Marconi Receives Transatlantic Radio Signal

Guglielmo Marconi and assistant George Kemp detected Morse code for the letter S at Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland, transmitted wirelessly from Poldhu, Cornwall, across 3,500 kilometers of open Atlantic. The signal was received through a telephone earpiece connected to an antenna trailing from a kite at 150 meters altitude. Kemp was the sole witness to the reception, and the signals were too faint for automatic recording, prompting skepticism alongside acclaim.