Lewes and the Dawn of the Electronic Age reception set

The Lewes Historical Society will unveil Lewes and the Dawn of the Electronic Age with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m., Friday, May 17, at the Cannonball House Maritime Museum, 118 Front St., Lewes.

Five years in the making, the new exhibit re-creates the historic Massie Wireless Telegraph Company system installed by the U.S. Navy at Cape Henlopen in 1906.

The Navy quickly seized on this novel technology that used radio waves instead of wires because of its potential to completely transform ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communication about hazardous weather, shipwrecks and other barriers to navigation.

“In 1906, the U.S. Navy’s Cape Henlopen Station was on the leading edge of technology and on the cusp of major technological changes,” said Lewes native Dick Tormet, the mechanical engineer who reconstructed Massie’s entire system for the exhibit.

As part of its effort to benefit from the best in radio technology, the naval station at Cape Henlopen also used the first commercial vacuum tube amplifier. This device, which increased the volume for Morse code dot-dash signals, led to the exponential growth of radio, television, radar and computers.

“It was the dawn of the electronic age,” said Tormet.

One of 20 naval stations equipped with the Massie telegraph system, the Cape Henlopen facility operated at 3,000 watts, or the equivalent of fifty 60-watt incandescent light bulbs.

During the reception, staff curators will demonstrate the Massie wireless system in action by transmitting Morse code messages.

For more information go to historiclewes.org..