Museum Profile
Chatham Marconi Maritime Center
The Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum is the museum of the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center, this year featuring the Grand Opening of the Wireless Today gallery, a major new exhibit entitled “Chatham Heard Round The World” in its Wireless History gallery, and a refreshed Antenna Field Trail gallery, all located within the Marconi-RCA National Register Historic district at 847 Orleans Road (Route 28) in North Chatham across from Ryder’s Cove.
The Wireless Today gallery offers exhibits such as “Tubes To Transistors” chronicling the technology behind the digital age, evolution of the cell phone from bulky bag phones to today’s smart phones, and a flight simulator for personal drones. Discover the surprising connection between the updated “Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of WWII” and the “Drones” exhibits! These all join popular exhibits about locating Great White sharks via satellite and live tracking of ships at sea off Cape Cod. Smartphone-based UniGuide audio tours enhance the visitor’s experience.
The Wireless History gallery’s (literally) big new exhibit celebrates the powerful RCA radio transmitting station formerly located in South Chatham on the shores of Nantucket Sound. Today the site is the Forest Beach Conservation Area, but beginning in 1948 it hosted RCA’s most modern transmitting facility. Paired with the receiving station in North Chatham, it made Chatham Radio (call sign WCC) the largest ship-to-shore station in the United States, renowned among mariners of all nations. The exhibit’s centerpiece is one of the station’s seventeen large RCA model SSB T-3 twenty kiloWatt transmitters, refurbished to its original appearance. Visitors experience firsthand how a radio operator touching a Morse code key in Chatham could be heard by his counterparts aboard ships sailing the seven seas, and learn about the talented and skilled people who conceived, built and operated the transmitting station.
Visitors also explore the many other interactive exhibits, highlight videos of Guglielmo Marconi’s life, the role of WCC in world events, the ship-to-shore communication process with the actual shipboard radio from the hospital ship SS Hope, artifacts from important periods in WCC’s history and the opportunity to view the preserved 1914 station campus. In addition to relaying commercial and personal messages to ships, WCC communicated with pioneer aviators including Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes.
Chatham Radio played a significant role in defeating the Germans during the World War II Battle of the Atlantic by intercepting Enigma-encrypted wireless messages between Germany’s headquarters and its ships at sea. “Station C” (its U.S. Navy designation) passed these intercepts on to Washington, D.C., for decoding. And as the control station for the East Coast direction-finding network, Station C directed the search for telltale radio signals that allowed enemy vessels to be located and tracked. An authentic Enigma cipher machine is displayed, and working electronic simulators allow visitors to try their hand at encryption.
The museum’s third gallery is truly “open space” and open year-round. This is the Antenna Field Trail, a winding path through the flora and fauna of Cape Cod with interpretive signs identifying and describing the station’s antennas. Some of the antennas are working scaled replicas of the originals, now actively used for communication with amateur radio operators around the world.
The museum and Museum Shop are open most weekends during the Spring and Fall, with regular hours for the 2018 Summer season beginning during Chatham History Weekend, June 15-17. A weekly Summer Speaker Series provides interpretation and context for the museum’s exhibits, and the Center offers engaging STEM classes for youth year-round. For days and hours of operation, classes, events and programs, please visit ChathamMarconi.org or call 508-945-8889.
