The Marconi station on Glace Bay.

In 1902 Marconi was forced to leave Newfoundland because the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, owner of some of the cables across the Atlantic Ocean, threatened Marconi with legal action if he did not stop experimenting with radio communication across the Atlantic. So the Canadian Government invited Marconi to build a Radio Station on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and with a grant of $80,000 Marconi built a station at Table Head near Glace Bay, from which the first transatlantic transmission to England took place.
The antenna was massive structure comprising 400 wires suspended from four 61meters wooden towers  with downleads brought together at a entry point at the station building. The frequency was 182 kHz.

Table Head.

 
The remains of foundations for one of the towers.

A few years later, in 1905, Marconi needed much more space for a new antenna system so he moved the transmitter site a few miles away from the coast, to a place now known as Marconi Towers. The antenna was at top loaded circular umbrella construction with 200 radial wires each 305 meters long held up at a height of 55 meters using wooden poles on the outside and the four wooden towers from Table Head in the centre.

 The transmitting frequency was 82 kHz and by late 1907 it was changed to 45 kHz. The station closed down in 1945.

The Marconi Towers station.

The exhibition building at Table Head.

A model of the transmitter site at Table Head.

A small spark transmitter.

Marconi magnetic detector.

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