Hicks telegraph repeater patent model
date: label: date made
content: 1862
name: label: maker
content: Hicks, George B.
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 working model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office by inventor George Hicks of Cleveland, Ohio, along with his application for a patent. In March 1862 he received patent #34574 for his "Improvement in Telegraphic Relays." This was not Hicks' first repeater but an improved version of one he had designed four years before that also modified a design patented by James Clark in 1860. This magnetic adjusting repeater used a circuit changer with permanently magnetized cores and armatures. Charles Davis and Frank Rae warned operators in 1877 to be certain they used "strong batteries" connected with the correct polarity. The repeater armature on this unit is stamped "E. M. Pierson."
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
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content: Telegraph Relays & Repeaters
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.251255
label: catalog number
content: 251255
label: accession number
content: 48865
label: patent number
content: 34574
objectType: label: Object Name
content: repeater
label: Object Name
content: telegraph repeater
label: Object Name
content: telegraph relay
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cloth (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: copper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/2 in x 8 1/2 in x 16 in; 11.43 cm x 21.59 cm x 40.64 cm