POWER

Holding complete sway over his Wave Radio Empire, Marconi was said to have been a thoroughly demanding tyrant Marconi was far more obsessive and domineering than the numerous emerging characterizations of Tesla. Tesla was disciplined and solitary in his ways. But he could be lighthearted, jovial, even playful at times. It was said that he enjoyed only lighthearted movies, comedies in fact The real comedy was about to begin, with Marconi in the lead role. Endless confusions plagued Marconi engineers, who were unsure of the differences between “electric waves” and “electric rays”. Much of the terminology of that time period show a clear distinction between both, an awareness that there were in fact two very different modes of energetic radiance. One was a penetrating longitudinal ray, the one which Tesla pioneered. The other was wave radiation, the phenomenon which Hertz claimed to have discovered. Knowing the difference and how to release the same would spell either total success or total defeat for the Marconi System.

His engineers began to suspect the real difference, but did not comprehend the initial facts which they considered. Marconi radio is wave technology. Tesla Technology is IMPULSE technology. Waves were weak. Impulses were strong. Only alternating currents will release the weak waves which Marconi insisted on using. Only violent, unidirectional spark discharges will release the mysterious kinds of Radiant Energy effects which Tesla reported. There were those who remembered the European patents in which “shock-excitation” proved to produce a more penetrating and superior kind of wireless signal. Largely pioneered by Germanic wireless developers, these shock-excitation methods were understood to be prolific sources of a different electrical phenomenon altogether. Raymond Heising, Count Georg von Arco, Alexander Meissner, Amo Brasch, Fritz Lange, Max Dahl, Fritz Lowenstein and a host of others recognized that Tesla had indeed found a special and rare kind of electrically stimulated effect.

They had experimental proof that this effect produced a better wireless signal than the high frequency alternating currents could ever be made to yield. Indeed, throughout the years that Dr. Nikola Tesla was treated with such derision and rejection by the local authorities, this Germanic camp came

To revere and esteem his work above the others who filled the developing technology. Certain of these staunch and loyal supporters even came to his aid when, years later, his role in the development of wireless arts was held in question. Marconi engineers recognized that a severe and critical divergence was taking place, but they could really do nothing to swerve the progressive dictates of Marconi. He knew enough about their designs and intentions to spot out and eliminate those plans of theirs which even vaguely suggested Teslian methodology. Though the highly damped shock-excited discharges contained something far more potent than the currents produced through high firequency alternators, Marconi would none of it. Thus rejecting a potentially better radio energy “hybrid” on the basis of personal choice, one sourced in Jealousy and spite, Marconi plunged into sinusoidal wave radio with a curious and unscientific vengeance. These seemingly “minor details” are critical in comprehending the tremendous consequences which have been passed onto society, the result of his decision.

Marconi was completely disinterested in “theoretical talk” from this time period onward. Business was the movement. Only business, and the establishment of working systems. Yet in disannulling discussions which explored the relative merit of utilizing rays or waves, Marconi had forced a shift in natural development. The rays which Tesla had discovered were so obviously the most powerful expression of natural energies now available. Pride, jealousy, envy, power, rule, domination, self-defined destiny, Marconi would force the world to accept “his radio”, even if it meant blinding the world to scientific knowledge. Only his success mattered now.

Marconi, unwilling to be aware of the real differences between waves and rays, chose the weaker mode. By doing this, he forged a path of development on the weakest possible soil. Truly expressing a part of his ego, Marconi began to speak of transmitters and the power required to overcome all natural resistance. He ultimately sought the supreme rule of ail wave radio communications systems the world over. And increased transmitter power seemed his only fundamental means for solving the manifold problems posed by the use of alternating currents. Though theoreticians hypothesized that increased power and very low frequencies might help improve the Marconi system, most realized that the real problem lay exactly where Tesla said it would lie; with alternating currents themselves. Power was not the problem. Energetic species were. The current which experimenters used determined the subsequent output. But the resentfully proud Marconi was making all the wrong choices.

Engineers were hired to develop pure sine wave generators, somehow imagining that the smoother the and more harmonic the signal, the better the signals would approach an environment penetrating strength. This was so much nonsense, and most of the engineers knew it Familiar with the systems which employed abrupt, rapidly quenched spark discharges, their own experiential knowledge taught them that spark-generated signals had a penetrating power

Not equalled by sinewave currents however powerful or high in frequency. Here was another problem. The higher the frequency, the more efficiently the transmitted wavesignals. Yet, the higher the frequency, the less the signals would traverse the sea.

