Most commercial experimental transmissions in wireless telegraphy
before World War I were carried out on the "long" wavelengths, though
they were not called that at the time. Transmissions by amateurs in
the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. on the other hand were made around
200 metres (1.5MHz). In the U.S.A. amateurs were permitted to use a
D.C.input of 1,000 watts to the anode of the final stage of their
transmitters. In the U.K. the maximum power allowed was 10 watts and
the combined height and length of the transmitting aerial was not to
exceed 100 feet. So when the first attempt to span the Atlantic was
made in February of 1921 it was natural that the American stations
should do the transmitting and the Europeans the listening.
About 25 U.S. amateur stations participated in the tests, which
took place early in the morning on the 2nd, 4th and 6th of February
1921. Although about 200 European stations had indicated their
intention to listen only 30 actually submitted logs. And not a single
one of them was able to report hearing anything that could be
attributed to the American transmissions.
The then Editor of QST wrote: "We have tested most of the circuits
used by the Britishers and find them one and all decidedly inferior to
our standard American regenerative circuit using variometer tuning in
secondary and tertiary circuits. We would bet our new Spring hat that
if a good U.S. amateur with such a set and an Armstrong
superheterodyne could be sent to England, reception of the U.S.
transmissions would straightaway become commonplace." Strong language.
In September of the same year it was announced that a prominent
U.S. amateur Paul Godley 2ZE would be going to Europe to take part in
the second series of tests planned for December. His expenses were
being paid by the A.R.R.L. which already boasted having 15,000
transmitting members. In the U.S.A. distances of over 2,000 miles
had already been achieved.
During his brief stay of a few hours in London Paul Godley was
introduced to Senator Marconi, to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry
Jackson, to Alan A. Campbell Swinton and many other distinguished
members of the Wireless Society of London, as the R.S.G.B. was then
called.
Paul Godley first set up his receiving equipment at Wembley Park,
Middlesex but soon decided that the electrical noises in the area
would not permit reception of the weak transatlantic signals. He
therefore obtained permission to set up the European receiving station
at Ardrossan a coast town near Glasgow, Scotland. The actual site was
a large field heavily covered with seaweed. He was assisted in the
erection of his receiving antenna by a member of the Marconi
International Marine Communications Company. 1,300 feet of
phosphor-bronze wire was stretched 12 feet above the ground on ten
poles spaced equally along the full length of the wire which was
earthed at the far end through a non-inductive resistor. This was the
first Beverage type receiving array ever erected in the United
Kingdom. Before the actual tests took place the length of the wire
was reduced to 850 feet.
At 00.50 GMT on December 9th 1921 Godley identified signals from
1BCG located at Greenwich, Connecticut. The station there was manned by
six members of the Radio Club of America. One of the operators was
E. Howard Armstrong inventor of the regenerative detector,
super-regeneration and the supersonic heterodyne receiver, though the
French claim that the superhet was first designed by Lucien Levy of
Paris.
Two days later the historic first complete message transmitted by
U.S. amateurs and received in Europe on the "short waves" (actually 230
metres) heralded a new era. The message read:
No.1 de 1BCG. WORDS 12. NEW YORK DECEMBER 11 1921. TO
PAUL GODLEY ARDROSSAN SCOTLAND. HEARTY
CONGRATULATIONS. SIGNED BURGHARD INMAN GRINAN ARMSTRONG
AMY CRONKHITE.
Eight British amateurs had also copied the message correctly. One
of them was W.E. "Bill" Corsham 2UV of Willesden, London who was later
credited by the R.S.G.B. and the A.R.R.L. as being the inventor of
the QSL card. Bill had used a simple three valve receiver and an
inverted-L wire 100 feet long compared to Godley's huge Beverage
array.
In the summer of 1922 amateurs in France began to get licences and
Leon Deloy 8AB President of the Radio Club of Nice in southern France
started hearing British stations. After a visit to the U.S.A. Deloy
was able to improve his equipment and on November 27th 1923 he
contacted Fred Schnell 1MO of West Hartford, Connecticut for the first
ever 2-way QSO across the Atlantic. They used the "useless"
wavelengths around 100 metres.
INTERNATIONAL DX had come to stay.