SLABY, Adolf Karl Heinrich (1849-1913). Die Funkentelegraphie.

SLABY, Adolf Karl Heinrich (1849-1913). Die Funkentelegraphie. Berlin: Verlag von Leonhard Simion, 1897. Large 8vo (231 x 155mm). Plate, 2 folding maps, including one of the Bristol Channel, illustrations and diagrams (some light mainly marginal spotting and browning). Contemporary half roan and marbled boards, spine gilt (extremities lightly rubbed). Provenance: from the Collection of Peter and Margarethe Braune. FIRST EDITION. The plate shows the signals transmitted from Lavernock Point to the island of Flat Holm over a distance of 5 kilometres and from Rangsdorf to Schöneberg over a distance of 21 kilometres. “As a result of his personal friendship with the head of the English telegraph administration, Sir William Henry Preece, Slaby participated with the help of his assistant Georg Graf von Arco from 1897 in Marconi’s experiments with wireless telegraphy across the English Channel [sic, actually the Bristol Channel]. He recognized immediately the significance of this invention, and repeated the experiments in Berlin, leading to the development of essential kinetic and technical concepts. The Emperor and the military authorities were very interested by the result. The wireless telegraphy trials took place first at the Technical University of Berlin and then between the Church of the Redeemer, Sacrow, and the marine station Kongsnaes in Potsdam. On 7 October 1897, he established a 21-kilometer radio link between Schöneberg and Rangsdorf, a world record at the time. The following summer, he established a link between Berlin and Jüterbog with the end-points being over 60 km apart. Crucial improvements led to the success, not of spark gap transmission antennas as used by Marconi, but inductive antennas” (Wikipedia [edited]).