CLARK, NJ – A brown house with lots of glass panels, hidden in overgrowth for years, situated across from Manny’s Diner on Raritan Road, was recently demolished and will soon be replaced by apartments.

In the 1950s, the house was home to Jules and John Madey, two brothers who grew up spending hours in their basement using a ham radio that one day connected with a navy substation in the South Pole.  

Councilman Brian Toal, who serves as a historian for the town, told the story of the Madey brothers at a recent council meeting. Toal called the brothers “two Clark kids in the late 1950s who had dreams.” 

“If you remember in America in the late 1950s you had the space program. You had outer space, Sputnik, all that was going on here in Clark also,” Toal said, noting that the Madey brothers were very interested in science. “These kids were science geeks, as we used to call them, or eggheads.” 

As Toal explained, the two brothers’ interests in ham radios led them all the way to the South Pole – 9,442 miles from Clark – without ever leaving their basement.  

“These two ‘Clarkites,’ along with their ham radio, made themselves and Clark famous, when the two kids and a U.S. Navy Antarctic substation at the South Pole connected with each other,” Toal said. The two brothers were able to pass messages from the navy officers at the substation to their families back home according to Toal. 

In 1956, when the brothers began communicating with the substation, older brother Jules Madey attended Arthur L. Johnson Regional High School, and John Madey, three years younger, attended Brewer School, Toal said.  

“They got rewarded for their efforts by getting a special trip from the U.S. Navy down to the South Pole, and spent some time down there,” he added. 

Source: https://www.tapinto.net/towns/clark/sections/community-life/articles/two-kids-a-ham-radio-and-the-world-at-their-fingertips-how-the-madey-brothers-made-history-in-clark