Bulkley telegraph repeater patent model
date: label: date made
content: 1850
name: label: maker
content: Bulkley, Charles S.
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 of a repeater was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office by inventor Charles S. Bulkley only six years after Samuel Morse sent "What Hath God Wrought." In November of 1850 he received patent #7769 for his "Double-Acting Telegraphic Repeater." Bulkley, of Macon, Georgia, had conducted experiments in 1848 to send messages between New York and New Orleans using repeaters.
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.251253
label: catalog number
content: 251253
label: accession number
content: 48865
label: patent number
content: 7769
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: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/2 in x 6 1/2 in x 15 in; 13.97 cm x 16.51 cm x 38.1 cm