Don't know where this should go. Off Topic science or here. If a mod wants to move it that is fine.

Something I have been thinking about lately is how telegraph and telegram was sent from one town to an unknown number of towns and over long distances. For simplicity maybe stick to telegraph for now.

Long before the days of any kind of automation, it is easy to understand how the switch board would work on telephone when you wanted to call another town. You would ring Sara at the local telco, she would likely ring the regional, telco, they in turn would ring a different region and so on.

But how did that work for telegraph? Say the little town of Podunk wanted to telegraph some other town across the state. Obviously they couldn't have wires for every town in the region coming to the telegraph office. And since the telegraph was battery operated, there had to be some distance limitations. So how did the message get out? Were the messages just manually repeated till it got to its destination? Anyone know?

 

Initially in the days of Telegraph, there would be a limited number of stations, and to get to a destination, the message may go through a few manual repeater stations.
Max.

 

https://www.princeton.edu/ssp/josep...story_theory_and_practice_of_the_elect(1).pdf

 

Something I have been thinking about lately is how telegraph and telegram was sent from one town to an unknown number of towns and over long distances.

Incidentally it spelt the death knell for the Pony Express in the USA.
Max.

 

Telegraph was the communication method, telegrams were the written form of what had been sent. And on a given line, the message was heard by all the operators, but only those who it was addressed to paid attention and wrote down the messages. So for a long time there was no equivalent of a switchboard for telegraph. Exactly like Max stated, an operator in the line who recognized the destination copied the message and then sent it out on a different line. Slow but effective.

 

The R.R's were quick to pick it up also, I have a couple of morse repeater equipment I found in an old RR maintenance cupboard.
Including a hand crank phone, often posted at switch point shacks.
Max.

 

Telegraph was the communication method, telegrams were the written form of what had been sent. And on a given line, the message was heard by all the operators, but only those who it was addressed to paid attention and wrote down the messages. So for a long time there was no equivalent of a switchboard for telegraph. Exactly like Max stated, an operator in the line who recognized the destination copied the message and then sent it out on a different line. Slow but effective.

I was speaking more of the teletype. My guess it became the actual form of communication for the telegram. I could see even early on how a teletype could be routed to its fianl destination .

 

Hello,

The telegraph-key was used by the telegraphist to send the telegram in morse code:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_key
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphist

Bertus

 

Hello,

The telegraph-key was used by the telegraphist to send the telegram in morse code:
Bertus

Then the Teleprinter became popular.
Including punched paper tape.
Max.

 

Hello,

The first teletype was introduced in 1908:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Corporation
The papertape used the Baudot code:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_code

Bertus

 

Then the Teleprinter became popular.
Including punched paper tape.
Max.

We still had some old Kleinschmidt models in the radio class I took fresh out of boot camp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Kleinschmidt

Procedures for handling messages over manual teletypewriter facilities for the Five Eyes Group. Most of the procedures were taken from old telegram operations. We could route via the telegram system by changing a few message headers. PERSONAL TELEGRAMS (CLASS E MESSAGES)
http://www.navy-radio.com/manuals/acp/acp126c.pdf

1. The Combined Communications-Electronics Board (CCEB) is comprised of the five member nations, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States and is the Sponsoring Authority for all Allied Communications Publications (ACPs). ACPs are raised and issued under common agreement between the member nations.

 

We still had some old Kleinschmidt models in the radio class I took fresh out of boot camp.

I was originally introduced to the Teleprinter and tape punch while serving in the Royal Signals, One notable transmission was the reporting of 'Lady be Good' found in the Libyan desert.
Max.

 

I was originally introduced to the Teleprinter and tape punch while serving in the Royal Signals, One notable transmission was the reporting of 'Lady be Good' found in the Libyan desert.
Max.

We had a few 'special' teletype machines for target countries. The speed was either 45.45 baud or 50 baud for most, can't remember the exact speed but we could tweak our gear to receive. The USSR transmitted a pretty good international rtty news feed from Kabul during the 80's Russian invasion. We could get permission from the Capt. to pass unclassified copy to the crew about what was happening in the US and the world from that intercept. Most of their most secret communication were encrypted offline using devices like Fialka to generate a unclassified paper tape that could be fed into a normal teletype but the news feed was in the clear. (not encrypted)

http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/russian_m125_fialka.html

 

The R.R's were quick to pick it up also, I have a couple of morse repeater equipment I found in an old RR maintenance cupboard.
Including a hand crank phone, often posted at switch point shacks.
Max.

 

So did that transmission clsoe the loop? Did you get a transmission when the aircraft was first lost?

 

I was originally introduced to the Teleprinter and tape punch while serving in the Royal Signals, One notable transmission was the reporting of 'Lady be Good' found in the Libyan desert.
Max.

Max, talk about strange, just last night while wandering aimless as I often do I happen to hit on that story. Something about 9 things in time preserved and one of those things was The Lady Be Good. That was strange, really strange.

Ron

 

Yeah, I remember the ado about it as we were stationed close to what was then the largest US airbase outside of US, Wheelus Air base.
I remember someone saying that the coffee in the flasks they found appeared drinkable if it was heated up.
Our TV and Radio pgms came from Wheelus.
Wheelus was so self contained, I heard that there were quit a few stationed there never left the base to explore Libya or even Tripoli.
To us in the bare bones British Army it sounded like club med!
Ironically the Azzizia barracks we were in subsequently became Gadaffi's HQ that the US later bombed.
Max.

 

... history related:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside

He coined the term inductor, a part which was previously known as a load coil, and he improved telegraphy by adding them in series with wires, in order to compensate for the accumulation of distributed capacitance, apparently a problem in long distance wires.

 

Interesting...
Another great contributor that was self-educated.
Which often was a stumbling block in order to be recognized by the Royal Society.
Max.