#marconi — Public Fediverse posts

2026 “Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland who studies #ConspiracyTheories, said the idea of a sinister connection between tragedies involving scientists is a common trope within #ConspiracyTheory communities.” [1]

VS

1987 “LONDON -- The mysterious deaths of six #scientists and the disappearance of a seventh -- all of them working at one time on secret defense projects -- have put police under pressure to mount a new investigation.

Police in the Oxford area said Sunday metallurgy expert Peter Peapell, who worked for the Defense Ministry until 1984, was found dead in his garage February 22.

He was the fifth scientist with a background in secret defense projects to die under suspicious circumstances since August and the sixth since 1982.

Three of the six scientists who died were linked to a firm involved in work on submarines, and the missing scientist -- who disappeared in January -- was doing research on submarine warfare.”

The counter-conspiracy mob need to read more history.

#UPI / #history / #Marconi / #Defense / #espionage / #uap / #Zeropoint / #gravitics <https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/04/06/Mysterious-deaths-of-British-scientists/1516544680000/>

Reference
[1] AP News, <https://www.bostonherald.com/2026/04/24/dead-scientists-conspiracy-theories/>

34km #Connemara loop cycle between #Roundstone & #Clifden that takes you across the stunning Roundstone bog road & #Mannin bay coral strand, the #Marconi transmission site, Dogs Bay, Errisbeg & Roundstone

Video at
https://youtu.be/msOwRgd72Xw

#ebikeadventures #ebikelife

34km #Connemara loop cycle between #Roundstone & #Clifden that takes you across the stunning Roundstone bog road & #Mannin bay coral strand, the #Marconi transmission site, Dogs Bay, Errisbeg & Roundstone

Video at
https://youtu.be/msOwRgd72Xw

#ebikeadventures #ebikelife

34km #Connemara loop cycle between #Roundstone & #Clifden that takes you across the stunning Roundstone bog road & #Mannin bay coral strand, the #Marconi transmission site, Dogs Bay, Errisbeg & Roundstone

Video at
https://youtu.be/msOwRgd72Xw

#ebikeadventures #ebikelife

34km #Connemara loop cycle between #Roundstone & #Clifden that takes you across the stunning Roundstone bog road & #Mannin bay coral strand, the #Marconi transmission site, Dogs Bay, Errisbeg & Roundstone

Video at
https://youtu.be/msOwRgd72Xw

#ebikeadventures #ebikelife

#888 Archaeology Alive No 6: A Review of Work by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit. Cornwall County Council, Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Truro, 1997-1998, 1st edition. #Archaeology #Cornwall #CornwallArchaeologicalUnit #Excavations #Mining #Marconi #BookOfTheDay

Walking and Talking Through the UK National Museum of Computing - I found myself in Milton Keynes, UK, a little while ago, with a few hours to spare... - https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/walking-and-talking-through-the-uk-national-museum-of-computing/ #lorentzattractor #computerhacks #elliot803b #adventure #featured #interest #35mmfilm #marconi #tr-48 #zork #tac

Another short section of the #WalesCoastPath ticked off today, this time, #Penarth back to #SullyIsland. Pictured are:

-Penarth with it's pier and #CardiffBay in the background
-St Lawrence #Church at #Lavernock, with it's plaque commemorating #Marconi
-A Second World War gun emplacement and it's more modern graffitti, and
-St Mary's Well Bay and Sully Island

#Cymru #Wales #Seascape

The many lives of the “Rovenska”: the thread about a Leith-built steam yacht

This thread was originally written and published in June 2023.

Today’s Auction House Artefact is this brass trivet stippled with “HMS Rovenska 1917“. So why was there a Royal Navy ship named for an obscure Croatian fishing village and why does this have anything to do with my usual subject matter? Read on.

The clue is in the photo in the bottom right corner of the auction listing – before she was His Majesty’s Ship, the Rovenska started out life as a steam yacht of that name and was launched in Leith by Ramage & Ferguson on March 2nd 1904, yard no. 192. This is a thread about the many lives of this vessel.

The luxurious, 198 feet long ship was designed by Cox & King in London. It was a Miss Pratt, most likely the daughter of Cox & King director Gustavus Pratt, who had named Rovenska at the launch in Leith. She displaced 650 tons, and was powered by a triple-expansion steam engine that made around 1,000 horsepower. The newspapers at the time reported she was “luxuriously fitted throughout“:

The yacht has exceptionally good accommodation, which includes handsomely-fitted dining room, drawing room and smoking room in the deck house range on main deck, and has a promenade deck above, extending full width of vessel on each side and for about two-thirds of the length. The interior accommodation is fitted in choice selected hard woods with tasteful decorations and furnishings throughout.

Description of the Rovenska at launch, from The Scotsman, 3rd March 1904

Why was she named Rovenska? This is because she was the private steam yacht of Archduke Charles Stephen of Austria – an Admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Navy – and his wife Archduchess Maria Theresa, it being Maria Theresa who actually ordered her. The royal couple had their summer palace on the Adriatic island of Lošinj in what is now Croatia, Rovenska being the name of the harbour here. In case you didn’t already know, Ramage & Ferguson in Leith had built up a solid worldwide reputation in the late 19th century for building luxury steam yachts and counted many members of royalty, aristocracy and assorted multi-millionaires on their client books. Cox & King were one of the three principal naval architects who designed ships for them.

The Rovenska sailed from this island for a few years before becoming surplus to requirements when her owners ordered a newer and larger vessel from Ramage & Ferguson, the Ul.

