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L. J. Lanzerotti (Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies)
While not recognized at the time or for many years following, the earliest evidence for the impact of solar-terrestrial processes on technical systems appeared in the first half of the 19th century with the installation of the first practical electrical telegraph communication systems. The growth of wireless communications after Marconi's trans-Atlantic demonstration in 1901 of its long-distance feasibility was rapid. However, it was soon recognized that solar-induced disturbances also could disrupt this new technology: ``... times of bad fading [of radio signals occur in] the same time periods when cables and land [communication] lines experience difficulties ...." (Marconi, 1928). Bursts of solar radio emissions were first recognized (though not immediately) through their jamming of the early radar that were developed during the Second World War. Such solar radio phenomena remain an important concern for certain military technologies to date, as well as for newer civilian wireless technologies. This talk will present a broad overview of the history of the impacts of solar-terrestrial processes on human technologies and will address a number of contemporary issues in what has become to be known as ``space weather."
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.