Thunderstruck - Erik Larson [68]
Beyond these assumptions lay an impossible array of other variables that likewise had to be resolved, any of which could affect overall performance. The subtlest of adjustments affected the nature and strength of the signal. Fleming, Marconi’s scientific advisor, found that something as simple as polishing the metal balls of the spark gap greatly improved signal clarity. It was like playing chess with pieces ungoverned by rules, where a pawn might prove to be a queen for one turn, a knight for the next.
To make matters more difficult, the thing Marconi was trying to harness was invisible, and no means yet existed for measuring it. No one could say for sure even how Hertzian waves traveled or through what medium. Like Fleming and Lodge and other established physicists, Marconi believed that electromagnetic waves traveled through the ether, even though no one had been able to prove that this mysterious medium even existed.
Marconi and Fleming tried everything they could to boost the power and efficiency of the transmitters at Poldhu and Wellfleet, at times with surprising effect. As power increased, the ambient current became harder and harder to manage. At Poldhu the gutters on nearby homes sparked, and blue lightning suffused the Cornish mists. On August 9, 1901, George Kemp in Poldhu wrote in his diary, “We had an electric phenomenon—it was like a terrific clap of thunder over the top of the masts when every stay sparked to earth in spite of the insulated breaks. This caused the horses to stampede and the men to leave the ten acre enclosure in great haste.”
The Poldhu station still was not finished when a period of extremely foul weather arrived and slowed things further. The masts were up, but high winds made it impossible for riggers to reach the mastheads. Squalls raked the cliff. On August 14, 1901, Kemp wrote, “The weather is still boisterous. The men could not work outside today.”
The squalls and winds continued without ease for a full month, forcing Kemp to send workers home.
Signs went up beside the condensers that boosted the station’s electrical power: “Caution. Very Dangerous. Stand Clear.” At night the eruption of sparks could be seen for miles along the coast, followed by the crack of artificial thunder. One witness would call the Poldhu station “the thunder factory.”
IN LONDON THERE WAS good news: Marconi’s negotiations with Colonel Hozier of Lloyd’s now yielded fruit. Hozier had given up trying to sell patents and technology to Marconi after realizing that the only aspect of the talks that interested him was the possibility of a contract with Lloyd’s itself.
Hozier negotiated on behalf of Lloyd’s but also on his own behalf, as a private individual, and on September 26, 1901, he struck a deal with Marconi. Hozier got his seat on the board and personally received £4,500 in cash and stock, half a million dollars today. Marconi got the right to build ten stations for Lloyd’s, and Lloyd’s agreed to use no other brand of wireless equipment for fourteen years.
The most important clause stipulated that the ten stations would be allowed to communicate only with ships carrying Marconi equipment, virtually ensuring that as shipping lines adopted wireless, they would choose Marconi’s service. Shippers understood that wireless would make the process of reporting the arrivals and departures of ships to Lloyd’s much safer and more efficient by eliminating the danger incurred when ships left course to venture close to shore for visual identification by Lloyd’s agents. The agreement moved Marconi closer to achieving a monopoly over ship-to-shore communication, but it also fed resentment among governments, shipowners, and emerging competitors already unhappy with Marconi’s policy