At this point the German-born British businessman and philanthropist Max Waechter purchased her for himself, keeping the name. In 1914 she was sold on to Gustavus Pratt, one of Cox & King’s directors and also a yacht broker.

On the outbreak of World War I, Pratt found a new customer for the Rovenska and she was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1915, still carrying the same name, which was perhaps slightly awkward considering its relationship to the monarchy of a declared national enemy! The Navy gave her flag number 071 and she served as an auxiliary minesweeper in the English Channel and North Sea, for which purposes she was armed with two 12-pounder guns. The Rovenska served in this role until March 1919 (with the end of the war, there were still lots of mines left to be cleared).

After this service ended she was put up for auction and found a new owner – one Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi – the so-called Father of Wireless. Marconi wanted a luxurious yacht for his own pleasure use, to entertain high-profile guests and clients but also to serve as a floating laboratory, where he could conduct wireless experiments far from land and from prying eyes. He renamed her Elettra (Electra in English).

Elettra was fitted with a generator and wired throughout for electric light as built. Marconi retained much of the original interior and accommodation, but had the masts heightened to carry a large spread of wireless aerials and a laboratory installed, chock-full of his latest gear and with a connecting door to his personal cabin. Until his death in 1937 the Elettra spent a glittering scientific and society career cruising the seven seas.

In 1920 she hosted the first ship-board dance where the music was broadcast in by radio, live from the Savoy Hotel in London. That same year, she received the voice of the soprano Dame Nellie Melba at a distance of some 2,000 miles from the Marconi transmitter in Chelmsford. In 1922 she hosted what must be the first “silent disco“, when guests aboard danced to music played to them by headphones and via a hand-held radio receiver.

She conduct experiments in ship-to-shore, ship-to-ship and ship-to-aircraft voice communication; into short wave transmissions; into radio direction finding; observed radio signals bouncing off the moon. In 1930 Marconi made a 10,000 mile transmission from Elettra while anchored in the harbour of Genoa to a shore station in Sydney, Australia. A few days later he performed the technological feat of remotely turning on the lights in that latter harbour to mark the opening of the World Exhibition, from a switch aboard his yacht. Marconi and Elettra performed another feat in July 1934, when he covered up the windows of the wheelhouse and successfully navigated blind between two buoys off of Genoa using only a radio navigation signal broadcast from the shore for guidance.

When Marconi died in July 1937 the yacht was bought by the Italian Government (apparently on direct orders of Mussolini) who intended to turn her into a floating museum at Ostia. The outbreak of war with Britain in June 1940 caused this plan to stall and she was moved to the safer port of Trieste. Here she languished until 1943 when Italy signed an armistice with the Allies. At this point, she was requisitioned by Nazi Germany, now at war with the Kingdom of Italy, for use as a patrol boat. Her new owners did allow Professor Mario Picotti from the University of Trieste the concession of removing Marconi’s priceless radio equipment for safe keeping to the depths of the fortress of Castello di San Giusto.

The Germans renamed her NA-6 and armed her for use patrolling the Dalmatian coast. They fitted her with 15mm and 20mm machine canons for this purpose, as well as altering the masts and funnels. On January 22nd 1944, she was either attacked by Allied aircraft or torpedoed by a submarine (depending on which you believe), and run aground by her captain to stop her sinking. The damage observed on the remains of her hull suggests that it was an aerial attack as it is not consistent with torpedo attack (thank you to Andrew Bonifacio, curator at the Museo del Mare in Trieste for this information).

With the end of the war she became the state property of Yugoslavia, in whose waters she had sunk. In 1959, permission was granted by Marshall Tito himself for the Italians to survey the wreck with the possibility of salvaging it. This took place in 1962 and her remains were returned to Italy. All attempts at restoration failed however and after languishing for 15 years the decision was made to cut her up into smaller pieces for exhibit. Her elegant bow, complete with wartime damage, now graces the centre of a roundabout in a science park in Trieste.

The engine and boiler rooms were sent to the Naval Museum in Venice, where they are now on display.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136891509@N07/51721080834/

After the war, the Marconi Wireless Company in the UK acquired a new research vessel – suitably named Elettra II – which was a converted WW2 torpedo boat. This vessel visited the harbour of Granton in May 1951 and gave day trips to employees of local shipping companies. In 1962, this stopgap vessel (which was found to be too weighed down by radio equipment to be very seaworthy) was replaced by the purpose-built Elettra III, launched in Berwick upon Tweed. This is now in private ownership in the USA. The fourth, and final Elettra was ordered in 1999 by the Italian Navy – a brand new, 3,180 tonne research and surveillance vessel. She entered service in 2003, almost exactly 99 years after the yacht that would become the first Elettra was launched in Leith.

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@VE2UWY So many magical things from that era. It seems that, across the Pond and here in the UK, the golden age of wireless has been largely forgotten. Which is a real shame.

Image is from 'The Marconigraph', May 1912.

#radio #wireless #Marconi #MGY #Titanic

I can't believe how long it's taken me to get hold of a printed copy of the #Marconi #Marconi2022E RF generator operator's manual.
Now to hunt down a copy of the service manual!
#testgear #electronics #electronicengineering #rf #hamr #hamradio

A 1923 Marconi VLF station insulator, still finding service, just not for anything remotely as important as its original purpose! Perfect circle size for part of a FT818 cradle! 👍 #hamradio #amateurradio #ft818 #marconi