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[edit] Summary

In 1919, the old New Brunswick, New Jersey Marconi Company Wireless Station on Easton Avenue in the Somerset section of Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey became part of the newly organized Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as station WII under the World Wide Wireless logo. RCAs David Sarnoff conducted an inspection tour of the facility in 1921. Some of the greatest scientists of the era attended. From left to right are: three unidentified men, David Sarnoff, Thomas J. Hayden, Ernst Julius Berg, S. Benedict, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, A.N. Goldsmith, A. Malsin, Irving Langmuir, Albert W. Hull, E.B. Pillsbury, Saul Dushman, Richard Howland Ranger, George Ashley Campbell and two unidentified men. Some of the unidentified men might be John Carson (engineer), and Ernst Alexanderson. Others may be additional station engineers like Thomas J. Hayden who is next to Sarnoff.

[edit] Notes

Marconi Station (40.51529° N 74.48895° W)was located at JFK Boulevard and Easton Avenue, the present site of Marconi Park, and was referred to as the New Brunswick Station. It was an early radio transmitter facility built in 1913 and operated by the American Marconi Wireless Corporation. After the partial failure of transatlantic telegraph cables, the facility was confiscated by the US Navy in January, 1918 to provide critial transatlantic communications during World War I. The New Brunswick Naval Radio Station was the principal wartime communication link between the United States and Europe, using the callsign NFF. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech was transmitted from the site in 1918. After the war, ownership of the station, along with Marconi's other US assets, were transferred by the Navy to RCA. The antenna masts were demolished in 1952 to make room for what is now a small mall containing a Kmart, but the buildings on the other side of JFK Boulevard were spared. All but one of the brick buildings were demolished around 2004 to make way for a storage locker facility. The bricks and tiles were saved for use in any future restoration of the spared building, and second facility in Belmar, New Jersey.

The station used a huge 5000 foot long antenna supported by eight 400 foot steel masts, similar to the AT&T long wave telephone transmitter at RCA's Rocky Point, Long Island transmitter facility. During World War I the original Marconi spark transmitter was replaced with an Alexanderson alternator, the invention of the famous General Electric engineer, with an output power of 200 kilowatts and looking like an ordinary power station generator. Its frequency was around 17 kHz, which made its wavelength around 17,500 meters.

[edit] Source

• Franklin Township Public library archive
• http://www.franklintwp.org/photoarchive/photodb/nhetl5zcis8jiz764pvxr3x8q2q2m9t5.asp

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