Antenna (radio) the focal point of parabolic reflectors for both transmitting and receiving. He published his work in "Annalen der Physik und Chemie" (vol. 36, 1889). The words "antenna" and "aerial" are used interchangeably. Occasionally the term "aerial" is used to mean a wire antenna. The origin of the word "antenna" relative to wireless apparatus is attributed to Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi. In the summer of 1895, Marconi began testing his wireless system outdoors on his father's estate near Bologna and soon began to experiment with long wire "aerials" suspended from a pole. In Italian a tent pole is known as
History of radio pursuing. Marconi read through the literature and used the ideas of others who were experimenting with radio waves but did a great deal to develop devices such as portable transmitters and receiver systems that could work over long distances, turning what was essentially a laboratory experiment into a useful communication system. By August 1895 Marconi was field testing his system but even with improvements he was only able to transmit signals up to one-half mile, a distance Oliver Lodge had predicted in 1894 as the maximum transmission distance for radio waves. Marconi raised the height of his antenna and hit