New Brunswick Marconi Station was located at JFK Boulevard and Easton Avenue just one mile from the
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
border in
Somerset, New Jersey
Somerset is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States.Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America
The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (commonly called American Marconi) was incorporated in 1899. It was established as a subsidiary of the British Marconi Company and held the U.S. and Cuban rights to Guglielmo Marconi's radio (then ...
. Although the station was completed in 1914 Marconi's planned commercial use for communication with his receiver station in Towyn, Wales never took place because of the onset of World War I but was finally initiated by RCA on March 1, 1920. The station served as a backup to RCA's primary transmitting station on Long Island until the antenna masts and transmitter building were demolished in 1952.
The facility was confiscated by the United States government on April 7, 1917, the day after the United States declared war on Germany. The New Brunswick Naval Radio Station was the principal wartime radio communication link between the United States and Europe, using the callsign NFF. President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
's
Fourteen Points
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms ...
speech was transmitted to Europe from the New Brunswick Naval Radio Station in 1918. After the war, ownership of the station, along with Marconi's other US assets, were transferred from the Navy to
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
.William B. Brahms, Franklin Township, Somerset County, NJ: A History, FTPL; pp. 217-221. The antenna masts were demolished in 1952 to make room for what is now a small mall containing a Kmart, but the buildings on the other side of JFK Boulevard were spared. All but one of the brick buildings were demolished around 2000 to make way for a storage locker facility. The bricks and tiles were saved for use in any future restoration of the spared building at 1100 Easton Avenue in Somerset, NJ, and the Marconi facility in
Belmar, New Jersey
Belmar is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated on the Jersey Shore. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 5,794,Alexanderson alternator was installed, the invention of the
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
engineer, with an output power of 200 kilowatts and looking like an ordinary power station generator. Its frequency was around 17 kHz, which made its wavelength around 17,500 meters.