02/11/2024
A GLIMMER OF THE FUTURE IN CONNEMARA 1905 - 1925
The Marconi company employed hundreds of skilled people and some of the top engineers working alongside Marconi himself, also contributed to the early development of radio.
One such engineer was, Henry Round. Henry joined the Marconi Company in 1902, filed 117 invention patents (the last as late as 1962) and was still working on new ideas on his death bed at the age of 81.
Henry was known as the 'tame wizard' because of his tame and quiet nature. He worked on the development of the wireless station at Derrigimlagh, Clifden, the Infirmary Station, Letterfrack and the Marconi station in Kylemore.
Since the opening of the Clifden Station in 1907, whenever there was a thunderstorm over Clifden it would cause severe interference with the radio and Henry Round spent a lot of time studying this interference phenomenon.
In the autumn of 1910 he developed a new type of Receiver in Derrigimlagh which he called the balanced crystal detector.
Henry discovered through trial and error that by adding a second crystal to the crystal radio, he could oppose the two crystals against each other and block out the thunder shocks.
The benefit of this was that when ever a thunderstorm was overhead Clifden, Henry was now able to cancel the interference from the thunder shocks out of the radio.
Henry Round made many other important discoveries while living in Connemara and was the first to introduce the Wireless Telephone.
He lived in one of the engineers bungalows in Derrigimlagh and also lived in Cassons Hotel, Letterfrack for many months.
Pictured below is Henry Round, also known as the Tame Wizard. Marconi was known as the Wireless Wizard!
