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
Guglielmo Marconi of spanning greater distances, with additional funding and research, and would prove valuable both commercially and militarily. Marconi's experimental apparatus proved to be the first engineering-complete, commercially successful radio transmission system. Marconi wrote to the Ministry of Post and Telegraphs, then under the direction of Pietro Lacava, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding. He never received a response to his letter, which was eventually dismissed by the Minister, who wrote "to the Longara" on the document, referring to the insane asylum on Via della Lungara in Rome. In 1896, Marconi spoke with his family friend Carlo Gardini,