Efforts to find a way to transmit telegraph signals without wires grew out of the success of electric telegraph networks, the first instant telecommunication systems. Developed beginning in the 1830s, a telegraph line was a person-to-person text message system consisting of multiple telegraph offices linked by an overhead wire supported on telegraph poles. To send a message, an operator at one office would tap on a switch called a telegraph key, creating pulses of electric current which spelled out a message in Morse code. When the key was pressed, it would connect a battery to the telegraph line, sending current down the wire. At the receiving office, the current pulses would operate a telegraph sounder, a device that would make a "click" sound when it received each pulse of current. The operator at the receiving station who knew Morse code would translate the clicking sounds to text and write down the message. The ground was used as the return path for current in the telegraph circuit, to avoid having to use a second overhead wire.
Efforts to find a way to transmit telegraph signals without wires grew out of the success of electric telegraph networks, the first instant telecommunication systems Developed beginning in the 1830s a telegraph line was a person-to-person text message system consisting of multiple telegraph offices linked by an overhead wire supported on telegraph poles. To send a message, an operator at one office would tap on a switch called a telegraph key, creating pulses of electric current which spelled out a message ,in Morse code. When the key was pressed, it would connect a battery to the telegraph line, sending current down the wire. At the receiving office, the current pulses would operate a telegraph sounder a device that would make a "click" sound when it received each pulse of current The operator at the receiving station who knew Morse code would translate the clicking sounds to text and write down the message. The ground was used as the return path for current in the telegraph circuit, to avoid having to use a second overhead wire.