History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

IEEE Conference on the History of Telecommunications,
St. John’s, Newfoundland, 25-27 July 2001

St. John’s, Marconi Exhibits

For more information, additional photos, many of the papers presented, and a roster of the attendees, see the IEEE Conference website

The 2001 IEEE Conference on the History of Telecommunications (CHT2001) was the fourth in a series of workshops sponsored by the IEEE History Committee and the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University.  The profound role telecommunications has had in shaping the modern world makes this an important topic of historical study.

The workshop was held at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Canada, an appropriate site for the conference. It was on Signal Hill in St. John’s on 12 December 1901 that Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal, and 27 July 2001 was the 135th anniversary of the landing of the first successful transatlantic cable at Heart’s Content in Newfoundland.  Click here to jump to my Heart’s Content page.

Click on each image to see a full-screen version.
High-resolution images, suitable for printing, are available on request.

Michael Geselowitz and Robert Chapuis	Bob Voss, Mischa Schwartz, Barney Finn	Martin Collins and Barney Finn
Donard de Cogan		Bernard Carlson
Dave Morton, Chris Bissell, Dave Hochfelder, Mary Ann Hoffman	Alex Magoun	Rik Nebeker
The museum visit was followed by a reception given for the conference attendees by Dr. Arthur Maxwell House, Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, at Government House, his official residence.
The Lieutenant-Governor’s postcard.		King George IV’s waterspout at Government House
The evening concluded with a visit to Signal Hill, where there were further Marconi exhibits in the Cabot Tower.  Marconi’s 1901 receiving site was nearby
Cabot Tower, constructed in 1897	Looking across from Signal Hill to the harbour mouth	Map of Signal Hill
The Nebekers, Susan Aprill, and Alex Magoun	The IEEE Electrical Engineering Milestone plaque at Signal Hill	Martha Sloan
A man, a plan, a kite - Marconi
Barney Finn shows Bryan Dewalt how to fold a map in the wind	Canadian Marconi Company Historic Marker	The group at Signal Hill
Robert Chapuis	View of St. John’s harbour from Signal Hill	Lenore Symons, Sue Barnes, and Wally Read
Waves over Waves - Marconi exhibit in Cabot Tower	Marconi, out of order	The Marconi exhibit
The ham radio station in Cabot Tower	You are here	Brian Bowers and Barney Finn
Bill Burns, and the Big Rock at Signal Hill (photo by Trudy Levine - thanks to Trudy for hiking down the hill, and more important, back up the hill, with me!)	A Newfie native at Signal Hill	The dedication plaque in Cabot Tower on Signal Hill
Special thanks to Wally Read, local arrangements supremo, for the outstanding job he did in making all the Conference attendees welcome in Newfoundland.

Next page: Heart’s Content Cable Station Museum, 27 July 2001,
135th anniversary of the 1866 Valentia-Heart’s Content cable

Research Material Needed

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You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

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—Bill Burns, publisher and webmaster: Atlantic-Cable.com