Bending round the Earth

Eccles's "most significant work" was his attempted explanation of how radio waves may be reflected by a conducting layer in the upper atmosphere and so travel round the curvature of the earth. This had been independently suggested in 1902 by Oliver Heaviside and by A.E. Kennelly following Marconi's success in signalling across the Atlantic. Eccles is credited with the first serious attempt to explain how this reflection may occur.

In 1912, he presented a paper to the Royal Society in London "On the diurnal variations of the electric waves occurring in nature, and on the propagation of electric waves round the bend of the Earth." Before trying to obtain an explanation of the events, he first needed to obtain reliable experimental data, which was not easy. He turned to naturally occurring atmospherics or "strays" as they were then called and, with the help of a colleague, "strays" were recorded at London and Newcastle. Many were discovered to occur simultaneously and to have similar relative strengths. He concluded that they originated several thousand kilometres away. Also, he pointed out that "strays" were generally weaker and fewer during the day than the night, and that there was usually a lull just before dawn.

Eccles commented, "The result is so completely inexplicable by the ordinary conception of the propagation of electric waves through the atmosphere that we are compelled by its refusal to fit into the accepted scheme of things to attempt an extension of that scheme." He then expanded the Heaviside/ Kennelly concept and calculated many of the necessary parameters. He assumed air, ionised by sunlight, to be the agent responsible for "bending" the waves around the Earth's curvature.

Eccles detailed theory sparked considerable controversy. Though incomplete and, in places, a little confused it became widely accepted, especially after supporting evidence was obtained during a partial solar eclipse. It provided the basis for the later fuller theory put forward,by Edward Appleton and others.

Soon after this period came the First World War. As one of the few people with a sound scientific knowledge of wireless, Eccles was called upon to serve his country as an adviser to all the military branches and was honorary secretary to the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies. After the war he continued to serve in areas of public and political concern related to the rapid expansion of radio. These included Imperial communications, public broadcasting, and the relative functions of government, industry and amateurs.

Shakespeare

In 1924, at nearly 50, he married his secretary, Nellie Florence, nearly 20 years his junior, they had no children. Throughout his life, he is said to have enjoyed music, especially Beethoven, and he loved Shakespeare. Hardly a day went by, so it was said, when he did not quote from Shakespeare. He preferred walking, riding, swimming and sailing to organised sports and "kept a small sailing boat in the Thames estuary for use in summer and a horse near town for winter." Once he was ordered to take up golf for medical reasons, a doctor's order that many men would pay to receive. Eccles grew bored with the "waste of time" and "gave his clubs away within a month or two."

He served as president of many societies, including the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Institute of Physics and the Radio Society of Great Britain. He was even on that set up the forerunner of the RSGB in 1913, the Wireless Society of London. He wrote three books: two of the earliest authoritative texts on wireless and a popular treatment published in 1933. That he is now remembered almost entirely for having his name attached to half of a simple but popular circuit really does not do justice to a man of vision and perception who helped to steer radio through its early years.

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