of the Sinking of HMS Titanic |
they were not employed by the White Star Line, owners of the Titanic, but by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company. Two hours after the Titanic sank, survivors were rescued by the Cunard Line’s RMS Carpathia in response to the Titanic’s wireless calls for help. The Carpathia then kept radio contact with Marconi Company in NYC for 72-hours as it made its way toward the U.S. with the 705 rescued passengers and crew (total passengers and crew 2229), including junior wireless operator Harold Bride. Marconi had arrived in NYC only days earlier. In a twist of fortune, Marconi was offered free passage on that fateful first voyage of the Titanic, but decided to take the RMS Lusitania instead, three days earlier. As his daughter would later explain, he had paperwork to do and preferred the public stenographer aboard the Lusitania. As fate would have it, that decision undoubtedly saved his life. When the Carpathia docked in New York, Marconi went aboard to talk with Bride. The surviving operator told Marconi how he and Philips had continued to signal for help sending the distress message “CQD, Help we are Sinking” until told they had done their duty by the captain. Philips, unfortunately, had died of hypothermia when he slipped from an overturned lifeboat.
There’d been another cascading calamity of events underway only miles away from the Titanic. Another British ship, the SS Californian, was within sight of the Titanic, approximately ten miles away. When the Californian encountered the ice field, she stopped. Her radio operator, Cyril Evans, also a Marconi employee, had sent out an ice warning message, one of many the Titanic received that day, this one only minutes before the Titanic hit the iceberg. This message that the Californian had stopped never made it to the bridge of the Titanic.
Phillips, aboard the Titanic, had also received an ice warning from the steamship Mesaba about an hour earlier reporting a large number of icebergs directly in Titanic's path. Phillips acknowledged Mesaba's warning and continued to transmit passenger messages (the system had been down earlier, and a message backlog had developed). Mesaba's wireless operator waited for Phillips to report that he had passed the message to the bridge, but Phillips continued working on the accumulation of messages. This message was one of the most important warnings Titanic received, but never reached its destination.
Back aboard the Californian, wireless operator Evans switched off his wireless equipment and went to bed. Ten minutes later, Titanic struck the iceberg. Twenty-five minutes after that, she transmitted her first distress call. Although rocket signals were seen and disregarded, no one was at the wireless terminal of the Californian to hear the constant distress calls from the Titanic that went on for about two hours. While the Carpathia was on its way to help, had the nearby Californian responded, it is reasonable to believe there would have been many more survivors
Marconi's invention was credited for those saved in the disaster. Word spread that ships with Marconi equipment were safer and Marconi basically cornered the market. He had forever replaced the ship-to-shore message in a bottle with wireless. Standing there at the tip of the peninsula extending from Portofino harbor looking south over open sea without a corked message bottle in sight, all of this was vague memory from my earlier schooling supplemented by googling for more. Time has distanced us from Marconi and the Elettra; Neither exist anymore. Guglielmo died of a heart attack, his ninth, at his Rome estate on the morning of July 20th, 1937 at the age of 63. The Elettra would meet her end seven years later on the opposite side of Italy from where we stood in the Aegean Sea.
She’d been built in 1904 in Scotland for Archduke Charles Stephan and Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. She came in at 730 tons as an elegant 220 foot vessel with an average speed of twelve knots. The vessel, however, was never delivered to Austria. Instead, with the outbreak of WWI, it was confiscated by the British Admiralty to serve as the flagship of the admiral commanding mine sweeper operations in the English Channel.
The steam powered yacht was purchased by Marconi at auction after the war in 1919, renamed Elettra, and converted into his floating laboratory in Naples. Along with concentrating on wireless, he discovered that work and play could be combined. It was
suitable for long stays and for hosting celebrities, like Italy’s King Vittorio Emanuele III and King George V of the United Kingdom. Never a laboratory hugging genius like Edison with his many gadgets, the Elettra gave Marconi the opportunity he had long sought - the ability to roam the seas while remaining close to his tools, testing and tweaking, insulated from the demands on his time when ashore. He found comfort knowing that while on a relaxing cruise, his laboratory was just steps away. By connecting antennas of various designs between her special 89 foot masts, he could experiment with novel concepts. For about eighteen years she was used by Marconi for experimental purposes and played an important part in practically all his investigations and discoveries during this time. Interestingly, his daughter, Maria Elettra Elena Anna Marconi, would be named after her father’s famous floating laboratory.
