Spark-gap transmitter capacitance and couldn't store much charge, limiting their power output. Therefore these devices were not capable of long distance transmission; their reception range with the primitive receivers employed was typically limited to roughly 100 yards (100 meters). Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi was one of the first people to believe that radio waves could be used for long distance communication, and singlehandedly developed the first practical radiotelegraphy transmitters and receivers, mainly by combining and tinkering with the inventions of others. Starting at age 21 on his family's estate in Italy, between 1894 and 1901 he conducted a long series of
Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America of United Wireless' tangible assets, which in turn on March 29, 1912 were sold by the parent company to American Marconi. It would later be alleged that this had unfairly benefited some British investors, in what came to be known as the Marconi scandal. The acquisition would prove to be a tremendous boost to American Marconi's fortunes, and the company boasted that "There is now nothing in the way of Marconi becoming the only system of commercial importance in the world." Recently passed laws required U.S. passenger ships to carry radio equipment, and American Marconi's near monopoly allowed it to