This word arose from two Greek words: “tele” - far and “grapho” - write. By telegraph you can quickly transmit a message - a telegram - over long distances. For example, you need to send congratulations. You wrote a few words on the form and submitted it to the window. A few hours will pass, and a telegram will be brought to your friend. But this is no longer the piece of paper on which you wrote your congratulations. On another form, strips of paper will be pasted, and the words of your congratulations will be printed on them.
How did people in that city know what you wrote to your friend about? A string of poles with wires suspended from them stretched from city to city. Along these wires using electric current conditional signals are transmitted.
It is possible, for example, to agree that one long turn on of the current corresponds to the letter “T”, and two short ones correspond to the letter “I”. This is exactly how the Morse code is constructed: each letter in it is designated by a certain combination of short and long inclusions, or, in other words, dots and dashes. The telegraph operator presses his hand on the key - a lever that closes the current, and sends long and short signals along the line.
And at the receiving point there is a device in which there is an electromagnet and an anchor. Read the story “”, and you will know how such a device works. When the current is turned on, the electromagnet attracts the armature, and when it is turned off, the armature moves back under the action of the spring. Attached to the anchor is a pen that records dots and dashes on a moving paper tape.
Such simple telegraph devices are almost never used anymore. A modern transmitting apparatus is similar to a typewriter, and the receiving apparatus prints not dots and dashes, but letters at once. Pressing each letter key sends its own special signal, which is received only by a relay connected to the same letter of the receiving device.
TV, telegraph, telephone - everything is so familiar. What happened before them? G. Yurmin says: “The news came like this.” I wonder how?
WITH Ancient Greek word "telegraph" It translates how far away I am writing. On modern language this means transmitting alphanumeric messages over long distances using radio signals, electrical signals through wires, and other communication channels. The need to transmit information over long distances arose in ancient times with the help of fires, drums and even windmills. The prototype of the first non-primitive telegraph was the invention of Claude Chaf (1792), called “Heliograph”. Thanks to this device, information was transmitted using sunlight and a system of mirrors. In addition to the installation, the inventor came up with a language of symbols, with their help messages were transmitted over long distances. In 1753, an article by Charles Morrison appeared, in which the Scottish scientist proposed transmitting messages using electric charges sent through numerous wires isolated from each other. The number of wires must be equal to the number of letters of the alphabet. Through the wires, the electric charge must be transferred to metal balls, which attracted light objects with the image of letters.
In 1774, physicist Georg Lesage, using the technology proposed by Morrison, first built a working electrostatic telegraph. 
In 1782, he invented a method of laying cables underground by placing them in clay tubes. The problem with multi-wire telegraphs was that the operator had to spend several hours transmitting even small message. In 1809, the German scientist Semmering first invented the telegraph, based on chemical exposure current on substances. When an electric current passed through acidified water, gas bubbles were released, which the scientist used as a means of communication.
In 1832, the Russian scientist P.L. Schilling created the first keyboard electromagnetic telegraph with indicators made on the basis of an electric pointer galvanometer. The keyboard of the transmitting device had 16 keys designed to close the current. IN receiving device There were 6 galvanometers with magnetic needles, which were suspended from copper stands using silk threads. 
Above the arrows, paper flags were attached to threads, one side of which was white, the other black. Both stations of the electromagnetic telegraph were connected by eight wires, six of which were connected to galvanometers, 1 for reverse current, 1 for an electric bell. If at the sending (transfer) station a key was pressed and current was passed, then at the receiving station the corresponding arrow would deflect. Different positions of white and black flags on different disks conveyed conditional combinations that corresponded to letters or numbers. 36 different deviations corresponded to 36 conditioned signals. A special six-digit code created by Schilling determined the number (6) of dial indicators in his apparatus. Later, the scientist would create a single-pointer, 2-wire telegraph, which had a binary system for coding conditioned signals.
