Coltano: the forgotten story of Marconi's early powerful intercontinental station

On September 8, 1902, at the dawn of the wireless telegraphy age, Marconi was looking at the Tuscan coast from the cruiser “Carlo Alberto,” back from a long trip where he successfully carried out many radio experiments in the northern seas. While passing in front of Leghorn, Marconi expressed to the Admiral Mirabello his intention to build a powerful intercontinental station in the plain behind that city. The station, which would be the first in Marconi's home country (and one of the first in the world, too), was intended to provide radiotelegraphic connections with Africa and America in the very low-frequency (VLF) band, i.e., using carrier frequencies below 100 kHz, which, at the time, were believed to be the sole option for long-distance radio communications.The selected site for this purpose was Coltano, a marshy rural area between Pisa and Leghorn, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. The station was inaugurated by Marconi himself in 1911 with transmissions to Clifden (Ireland) and Glace Bay (Canada), followed by a pioneeristic link reaching Massawa (Eritrea), across more than 2000 km of Sahara's dry soil; which, until then, was considered an insurmountable obstacle for the propagation of low-frequency ground waves. This was just the first of a series of successes obtained by this once worldwide renowned, but now completely forgotten, radio station, born from Marconi's genius.