Nicola Tesla’s Waterloo: The Wardenclyffe Project
Ken Neubeck, WB2AMU
 Radio
amateurs as well as much of our world have ben-efited from the many accom-plishments
of Nicola Tesla, the intuitive genius from Yugoslavia who developed AC
power. Through his many electronic inventions and theories he is officially
known as the father of wireless radio. During his lifetime, he saw both
triumphs and defeats, something all the great ones in history go through.
This article is about the circumstances that led to his biggest disappointment,
transmitting power via the airwaves.
Tesla was certainly one of history’s most interesting
characters, not only for his tall and slender appearance at 6 feet,
7 inches, but also for his eccentric behavior and many obsessions. Some
of the eccentric behavior documented was his vehement refusal to be
in the same room with women who wore pearl earrings and his odd eating
habits such as using exactly 18 napkins with his dinner. (Psychologists
feel Tesla was an obsessive neurotic and that this was due to Tesla’s
relationship with his mother.)
Tesla’s biggest triumph was the invention of AC power
in the late 1880s. Tesla would continue to astound all of his critics
for many years with his inventions. He was seemingly on a terrific winning
streak when at the height of his success, he ran into his own personal
Waterloo of putting into practice his dream of transmitting power via
the airwaves. This project was way ahead of its time and as it turns
out, beyond the technology that was available during Tesla’s time.
An ideal location was found in Suffolk County on Long
Island in the town of Shoreham for erecting a tower to transmit electricity
over the Long Island Sound. The site consisted of over 200 acres and
it was made available by James Warren, the manager of the Suffolk County
Land Company. Hence the transmitter station would be given the name
Wardenclyffe. Financing of the project was provided to the tune of $150,000
by the millionaire J.P. Morgan, certainly a considerable amount of money
for the times.
Tesla’s initial goal was to set up a wireless radio
transmitting station. However, in the back of his mind, his real goal
was to experiment with the wireless transmission of power. He did not
make this known to Morgan, particularly since such an invention would
threaten the empire of power lines that Morgan owned in the U.S. Tesla
would publicly state that he was only setting up a transmitting station
that could broadcast throughout the world on all wavelengths and this
was acceptable to Morgan. Tesla was aided in the design of the tower
by architect W.D. Crow, which featured a 100 foot diameter copper electrode
in the shape of a mushroom at the top of the tower. The tower was octagonal
and was constructed entirely of wooden beams that were pre-assembled
on the ground. The eventual design saw the tower reaching a height of
187 feet with a deep steel shaft in the center that ran 120 feet deep
into the ground. No doubt that this was the biggest ground rod in the
U.S. at the time! This shaft was encased in a twelve foot square well
encircled by a spiral staircase. The design was highly ambitious for
its time and extremely expensive. Tesla always used the best machinery
and materials that he could get. The project would be beset with delays
due to late delivery of key machinery and slow payments by Morgan.
Tesla’s conception of using the tower to transmit
power was not to use it as a conventional antenna where it’s a
radiator. Rather, he wanted to use the dome as a device that had aerial
capacity as a means to transmit power. The idea of aerial capacity was
a concept that was in his mind since the time when he conducted experiments
at his Colorado facility some years previously. However, aerial capacity
would not prove to be a viable concept in the area of transmitting power.
At the end of 1901, Tesla’s rival, Marconi, sent
the first transatlantic radio transmission from England to Newfoundland.
Marconi had won the race for the first long distance radio transmission.
Tesla was very disappointed but said, "Marconi is a good fellow,
let him continue, he is using seventeen of my patents." (It would
be several years later before the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that
Tesla was the father of radio due to his numerous patents that preceded
Marconi.) However, this was a devastating blow to Tesla as he was used
to being in the forefront of new inventions and now was fading from
the public view. Tesla was now on the down side from the high water
mark of his professional career.
During the Wardenclyffe project, Tesla spent a great
deal of time on Long Island during the building of the facility. He
lived in a private home near the facility and had his meals brought
to him by train from the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, all the way
out to Shoreham on the North Shore railroad line. Money was no object
to him and he spent it almost extravagantly. He would leave all of the
financial details to his assistant, George Scheff. Although Tesla made
millions of dollars during his lifetime, he died poor as he never was
within the budget constraints of his projects.
