Alfred Hustwick, writing about 1910, describes the station thusly: "On Gonzales Hill is a neat, one-storey frame building in which the Marconi instruments and generating plant are housed. In one of the three rooms there is a six h.p. gasoline engine, mounted on a heavy concrete bed, and by means of a dynamo the power furnished by this engine develops a current of 110 volts. In the central room there is a condesning plant which steps this current up to 50,000 volts; and here is also located Marconi's "synchronous rotary spark-gap," the latest word in apparatus designed to produce the oscillatory discharge of electric waves which is the basic principle of wireless communications."
He goes on to say that the station did tests using a Marconi valve tuner detector and since it proved superior to any other type it will be quickly supplied to the remaining stations on the coast.
1910-11 Staff |
Officer in Charge A.F. Whiteside |
|
1908 newspaper photo of the Victoria/Gonzales wireless station. One of the station masts is seen above the roof between the two trees. Victoria Times newspaper
|
|
1910
Victoria Times newspaper |
|
1916 This photo, if you squint and perhaps change your screen viewing angle, will show a number of black spots between the angled lines. These spots are the insulators on the guy wires for the south mast of the station. The white building has no connection with the wireless station. Victoria City Archives
|
|
This photo is quite illustrative of a typical spark transmitter. All the elements are visible. The motor driving the generator and synchronous spark gap is in the lower right. Mid-left sitting on the floor is the capacitor bank storing the energy that gets dumped into the resonant antenna when the spark jumps. On the left at mid point on the edge is the quenching gap, a feature of the Shoemaker patent over the Marconi. Antenna wires drop down from the right and into the antenna tuning inductances. The coupling transformer is out of view. Also in the photo are a carbon tetrachloride pump fire extinguisher and an oiling can.
Bowerman Collection |
|
This photo is used in an August 1938 edition of the Victoria Daily Colonist. Vacuum tube receivers and transmitters in use.
Bowerman Collection |
|
As above but from the other end of the operations room.There appears to be an old clickty click land line sounder in the far window. This would have provided communication with the C.P.R. telegraphs in Victoria. Island Tug & Barge calendar on the wall, so photo is sometime after 1924.
Bowerman Collection |
|
A post card showing the station situated on Gonzales Hill. Two massive masts supporting the long wire antenna system. In those days it was common practice to place the stations on a hill. It was thought the radio waves travelled like light, and the higher up the antenna was, the farther reception would be.
Collection of Ron Greene |
|
1936 A photo similar to the postcard above. The two masts of Victoria Wireless are clearly seen on Gonzales Hill. The white building on the hill at one time housed a small telescope and is not associated with the wireless station. Victoria City Archives photo |
|
January 1949 photo from the Victoria Daily Colonist showing Jim Daniels at the operating postion in Gordon Head. Photo is from an on-line microfilm thus the poor quality.
|
|
Back |
