Wireless telegraphy
Original title: Telegrafia sem fios
Describes the history of wireless telegraphy in Madeira, from a British wartime station at Quinta Santana to the public station opened at the Funchal telegraph office in June 1922, and the contracts with the Marconi Company.
In the Funchal telegraph office building there is a wireless telegraphy station, opened on 2 June 1922; installing the apparatus took about 15 days. The first trial took place on 1 June, when contact was made with a British steamer 150 miles away and with a Portuguese steamer 400 miles away. Contact was also made with the station at Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands.
During the European war a wireless telegraphy station was operated on behalf of the British government at Quinta Santana (‘St Anne’), and the news it received from abroad was passed daily to the Funchal public through the newspapers. The Quinta Santana station ceased operating on 2 April 1919. By order of the Ministry of Finance, the installation of a radiotelegraph station at Quinta Santana was authorised on 12 December 1921, but it was never carried out.
In 1912 a contract was made with the Marconi Company to set up several wireless telegraphy stations in the country, one of them in Madeira. Nothing was done, however, because our government had failed to meet the obligations it had undertaken. In 1922 the same government was authorised by the Congress of the Republic to contract with the said Company for the establishment of a radiotelegraph network, under which the Company was first to install and operate at its own expense, at no cost to the State, wireless telegraphy stations in Lisbon, the Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde, Angola and Mozambique. (1921)
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 04-
The government contracted the Marconi Company for wireless stations including one in Madeira, but failed to meet its obligations.
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The British wartime wireless post at Quinta Santana ceased operating.
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The Ministry of Finance authorised a radiotelegraph post at Quinta Santana, although it was never built.
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Congress authorised the government to contract Marconi for a radiotelegraph network including Madeira.
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The wireless telegraphy post at the Funchal telegraph station was tested, reaching ships 400 miles away and Las Palmas, and inaugurated on 2 June.
Place
Places mentioned · 09
Abroad
- Angola
Planned location of a Marconi wireless station.
Portuguese overseas colony which served as a place of exile for those condemned for the 1668 and 1834 disturbances in Madeira and by the Alçada of 1823. It was governed by Vasco Guedes, Sebastião Xavier Botelho and D. Lourenço de Almada. It was also the main source of the P.O.J. sugar-cane varieties imported from 1933 onwards.
- Azores
Portugal. Planned location of a Marconi wireless station.
The Azores, an Atlantic archipelago that shares plant species with Madeira. The Elucidário records settlement there by Madeiran families such as the Bettencourts, the 1801 ban on Azorean wines in Madeira, and imports of Azorean tobacco. It also notes that Azorean farmers were brought to Madeira to teach maize-growing methods.
- Canary Islands
Spain. Archipelago where Las Palmas lies.
The Canary Islands are the archipelago neighbouring Madeira, with disputed accounts of their discovery. Tradition holds that their Béthencourt king sold them to Prince Henry in exchange for lands in Madeira. The Elucidário notes many contacts between the two archipelagos, including scientific visits, the Orfeão Madeirense's tour in May 1922 and the massacre of forty Jesuits in their waters.
- Cape Verde
Planned location of a Marconi wireless station.
Cape Verde is an archipelago and Portuguese colony that served as a place of exile and deportation for Madeirans, including liberals in the 1820s, protesters against the dairy decrees and the 1936 rioters. Lowe visited it in 1864 and 1866. It shares one flowering-plant species with Madeira.
- Funchal
Its telegraph station building houses the wireless telegraphy post opened in 1922.
The capital of the archipelago and seat of the principal captaincy, where settlement began; it was made a vila c.1451–52. Its bay, the widest in the archipelago, lies between Ponta do Garajau and Ponta da Cruz and offers sheltered anchorage, though its harbour had never been studied oceanographically. The Elucidário discusses it as a health resort with climate data and records the January 1906 disturbances, the Danish prince's visit in May 1846 and recent volcanic cones in the area.
- Las Palmas
Spain. Its station was contacted during the first trials of the Funchal wireless post.
Las Palmas is a Canarian city and port. The first Madeiran sports team to play abroad went there in 1901, and the Funchal wireless station contacted its station during its first trials. It was promoted as a health resort rivalling or surpassing Madeira, and eight escaped political prisoners reached it.
- Lisbon
Portugal. One of the planned Marconi wireless stations under the 1922 authorisation.
The Portuguese capital, seat of the Relação court and of the Misericórdia whose privileges and statutes were extended to Funchal. Henrique Franco de Sousa studied at its Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and Luiz José Baiardo moved there in 1821.
- Mozambique
Planned location of a Marconi wireless station.
Moçambique (Mozambique) was a Portuguese colony governed by Sebastião Xavier Botelho and served by Mousinho de Albuquerque as royal commissioner and by Manuel de Sousa Brasão in 1916–17. It was a place of exile where Padre Pestana and Luiz Pimenta de Aguiar died, and it was the planned location of a Marconi wireless station.
- Quinta Santana
Machico. Site of a British government wireless station during the First World War, closed in 1919.
Quinta Santana is an estate in Machico near the Furna do Cavalum lava channel. It has a Santana chapel whose founder is unknown.