But the spark held the greatest secret Where harmonic alternating waves lost their power, their “cutting edge”, the spark-powered aerials penetrated the natural environment with equally shcirp signctls. It was the aetheric component, just as Tesla stated, which effected these powerful penetrations. Engineers advised that the first stations should employ spark-generated radio energies. Marconi agreed. The absolute need of the hour was success, not style. Not just yet Dr. Fessenden, the famed Canadian radio investigator, along with a smaJl group of private experimenters, each independently discovered the first basic radiowave propagation laws. Each found that very low frequency waves, VLF waves, could carry signals to further distances in the natural environment than the medium frequency waves used by many amateur experimenters. The choice of frequency depended solely on finances, a remarkable restriction.

The construction of higher frequency wave radio stations was far less costly and size efficient than undertaking the establishment of a high power VLF station. Therefore, a few fortunate experimenters had designed and built their own VLF stations. Each of these was either independently wealthy, or funded by a substantial financial base. Dr. Fessenden determined that VLF alternating current waves, like low frequency sounds, actually “hugged” the ground and ocean surface as they travelled out from their large transmitters. Launched in specific directions, these VLF waves could maintain their consistency and power for long distances. It was therefor imperative to construct VLF stations at geologically appropriate locations in order to take full advantage of every possible natural enabler. Power would necessarily be extreme, the components huge. Marconi VLF stations were not experimental establishments. They were commercial ventures representing the highest sort of financial “risk” available for the production of large profits. The financial base investing the greatest capital was one for whom fciilures were not tolerated. The plethora of inventors threatened Marconi. There were many others whose systems performed more adequately and with far less power. They used sharp spark discharges, imitating Tesla to some vague degree.

Inadvertently duplicating work previously completed by Vion, Lemstrom, and Tesla, Marconi began learning about the affects of geomorphology on VLF. Marconi had not yet learned the secret of choosing proper “related” geological points to insure the most powerful signal transactions. It was a fact that certain geological locations exchanged radiowave signals with impossibly great power. Marconi came to rely upon such means in order to boost every fraction of power which his weak wave signalling apparatus could deliver. The goal was simple: drive signals and receive signals across the Atlantic. Using forgotten principles of Antonio Meucci, Marconi frequently employed both conductive geological structures and seawater channels in order to collimate the alternating waves. More like huge natural waveguides or “chutes”, as British engineers came to call them, spark-generated waves were directed across the seas through massive aerial structures.

Gone were the large metal plate aerials, those reminders of Tesla and his Wardenclyfife Station. In the absence of creative ability to build the necesseuy solid plate aerials of this size, articulated aerials began emerging. This development was principally pursued by Marconi for obvious reasons. Furthermore, Marconi found it impossible to develop sufficiently tall aerials having the great capacity needed for achieving a signal transmission “maximum”. He therefore developed his own breed of capacity stmctures in the horizontal mode. The Marconi Bent-L aerial curtain was comprised of several thick braided cables. He and his engineers dissected the otherwise solid geometries of early “capacitor aerials”, and produced gigantic cage-like forms. In this direction, Marconi developed “Bent-L” aerials (see figure).

This design was a pcirallel array of very long terminated powerlines. A great number of cables emerged from their power source, gigantic electrified components housed in an isolated building. Window-sized insulator eyelets directed the thick cables out into the expanding aerial structure. Support towers went straight out into the sea, very often standing in the water. Beneath the entire aerial structure was a buried copper screen, one whose expense w?is as enormous as its area. The ground screen often went beneath the seawater to several hundreds of yards beyond the aerials. These are yet being discovered off the New Jersey coastline (Dalessio). Many of these mammoth stations went into operation before the first World War. The sheer expense of creating a single VLF station is yet unfathomable for our time, let alone the VLF global “circuit” which the now vaunting Marconi sought to establish. Money and media, the old connection of rulership. Controlling what can be known is always a priority, a method of control.

Forgetfulness is sometimes expensive. There were those who, at the financial base, wished to more than forget Tesla. They wished the eradication of his Technology, and he knew it. This is why Tesla continued arranging his own press interviews. Ever prepared with carefully contrived statements, Tesla designed his interviews to pinpoint specific financiers or monopolies. Provoking his enemies with flawless logic, Tesla made the most of each moment in the spotlight Meanwhile, Marconi engineers were immersed in problems requiring the help of a Tesla. But no such help would come.

