The Needles the Isle of Wight, often photographed by visitors, and are featured on many of the souvenirs sold throughout the island. The main tourist attractions of the headland itself are the two gun batteries, the experimental rocket testing station, and the four Coastguard cottages owned by the National Trust. A branch of the National Coastwatch Institution is also based at the Needles, sited near the New Battery and Rocket Testing Site on High Down. The Needles – Landmark Attraction (previously known as The Needles Pleasure Park) situated at the top of the cliff at Alum Bay is a small amusement park.
Guglielmo Marconi longwave transmissions travel much farther at night than in the day. During the daytime, signals had been received up to only about , less than half of the distance claimed earlier at Newfoundland, where the transmissions had also taken place during the day. Because of this, Marconi had not fully confirmed the Newfoundland claims, although he did prove that radio signals could be sent for hundreds of kilometres, despite some scientists' belief that they were limited essentially to line-of-sight distances. On 17 December 1902, a transmission from the Marconi station in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada became the world's first