Marconi Station - South Africa

South Africa

In the Boer War era of 1899, Marconi wireless equipment would face one of its first tests in military deployment with mixed results. Initial attempts to deploy land-based military radio were problematic, but the five Marconi installations in March 1900 on naval cruisers HMS Dwarf, Forte, Magicienne, Racoon and Thetis proved successful.

By 1912, Marconi stations covered Aden, Algeria, Australia, Azores, Belgium, Brazil, Burma, China, Curaçao, France, French Guyana, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Jamaica, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sweden, Tobago, Trinidad, Uruguay, Zanzibar, and the Pacific Ocean. Efforts in 1926 to build an Imperial Wireless Chain spanning the globe would bring new construction of Marconi wireless facilities to much of the British Empire, including South Africa and India. Shortwave radio would deployed as a means to communicate internationally with smaller transmitters and more directional antennas than had been possible on the former longwave system. These directional-antenna (or "beam antenna") installations were known as the Imperial Beam system; Marconi Beam as a geographic place name still refers to a section of modern Cape Town, South Africa, as one location where such facilities historically had operated.