Brownson telegraph repeater patent model
date: label: date made
content: 1868
name: label: maker
content: L. G. Tillotson & Co.
label: maker
content: Brownson, Walter G.
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 model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office by inventor Walter Brownson of Wellsville, Ohio, along with his patent application. In June 1868 he received patent #78573 for his "new and improved Telegraphic Apparatus." This object appears in the patent as figure 5. The switch seen on the base opposite the electromagnets pivots an insulated plate "to cut out at pleasure both the main circuit and the second local from the circuit." Though Brownson designed the unit, the armature has the marking of L. G. Tillotson of New York, a well-known telegraph instrument maker.
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.251256
label: catalog number
content: 251256
label: accession number
content: 48865
label: patent number
content: 78573
objectType: label: Object Name
content: relay
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: steel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 in x 6 1/8 in x 4 1/2 in; 7.62 cm x 15.5575 cm x 11.43 cm