Marconi Wireless Station Site (South Wellfleet, Massachusetts) Marconi Wireless Station Site (South Wellfleet, Massachusetts) The Marconi Wireless Station Site in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts is the site of the first transatlantic wireless communication between the United States and Europe, on January 18, 1903. At this location, now in the Cape Cod National Seashore (though no admission is charged if not visiting Marconi Beach), inventor Guglielmo Marconi erected a large antenna array on four wooden towers, and established a transmitting station powered by kerosene engines that produced the 25,000 volts of electricity needed to send signals to a similar station in Poldhu, Cornwall, United Kingdom. The first transmission received
Guglielmo Marconi day during which the entire transatlantic path was in daylight. It is now known (although Marconi did not know then) that this was the worst possible choice. At this medium wavelength, long-distance transmission in the daytime is not possible because of heavy absorption of the skywave in the ionosphere. It was not a blind test; Marconi knew in advance to listen for a repetitive signal of three clicks, signifying the Morse code letter "S". The clicks were reported to have been heard faintly and sporadically. There was no independent confirmation of the reported reception, and the transmissions were difficult to