Engineers who knew that wave radio was hopeless advised that a spark generator would be the best radio energy source for his first trans-Atlantic Station. This commercial demonstration was the most important step toward monopolizing Wave Radio. Monies would stop should this plant prove in any way inefficient. Marconi therefore believed that brute force would solve the problem of excessive static and other signal frustrating natural disruptions. It was not therefore curious that Valdemar Poulsen obtained an exclusive contract with Marconi. Poulsen had adopted certain unpatented designs of Nikola Tesla for the production of very high power VLF signals. Tesla designed the arc dischargers to produce impulses. Poulsen adapted this design to the production of VLF waves however, an inferior energetic form. The Poulsen Arc devices began as boiler-sized tanks, capable of safely transforming high voltage direct current into damped radiowaves. As Marconi stations required ever more power, so too did Poulsen develop more gigantic Arc devices. Some of these standard designs were immense house-sized tanks, hydrogen plasma cyclotrons requiring thick-walled shields to block out their dangerous local electrical fields. These mammoth installations generated multimegawatt radio currents as early as 1912. Updated considerably now, they eire still in Naval use.

But, Marconi wished to escape every possible inference that Tesla had the superior science, and so the eventual eradication of Poulsen Arc Generators was a consideration of prime importance to Marconi. Marconi directed his engineers to use many common laboratory artifices as models and analogues in this brute force theme. Reconstructed on a gargantuan scale, Marconi obtained coils several stories in height, capacitors which filled warehouses, sparkgaps requiring boiler-sized oil tanks, buried copper screens of an area rivalling a cornfield, and a massive aerial structure several football fields in length and width. Insulators, towers, cable supports, every part of the preexisting electrical sciences was simply enlarged in the hopes of overpowering natural resistance. Marconi made absolutely sure that each giant version of the classic electrical components were patented as inventive novelties, the basis of size alone. He eagerly sought the development of special radio frequency generators, desiring the complete purge of Tesla-derived components. This was, of course, impossible. Every aspect of radio science had been covered by the now hated genius.

Early high power VLF stations were terminated power stations, launching VLF waves into ocean lanes with special trellis-like arrays. These electrical trellis arrangements grew with the needs of a station, in some cases having been nearly 10 miles or more in length. These trellises went straight out into the seawater, early “directional” aerials. Their equally monstrous ground plane, an immense copper screen which ran the entire length of the aerial trellis, was buried underground. An immense construction operation. Both trellis and ground plane went directly into the seawater, without doubt an invocation of sea conductivity originally devised by Antonio Meucci. Marconi designed his systems to drive signals across the sea by every and any propagation modes possible. In fact, part of these signals were in fact, he result of subaqueous conduction currents.

Hundreds of feet in height, loaded with cables as thick as an arm, the trellis monstrosities seemed to declare a defiance of natural law. They were in fact, just that. Marconi defied the reasonable and more accessible energies which had been revealed to the world through Nikola Tesla solely on the basis of personal dislike. Because of this, he was now compelled to these ridiculous extremes. When these bent-L designs proved to spread out and waste their precious and prodigious supply of high frequency currents, Marconi sought out “antenna experts”. Making the most efficient use of the radio power volumes so supplied, Marconi demanded the production of a more directional signal. Designs purloined from Raymond Heising, Alexander Meissner, and Gustav Reuthe proved better able to deliver an adequately “collimated” signal; one whose power retained its “launch shape” despite the hundreds of sea miles between the American east coast and the European west coast. Later, Ernst Alexanderson of GE was called upon to “develop and improve” these designs; his several patents on directional antennas the result

Brute force was the only means for sending the lossy alternations out across the waves. It s obvious that VLF stations were monstrous affairs, mammoth sites often requiring many hundreds of square acres. The buildings were built on a grand scale, made to rival those which Tesla had long given to the bulldozers of the fearful and the greedy. Marconi wished the complete eradication of Tesla and Tesla technology from both the engneering and the public mind. By building stations to rival the Teslian scale, yet totally ignorant of the true fimction of stations such as Wardenclyffe, he had hoped to prove himself the more capable inventor. Behind the wild and compulsive ravings, and providing the financial push to establish this condition, sat a pleasantly pleased commodore puffing an imported cigar. The employment of his powerline monopoly became ever the more obvious with each VLF station which went up. VLF stations were monstrous affairs in Marconi’s day. There are a geat many yet in operation, all part of the Naval Radio Network.