Dubois "Peanut Roaster" commutator repeater
date: label: date made
content: ca 1856
name: label: maker
content: Dubois
label: maker
content: Charles H. Dubois & Son
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 made by the New York firm of Charles H. Dubois & Son in the late 1850s about which we have little information. The description in our files records this as a "Peanut Roaster" (in quotes) leading us to believe that the term was some type of colloquialism but there is no indication of exactly what that term may have meant.
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
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: from the Telegraphic Historical Society
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.181377
label: catalog number
content: 181377
label: accession number
content: 31175
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telegraph repeater
label: Object Name
content: commutator repeater
label: Object Name
content: telegraph relay
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 in x 5 in x 8 in; 10.16 cm x 12.7 cm x 20.32 cm