Once upon a time, in a Land not so Far Away,

 

When Wizards and Sorcerers would secret themselves away in caves during the darkest hours of the night to practice a Black Magic few mortals could comprehend - a Black Magic in which recalcitrant dragons would be enticed to whine, roar, breath flames and hurl bolts of Blue Lightning in often vain attempts to summon up one of the oldest and most fundamental forces of the Universe, a fundamental force, which if harnessed, was so powerful that the Sorcerer's thoughts could traverse the voids of space;

 

It was a time when these "Wizards of the Ether" dreamt of conversing with other Wizards living in lands separated by the "Dark Waters";

 

For this was the dawn of "Wireless"; before the advent of those radios which glowed comfortingly in the dark, and a long, long time before the coming of offerings from the Mysterious Orient bearing strange names in foreign uncomprehendible tongues, such as "Yaesu Musen";

 

But there was in this darkness, a Light - shining hope to those who may aspire to also become Wizards of the Ether - only if they could get their Rotary Spark Gap to Quench properly, or didn't blow a condenser, or didn't get a kick back into the mains and burn down their cave - and this Light was called "The RSGB Journal".

 

Welcome to the Dawn of Wireless!

Travel back in time to another age and read extracts from the RSGB's magazine from a time before the first QSO across the Dark Waters - more commonly known as the Atlantic!

 

The Front Page of the January to July Issue of "The Journal". Although Amateur signals from US Amateurs had been heard in Europe during the Winter of '22/'23, the first two way QSO didn't take place until the night of November 27th, 1923.

Although this publication bears the RSGB's name, it was not actually published by the RSGB. Until July 1925 when the RSGB started to publish it's own magazine, the "T and R Bulletin", the de-facto Official Journal of the Society was "Wireless World and Radio Review", and "The Journal" was simply selected papers re-printed for the benefit of the RSGB's members.

It is very interesting to note the names of the contributors to the "The Journal" at this time - many of whom would go on to make very significant contributions to the advancement of radio.

Reading this publication is really something to behold. The articles, or rather "papers" are extremely well written and presented with excellent photographs and appear to have been mostly presented at meetings of the Society's Members. (I use the term "paper" as most are presented in a manner consistant with that of papers in a scientific journal).

Download the article "5WS"; The Society's Successful Transatlantic Transmitting Station in (1Mb)

I will try to scan and add a few more "PDFed" articles to these pages. Watch this space!

_..._

So what happened to the Sorcerers and the Wizards?

Eventually a New Magic was to replace the "Old Ways". Cardboard boxes came to proliferate in the Land, and from these boxes apparatus containing a "New Magic" emerged. This could be simply switched on and the ancient Secrets and Mysteries of worldwide communications which previously took an Eternity to master, would be instantly imparted upon the beholder - the New Magic became to be commonly known as the Silicon Chip!

And they all lived happily forever and ever - or did they?

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Last update 8 Jan 2002