R.D.Blumenfeld on Radio

October 3rd, 1900

These Post Office people are very conservative. I heard Sir William Preece, the chief engineer of the Post Office, deliver himself to-day of an unequivocal statement that "wireless telegraphy is not, and cannot be, a commercial success." In spite of the delicate and interesting experiments of young Marconi, who is half Italian and half Irish, Preece held that wireless telegraphy cannot supersede the present wire system. "It may be used under exceptional circumstances by the Army and Navy, but commercially it is impossible."