After completion of the first stage of construction,
Tesla went back to New York City in order to attend to his business
there. He commuted on weekends to Shoreham by railroad in order to conduct
tests. However, problems would continually plague the project. Financing
and delivery schedule difficulties were always present. Tesla was forced
to sell off assets to his Colorado Springs facility in order to take
care of legal suits. As Tesla always demanded the best equipment, he
was forced to wait for key components such as the transformer made by
Westinghouse in Pennsylvania. J.P. Morgan was getting cold feet towards
the venture and was not making any more payments. During the spring
of 1903, Tesla finally wrote him to tell him the tower would also be
used in the sending power as well as radio signals. This was a fatal
move and Morgan would never again send money for the project.
After this rejection by Morgan, Tesla took the train out
to Shoreham and fired up the tower for a whole series of tests that night.
Local residents were treated to a spectacular display of blinding streaks
of light shooting off the spherical dome that would light up the evening
sky for several miles. When questioned by the New York Sun about the mysterious
experiments that were witnessed by the local residents, Tesla replied,
"The people about here, had they been awake instead of asleep, at
other times would have seen even stranger things. Some day, but not at
this time, I shall make an announcement of something that I never once
dreamed of." This boast would not be fulfilled and made evident Tesla’s
overconfidence in his abilities at this stage in his career.
To help stem expenses, the facility in Shoreham was used
to make medical coils for hospitals and research laboratories. However,
on occasion, the work crew that blew the glass for the vacuum tubes and
fired up the steam generator would be laid off. When coal could be bought,
the tests would be conducted on weekends when Tesla could take the train
out. By 1906, there would be no more work force at the facility. Several
years later in 1917, the tower was torn down in order to be sold for scrap
to help pay off Tesla’s various debts. Even this salvage operation
took much effort as the tower withstood many charges of dynamite even
though it was made of wood. Finally after three months, the tower was
down on Labor Day. The salvage operation only netted $1750 above costs.
Tesla would say, "I did not exactly cry when I saw my place after
so long an interval, but I came very close." Thus came the end to
the Wardenclyffe project.
Tesla’s failure can be attributed to several factors
that worked against him. The high costs of materials for the project were
a major factor. Also the idea of transmitting power via the airwaves was
well beyond the technology of the times (and even today). Tesla had always
excelled at doing things on a grand scale and did not worry about the
smaller details such as financing. He had a habit of making outrageous
claims in the past but at this point in his life he was making claims
that he could no longer back up. The success that he achieved during the
first part of his career with the invention of AC power led to a feeling
of overconfidence and invincibility. Also, while Tesla was excellent in
developing theory, he had difficulty in translating them into practical
working systems. This is always the hard part.
History has shown that great men often have one or two
personal failures that affected their career. For example, Michaelangelo,
who created such masterpieces as David, the Pieta and the fresco on the
Sistine Chapel, had experienced extreme frustration in his ability to
complete the original project of the tomb for Pope Julius II. He would
say, "I find that I have lost all my youth in this affair of the
tomb."
Today, there is only a small red brick building as the
last reminder of Tesla’s presence on Long Island. After many years
of non-use, the Peerless Photo Company bought the site in 1939. The facility
closed by 1990 with environmental problems surfacing with chemicals in
the soil. The site has been made a historical landmark through the efforts
of a Yugoslavian group.
It is truly ironic that less than two miles away, there
was another site of another project too ambitious for the times; the closed
Long Island Lighting Company Nuclear Power Plant. This area of Long Island
had other roles in radio development. To the south of Tesla’s lab
lies the old RCA Radio Central Transmitting Site used during the 1900s.
(A local Amateur Radio club has taken the same name.) It seems strange
that among the strip shopping malls of the Long Island area, there lies
a major part of radio history not fully recognized by the local population.
Even more ironic is the fact that one of Marconi’s
work shacks was temporarily located down the street on Route 25A about
three miles from Tesla’s lab in the nearby town of Rocky Point by
an Italian American group. Marconi’s shack was at this location for
a few years before it was moved to Bayshore, Long Island. It would have
rankled Tesla if he knew more attention was paid to Marconi’s work
shack while his Shoreham lab remains vacant and completely anonymous to
the surrounding community today.
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