Speaker Series: "Crossing the Atlantic by Voice"

AT&T's New Jersey "Pole Farm”
and the Story of Short Wave Radiotelephony: 
Chatham Marconi Welcomes Dennis Waters to its Speaker Series

By the early 1900s, Americans could place a telephone call to almost anywhere in North America, but not overseas.  To resolve this issue, in 1928 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) purchased more than 800 acres of productive farmland in central New Jersey to build what became the world’s largest radiotelephone shortwave transmitting station.  It was named “The Pole Farm” after the thousands of tall antenna poles that were installed on the site.  At its peak in the early 1960s it was a high-tech wonder, delivering millions of telephone calls across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, Africa, South America, and the Middle East.  Changing technology made shortwave radiotelephony obsolete and the site was closed in 1975, reverting once again to farmland.  The Pole Farm is now a county park, providing passive recreation for thousands while retaining traces of its historic high-tech past. 

About Our Speaker

Dennis Waters is an author, scientist, and retired internet entrepreneur.  His first book, Behavior and Culture in One Dimension, was published by Routledge in 2021.  He is a Visiting Scientist at Rutgers University studying the lichens of Central New Jersey, and for twelve years was Township Historian in Lawrenceville, NJ.  He received his PhD from the Thomas Watson School of Engineering at Binghamton University.

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