Spark Equipment
A View of the Carpathia Room
The following photos are some of the spark-era wireless equipment SPARC has on display.
Around 1995 we were asked to supply period equipment for use in the 1996 George C. Scott television movie “Titanic”. At the completion of filming we obtained the set for the wireless room of the Carpathia (the ship that rescued many of the passengers from the Titanic). This room now houses our display of early wireless equipment (note port-hole at upper left in the photo).
Passive Receivers
The first spark equipment may be characterized by the receivers which used only passive components. This means that the only energy to produce a signal in the headphones is that which is received via the antenna.
Three types of detectors vied for attention in this era: the coherer, the magnetic detector and the galena crystal detector.
The four photographs below are of equipment in this class.
Marconi triple turret tuner
Marconi magnetic detector
Very rare Canadian Marconi 2843 receiver. Uses 8 galena crystals. Complete and working
Early portable spark transmitter/receiver, maker unknown
Tubes!
With the development of the Audion tube and the realization that it could amplify, not just detect, it became possible to make more sensitive receivers by adding simple tube amplifiers. Initially this was simply audio amplification stages tacked on after the detector.
Early Marconi of Canada Ltd tuner, detector and amplifier. Used at the Bamfield cable station on Vancouver Island.
Marconi of Canada MST, MSA tuner-amplifier combination.
Universal Receiver manufactured by Canadian Government Radio Service
Receiver from Canadian Independent Telephone Co.
Titanic radio room from the 1996 George C. Scott television movie “Titanic”
As a counterpart to the Carpathia Room, this is our original Marconi equipment in the Titanic radio room of the 1996 George C. Scott television movie “Titanic” (note the missing ceiling). Unfortunately this room went down with the ship.
If you look on and above the desk you can see the triple turret tuner and magnetic detector from the pictures above. These are the same models of equipment as were on the real Titanic.