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| Marconi in His Elettra Laboratory |
suitable for long stays and for hosting celebrities, like Italy’s King Vittorio Emanuele III and King George V of the United Kingdom. Never a laboratory hugging genius like Edison with his many gadgets, the Elettra gave Marconi the opportunity he had long sought - the ability to roam the seas while remaining close to his tools, testing and tweaking, insulated from the demands on his time when ashore. He found comfort knowing that while on a relaxing cruise, his laboratory was just steps away. By connecting antennas of various designs between her special 89 foot masts, he could experiment with novel concepts. For about eighteen years she was used by Marconi for experimental purposes and played an important part in practically all his investigations and discoveries during this time. Interestingly, his daughter, Maria Elettra Elena Anna Marconi, would be named after her father’s famous floating laboratory.
WWII put an end to the Elettra. Marconi's elegant yacht was commandeered and re-fitted as a military escort this time by the German navy in 1943. She was sunk by Allied aircraft near present day Croatia on 21 January 1944. After the war, the Italian Government retrieved the wreckage and tried to
rebuild the boat but eventually, the idea abandoned, the wreckage was cut into pieces that were distributed to Italian museums. I’d like to think that just maybe, on some clear quiet night right were we stood above the lapping swish of the surf on the rocks below us, the Elettra, with Marconi at her helm, haunts these waters. She’d be heading out to sea, like a ghost ship apparition as real as the Mary Celeste or as fictitious as the Flying Dutchman, her wired masts crackling and sparking against a dark sky smeared with stars as though possessed by a luminous plasma of Morse code dots and dashes.
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| The Bow Section of the Elettra |
rebuild the boat but eventually, the idea abandoned, the wreckage was cut into pieces that were distributed to Italian museums. I’d like to think that just maybe, on some clear quiet night right were we stood above the lapping swish of the surf on the rocks below us, the Elettra, with Marconi at her helm, haunts these waters. She’d be heading out to sea, like a ghost ship apparition as real as the Mary Celeste or as fictitious as the Flying Dutchman, her wired masts crackling and sparking against a dark sky smeared with stars as though possessed by a luminous plasma of Morse code dots and dashes.
Marconi is also gone, but during his lifetime he managed to forever change life across the globe. By way of his invention, an invention he continued to develop from its modest introduction, news of his death flashed around the world. At 6 pm, the designated hour fixed for his funeral in Bologna, all BBC transmitters, all the Post Office wireless telegraphs, wireless telephone stations in the British Isles and ships at sea, all of it closed down for two minutes out of respect for this man. No dots or dashes, yet a message of silence had been communicated throughout the world.
Italy had given the world Roman concrete that build an empire; the codex, the precursor to modern books and the ubiquitous newspaper; eyeglasses to read them by; the telephone by Antonio Meucci (years before Bell in 1849) and with Marconi, we were gifted the lightning speed of wireless communication. He had freed mankind and taken us wireless forever with the “ga-ga” sound of a simple ‘S’, like a baby attempting to speak, freeing us forever from the tether of hard-wire connections. Today, its message is clear in its significance: “A small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
From the Rogue Tourist
Paolo
Inspiration for this piece where the lyrics to the song “Radio Ga-Ga”:
“I'd sit alone and watch your light. My only friend through teenage nights. And everything I had to know I heard it on my radio. You gave them all those old time stars. Through wars of worlds invaded by Mars. You made 'em laugh, you made 'em cry. You made us feel like we could fly (radio). So don't become some background noise. A backdrop for the girls and boys. Who just don't know or just don't care. And just complain when you're not there. You had your time, you had the power. You've yet to have your finest hour radio (radio). All we hear is radio ga ga. Radio goo goo. Radio ga ga. All we hear is radio ga ga. Radio blah blah. Radio, what's new? Radio, someone still loves you. We watch the shows, we watch the stars. On videos for hours and hours. We hardly need to use our ears. How music changes through the years. Let's hope you never leave old friend. Like all good things on you we depend. So stick around 'cause we might miss you. When we grow tired of all this visual. You had your time, you had the power. You've yet to have your finest hour. Radio …”
