CHATHAM MARCONI SPEAKER SERIES
The Battle of the Atlantic
World War II Comes to Chatham
April 3, 2025
Jeffrey Gordon
The Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum’s coming new exhibit will focus on the U.S. Navy’s secret operation of the Chatham radio station as “Station C” in World War II, and its strategic importance in the Allies' ultimate victory in the Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945). The exhibit will also feature in life in Chatham and the Cape (both military and civilian) during the war years.
The Battle of the Atlantic spanned almost the entirety of World War II in Europe, marking the ongoing struggle between Allied and German forces for control of the Atlantic Ocean’s sea routes. While the Battle of the Atlantic was a strategic victory for the Allies, it was won at a tremendous cost - 14 million tons of Allied and neutral shipping were lost, including 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships. The German losses were appalling: Of the 1,155 commissioned U-boats, almost 800 were lost in the nearly six years of battle and of the 35,000 men who went to sea, approximately 29,000 lost their lives – a death rate of 83%, by far the highest casualty rate of any branch of the German military.
Our speaker has developed a detailed timeline of major World War II events in the European theater, which serves as the basis for his presentation. Tracing the significant military events that took place in the European theater both before and after the United States entered the war provides necessary context to understand the Battle of the Atlantic between the German U-boat fleet and the Allied convoy system.
About Our Speaker: Jeffrey Gordon retired in 2018 after a 43-year career in both the public and private sectors of the financial services industry, most notably at Cigna Corporation, Price Waterhouse and Prudential Financial. He has a Master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Hartford and a BA in History from Muhlenberg College. Jeff is a long-time history buff, with a particular interest in the significant moments in the Second World War. After vacationing in Chatham for 10 years, Jeff and his wife Elise bought their current home in Chatham in 1995, starting out as non-resident taxpayers and then moving full-time to the Cape in 2019 after 39 years in Wethersfield, CT. He has stayed active through volunteer work at the Chatham Food Pantry, the Chatham Railroad Museum, the town’s Traffic Safety Committee and the Chatham Men’s Club, where he has served as Moderator, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Club Secretary. Jeff also is a member of both the Church Council and the Nominating Committee at Dennis Union Church in Dennis, MA. Jeff volunteered as a docent at the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center for 4 years and was part of the team that developed the popular “The Golden Age of Trans-Atlantic Ocean Liners” exhibit. He has previously contributed two Special Exhibit MarconiGram e-newsletter editions, one on the museum’s special connection to the hospital ship SS Hope and the other describing the French liner Ile de France’s role in one of the great marine rescues of all-time, the sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria in 1956.
AI, Wireless Communications, and Software-Defined Radio
May 1, 2025
Alexander M. Wyglinski, PhD
The past decade has witnessed a significant growth cycle in Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances as new knowledge and new techniques have emerged that are revolutionizing this domain. One of the many application spaces being affected by these latest advances is wireless communication networking, where the process of system/network optimization as well as system/network feature detection, extraction, and classification are dramatically being enhanced relative to the current state-of-the-art defined approximately 5-10 years ago. Furthermore, not only are existing applications for supporting wireless communication systems/networks being improved upon, but these latest AI advances are also being used to assist the community in realizing new approaches and techniques that were not feasible only a few years ago. Software-defined radio (SDR) is well-suited to realize many of the resulting wireless communication systems and networking designs generated by AI due to its flexibility and ability to adapt to changes in the operating environment. However, as with all hardware implementations, there are practical limitations that impose constraints on how realizable some AI-generated designs are given the latest SDR technology and supporting computational resources. Nevertheless, the potential of AI coupled with SDR technology has the ability to change how society communicates with one another. In this talk, we explore how AI and SDR can be co-designed together to realize communication system and networking solutions that address challenging use cases. We then delve into several use cases studied extensively at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), including cognitive radio-based satellite communications, radio frequency (RF) fingerprinting, and smart jamming of 5G networks.
About Our Speaker: Alexander M. Wyglinski is the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, Mass, USA, as well as the Director of the Wireless Innovation Laboratory at WPI. Dr. Wyglinski served as the President of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society during 2018-2019. He received his B.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Canada in 1999 and 2005, and his M.Sc.(Eng.) degree in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada in 2000. Dr. Wyglinski’s current research interests are in wireless communications, cognitive radio, machine learning for wireless systems, software defined radio prototyping, connected and autonomous vehicles, and dynamic spectrum sensing. Dr. Wyglinski has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, over 135 peer-reviewed conference papers, and 3 textbooks throughout his academic career. He has been sponsored by both government agencies and industry such as the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Research Laboratory, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Toyota InfoTechnology Center USA, Verizon, MITRE, Analog Devices, and Raytheon.
Life in Chatham During World War II
June 5, 2025
Dick Kraycir
World War II was felt in all quarters of this country, and was the last war in which the general population was greatly impacted by conflict in Europe and the Pacific. From food stamps to the limited availability of gasoline and sugar (“use one teaspoon and stir like hell”) there was not a day that went by without some reminder. As a seaside community, and having three branches of the Armed Forces present, Chatham (and all of Cape Cod) was particularly aware with nightly blackouts, collection of scrap material, and fishermen having special radios to report any U-boat sightings during their voyages.
While researching the history of Chatham Radio/WCC for his book Marconi-RCA Wireless Museum: Ocean Waves & Radio Waves, our speaker (who was “way too young to remember”) gathered fascinating information about Chatham and Cape Cod during the World War II years. The museum’s newest exhibit focuses on the U.S. Navy’s secret operation of “Station C” and its strategic importance to the Allies, against the background of life in Chatham at the time. Our speaker will share his insights as a prelude to the exhibit’s opening.
J. Richard (Dick) Kraycir held various professional and managerial positions in technology development and production throughout his career. Dick was an early member of the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center and served on the board for 15 years, including in the roles of: Clerk, Executive Director and President. Today, as Director Emeritus, his focus is on the Chatham Marconi TechSmart communications technology initiative that introduces Fourth Grade students on Cape Cod to the technical aspects of Sound and Radio. He is also currently on the Boards of Trustees for the Chatham Orpheum Theater and the Chatham Railroad Museum. Dick and his wife Melissa have had a home in Chatham since 1985 and moved there full time in 2002. They have one daughter who is an Architectural Interior Designer in Branford, Connecticut