History of radio upon the idea of grounding his transmitter and receiver. With these improvements the system was capable of transmitting signals up to and over hills. Marconi's experimental apparatus proved to be the first engineering-complete, commercially successful radio transmission system. Marconi's apparatus is also credited with saving the 700 people who survived the tragic "Titanic" disaster. In 1896, Marconi was awarded British patent 12039, "Improvements in transmitting electrical impulses and signals and in apparatus there-for", the first patent ever issued for a Hertzian wave (radio wave) base wireless telegraphic system. In 1897, he established a radio station on the Isle of Wight,
History of radio 1897 and began communication between coast radio stations and ships at sea. This company, along with its subsidiaries Canadian Marconi and American Marconi, had a stranglehold on ship-to-shore communication. It operated much the way American Telephone and Telegraph operated until 1983, owning all of its equipment and refusing to communicate with non-Marconi equipped ships. In June 1912, after the RMS "Titanic" disaster, due to increased production Marconi opened the world's first purpose-built radio factory at New Street Works in Chelmsford, and in 1932 the Marconi Research Laboratory. Many inventions improved the quality of radio, and amateurs experimented with uses of