The History of Wireless Telegraphy at the Eiffel Tower [Historically Speaking

Abstract

Long after Gustave Eiffel’s famous tower had been built to celebrate the first century of the Republic, many Parisians were still offended by this <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">tour de fer</i> and sought its removal. Eiffel argued against this, saying that the unique advantages the tower’s elevation offered for scientific research justified its permanence; the height was particularly important for the transmission of the newly discovered Hertzian waves carrying telegraphic signals <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sans fil</i> (without wires). But it was still the age of machines. Steam power and electric lights were common. Vacuum tubes were yet to come. Here we review an array of devices used to generate and detect these invisible waves. With this new mode of communication, ships at sea were no longer bereft of news from distant ports or other ships; the French military posts on distant shores were kept in constant contact. Time signals from the Paris Observatory could be shared with anyone possessing a simple antenna and crystal receiver. Here we look back at the rapidly developing state of the art in antennas and transmitters and the people involved in this exciting era. We summarize the early stages of wireless technology from a French perspective.