Farmer & Woodman telegraph repeater patent model
date: label: date made
content: 1856
name: label: maker
content: Farmer, Moses G.
label: maker
content: Woodman, Asa F.
notes: label: Description
content: Telegraph repeaters amplified electrical signals in a telegraph line. Telegraph messages traveled as a series of electrical pulses through a wire from a transmitter to a receiver. Short pulses made a dot, slightly longer pulses a dash. The pulses faded in strength as they traveled through the wire, limiting the distance a message could travel. Repeaters remedied that problem by detecting a weak signal and using a local power source to re-energize and re-transmit the signal down the line.
label: Description
content: This repeater was submitted with to the U.S. Patent Office by inventors Moses G. Farmer and Asa F. Woodman in 1856 for their "Improvement in Telegraphic Repeaters." The basic idea of their patent was to prevent to action of the local telegraph circuit from interfering with the retransmission of a message between two distant stations. They received patent #16,828 on 17 March 1857 for this device.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Communications
label: See more items in
content: Telegraph Relays & Repeaters
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.251263
label: catalog number
content: 251263
label: accession number
content: 48865
label: patent number
content: 16828
objectType: label: Object Name
content: relay
label: Object Name
content: telegraph relay
label: Object Name
content: telegraph repeater
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cloth (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 in x 11 1/2 in x 11 in; 10.16 cm x 29.21 cm x 27.94 cm