HIGHLANDS, N.J.-The Wireless Information Networks Laboratory at Rutgers University commemorated Sept. 30 its 10th birthday and the centennial anniversary of Guglielmo Marconi’s historic first, the transmission of wireless telegraphy messages from a lighthouse here.
“The first wireless messages … followed the progress of Commodore George Dewey’s victorious return from the Spanish-American War along the Hudson River,” said U.S. Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey in a proclamation.
“The transmission between Twin Lights Beacon (in Highlands) and the Navy’s Great White Fleet on Sept. 30, 1899, marked the first demonstration of wireless telegraphy in our history.”
Marconi, who received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics, “became a national hero when the wireless telegraph, known simply as a `Marconi,’ was required on all sea-going ships,” Holt added.
“[The Marconi] was responsible for saving many lives at sea, including 705 survivors of the Titanic.”
“What Marconi started changed the world forever,” said Larry Greenstein, a department head at AT&T Corp.’s Newman Springs Lab.
