radio communication

This effect was first discovered by Marconi. This diagram shows the effect the ionosphere has.

			With an ionosphere
			Without an ionosphere
			With an X-ray storm

Now when a solar flare goes off and solar weather has an X-ray storm, more atoms in the lower part of the ionosphere are ionised by the X-rays. That's really good in one way because it means the X-rays are absorbed and cannot reach us! However it also means that the radio waves are absorbed by the lower part of the ionosphere rather than being reflected. The result is a radio blackout, or at least a fading and intermittent radio reception.

When Guglielmo Marconi was still a student, he built a very simple wireless set in two rooms of his father's house in Italy. A wireless, is what we now call a radio. It is just what it says 'wire' 'less', that is a way of sending messages without any wires.

Marconi sent radio waves (and messages) from one room to the other. He found that by building a large aerial, he could send radio waves further, and he managed to send a radio wave 1.5 km across the fields.

He knew this was very important, but nobody else took any notice. He began sending radio waves further and further distances. In 1901, Marconi sent the first long distance wireless signal, over 2,700 km, from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

People were stunned. It opened the door to a rapidly developing wireless industry.

Marconi continued to refine and expand upon his inventions in the next few years, and then turned toward the business aspects of his work. In 1909 he won the Nobel Prize in physics.

This is a picture of Cracow Observatory. It is a 15 metre telescope