English: British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment, during a demonstration on Flat Holm island, 13 May 1897. This was the world's first demonstration of the transmission of radio signals over open sea, between Lavernock Point and Flat Holm Island, a distance of 3 miles.

On top of the two packing cases in front of the two standing engineers is the spark-gap transmitter, which consists of an induction coil (right) that generates high voltage pulses that creates sparks between the balls of the Righi spark gap (left). This excites oscillating currents in a wire antenna, suspended aloft by the striped pole seen in the centre, which radiates the radio waves. Information is transmitted by switching the transmitter on and off rapidly using a switch called a telegraph key (not visible), spelling out text messages in Morse code.