The Marconi National Historic Site and the Marconi Wireless Station National Historic Site are two National Historic Sites located on Cape Breton Island,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

. Both sites commemorate the efforts of Guglielmo Marconi to transmit transatlantic radio signals between North America and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

in the first decade of the 20th century. The two sites are located within approximately of one another, and are connected by the

Marconi Trail The Marconi Trail is a scenic roadway in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Located in eastern Cape Breton Island, the route is entirely within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality and runs from Louisbourg to Glace Bay along the island's e ...

. Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador is another National Historic Site related to Marconi's work in Canada. Signal Hill was designated, in part, to commemorate Marconi's first transmission tests in 1901.

Marconi National Historic Site

Marconi National Historic Site, located at Table Head in

Glace Bay Glace Bay (Scottish Gaelic: ''Glasbaidh'') is a community in the eastern part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, Canada. It forms part of the general area referred to as Industrial Cape Breton. Formerly an incorporated ...

, is the site of Guglielmo Marconi's first transatlantic wireless station, callsign VAS, and the first wireless message sent from North America to Europe on December 15, 1902. The site features the remnants of Marconi's transmission towers, a modern amateur radio station, plus a museum chronicling Marconi's achievements. Marconi chose this site for its elevated flat expanse and unobstructed view out over the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. Some of the concrete footings for the massive towers can still be seen on the grounds. In 1901, the first west to east wireless message was sent across the Atlantic Ocean to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

from this site. A

spark gap transmitter A spark-gap transmitter is an obsolete type of radio transmitter which generates radio waves by means of an electric spark."Radio Transmitters, Early" in Spark-gap transmitters were the first type of radio transmitter, and were the main type use ...

with 75 kilowatts of power fed four tall antennas on the site overlooking the ocean. In December 1902 Marconi transmitted the first complete messages to Poldhu from stations at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.Marconi Biography
Marconi Biography. Marconi's facilities were dismantled and moved to a larger site to the southwest in 1905, known today as the Marconi Wireless Station National Historic Site. The first Glace Bay site was designated a National Historic Site in 1939. The site a unit of the national park system, operated by Parks Canada, and the museum at the Marconi National Historic Site is affiliated with CMA, CHIN, and

Virtual Museum of Canada The Digital Museums Canada (DMC; , ''MNC'') is a funding program in Canada "dedicated to online projects by the museum and heritage community," helping organizations to build digital capacity. Administered by the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) ...

Marconi Wireless Station National Historic Site

Communications between Glace Bay and England proved to be unreliable, and only possible after dark, so Marconi had larger stations constructed on both sides of the Atlantic between 1905 and 1907. These stations were at

Clifden Clifden (, meaning "stepping stones") is a coastal town in County Galway, Ireland, in the region of Connemara, located on the Owenglin River where it flows into Clifden Bay. As the largest town in the region, it is often referred to as "the Capi ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, and a site just south of Glace Bay, near

Port Morien Port Morien (also referred to as "Morien") is a small fishing community of 700 people in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the southeastern Cape Breton Island near the rural community Donkin, and six miles from the town of Glace Bay ...

. The two stations were at the time the most powerful radio stations in the world. The Marconi Wireless Station in Cape Breton ceased operations in 1946. The property was bought by Russell Cunningham, a local resident, and it is still owned by his heirs. All that remains of the station today is the foundations of the aerial towers as well as three abandoned buildings in varying degrees of repair. The site was designated a National Historic Site in 1983. It is not a unit of the national park system, and public access is only by permission of the owners. A federal plaque from the national Historic Sites & Monuments Board reflecting the designation is located at the Old Town Hall & Glace Bay Heritage Museum, 14 McKeen Street, in Glace Bay.

References

External links

Marconi National Historic Site
- Parks Canada official site

{{coord, 46, 12, 41.26, N, 59, 57, 9.19, W, region:CA, display=title Museums in Cape Breton County National Historic Sites in Nova Scotia Science museums in Canada History museums in Nova Scotia Wireless Telecommunications museums Buildings and structures in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Guglielmo Marconi