Marconi was loosing his monopoly!

                Early this century Marconi found he was losing his monopoly of supplying wireless apparatus to ships and shore stations. He therefore forbade Marconi operators, who were hired out along with the apparatus, to handle messages passed by rivals, except in an emergency. A great radio war then ensued, with Marconi operators and their rivals jamming each other's transmissions and being in every way obstructive. When in 1903, the German Emperor's yacht Hohenzollern sailed within range of the Marconi station at Borkum, Germany, and Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered wireless greetings to be sent to his Empress, the Marconi operator at Borkum followed instructions and refused to accept the message, since the Hohenzollern was not equipped with Marconi apparatus. Enraged by the insult, the Kaiser ordered the infant German wireless industry to be boosted, whereupon it quickly assumed a position of world importance.

Marconi's voice during the first commercial transatlantic communication



In 1907, commercial wireless service
across the Atlantic began. The station at Cape Breton,
Novia Scotia is shown here on opening day.

              
            Mr. Ferdinand Brawn of the University of Strasburg in 1899 was granted a patent for closed oscillating system with an inductively coupled antenna. In 1899, he established contact between Coxhaven and Heligoland using aerial wires 90 ft. high and proved his system to be more efficient. This was taken up by M/S. Siemens and Haske for manufacture. Marconi and Brawn shared the Nobel prize in 1909 for their efforts.Strangely enough the patent of Marconi was a great hindrance to many more electronic amateurs and experimenters that followed, for, there was a fear of infringement of the patent. And so with Marconi in the first decade of this century, a stage has been set for innovation in wireless communication

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Source:'Did You Know?'-by Eric Westman : Practical Wireless(Westover House, West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset BH 15 1JG), March 1984, pp 71