Schilling's Electromagnetic Telegraph

Schilling's Electromagnetic TelegraphThe first electromagnetic telegraph was invented by Baron Schilling from Russia. In 1835 he demonstrated his pointer telegraph at the Natural Scientists Convention in Bonn. Schilling's transmitting device consisted of a 16-button keyboard. The buttons were used for closing the current. A receiver device consisted of 6 galvanometers with magnetic pointers. The pointers were suspended on silk threads and attached to copper stands. Two-colour paper flags were fitted on the threads above the pointers. One side of the flag was painted white, the other was painted black. Both stations of Schilling's telegraph were connected by 8 wires. Six of them were connected with galvanometers. One wire was used for the reverse current. The other one was used for the calling apparatus, i.e. an electric bell. When a key was pressed and the current supplied on the transmitting station then a corresponding pointer on the receiving unit would deflect. Various positions of black and white flags on different disks produced conventional combinations. The combinations corresponded to alphabet letters or numerals.Later Schilling improved his device. In the new model 36 various deflections of its single magnetic pointer corresponded to 36 conventional signals. William Cooke, the English physicist, saw Schilling presenting his experiments. Later Cooke managed to attract Charles Wheatstone, a famous English physicist, to work on the development of the telegraph. In 1837 Cooke and Wheatstone patented their first telegraph. In the new device a pointer when deflected would indicate a certain letter shown on the board. Words and utterances would be formed from these letters. Thus Cooke tried to establish telegraph communication in England. However, the galvanometer-like telegraphs received very limited application as it was very difficult to use them. Telegraphers had to determine deflections of the pointers by sight, and very quickly too. Of course, this was quite tiring. Unfortunately, the telegraphs also couldn't register the transmitted messages on paper. Thus the development of telegraph communication went the other way. But still, first telegraph lines solved the problem of transmitting electric signals at long distances.

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Science & Technology

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• communication
• history of technics
• invention
• telegraph