During this period of development of telegraph communication, the Morse apparatus turned out to be the most successful 
(1837). In his apparatus, the scientist used Morse code, which he himself developed. The letter is transmitted in the device using a key to which a communication line and a battery are connected. When the key is pressed, a current flows into the line, which, passing through an electromagnet at the other end of the line, attracts the lever. At the end of the lever there is a wheel, lowered into liquid paint. Using a spring mechanism, a paper tape is pulled near the wheel, on which the wheel imprints a sign - a dash or a dot.
The Morse apparatus was replaced in 1856 by the first 
a direct-printing machine created by the outstanding Russian scientist B. S. Jacobi. His writing telegraph had a pencil attached to an electromagnet armature and recording symbols. Thomas Edison modernized the telegraph apparatus by proposing to record telegrams on punched tape. A modern telegraph machine is called a teletype, which means printing at a distance.
Inventor of the telegraph. The name of the inventor of the telegraph is forever inscribed in history, since Schilling's invention made it possible to transmit information over long distances.
The device allowed the use of radio and electrical signals traveling through wires. The need to transmit information has always existed, but in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the context of growing urbanization and technological development, data exchange has become relevant.
This problem was solved by the telegraph, a term with ancient Greek language translated as “to write far away.”
Background to the invention
In the middle of the 18th century. in Scotland, scientist C. Morrisson wrote a scientific article stating that messages could be transmitted over long distances using electric charges. Morrison described in detail the operation of the future mechanism:
- Charges must be transmitted through wires that are insulated from each other;
- The number of wires must correspond to the number of letters of the alphabet;
- The electrical charges were then transferred to the metal balls;
- The latter attracted objects on which letters should be depicted.
Morrison's paper was used in 1774 by physicist Georg Lesage. He built the electrostatic telegraph. Eight years later, he improved his technology by proposing to lay the device's wires underground. The cables were placed in special clay tubes. But such a mechanism was quite cumbersome, since the telegraph operator spent several hours transmitting the message.
In 1792, Claude Chaf invented a device called the Heliograph. It was a prototype telegraph that worked on a system of mirrors and sunlight. This is how information was transferred over fairly long distances. At the beginning of the 19th century. a scientist named S. Semmering created a telegraph using current. He walked along chemicals and acidified water, resulting in the release of gas bubbles. This was the method of data transfer.
Who invented the telegraph
The electromagnetic telegraph was created by the Russian scientist, philologist, ethnographer, and inventor Pavel Shilling. In 1810, he got a job at the Russian embassy in Munich, at one of the evenings he met S. Semmering, and began to take part in his experiments. In 1812 he volunteered for the front, in 1814 he took part in the capture of Paris, and at the same time received the Order of St. Vladimir. After Patriotic War focused only on scientific inventions.
When invented
P. Schilling created a keyboard electromagnetic telegraph in 1832, which was equipped with indicators. To power them, an electric pointer galvanometer was used. The telegraph keyboard had 16 keys, which closed the current. In a special receiving device, Schilling installed six galvanometers, which had magnetic needles suspended from copper racks. They hung on silk threads.
Two-color flags made of paper were placed above the arrows. One side of them was white and the other was black. The stations were connected to each other by 8 wires:
- Six were connected to galvanometers;
- One was for reverse current;
- Another one is for electric current.
A little later, Schilling improved his telegraph by making a single-handed, two-wire device. It had a binary system for coding conditional signals.
Results
Schilling's invention became an innovative development in the field of telegraphic communications. Based on the telegraph of a Russian scientist, a new apparatus for transmitting information was made in 1837. It was the invention of S. Morse, who used the alphabet created by him to send messages. All letters were transmitted using a special key, which was connected to a battery and a communication line. After Schilling and Morse, scientists began to create direct-printing machines, the most successful of which were Jacobi and Edison telegraphs.
Telegrams in large cities have long been replaced Email, telexes - modern computers, and the whirring of teletypes was replaced by the quiet hum of modern servers. But for decades, the dots and dashes of Morse code transmitted information about the most important events in people's lives. This material - Short story telegraph communications of Russia, which is fully represented in the special departmental museum of the Central Telegraph company.
History of development
Short text messages appeared much earlier than telephone communication. If you “dig” very deeply, you can remember the signal fires that flickered on the tops of hills in ancient times, which were used to transmit military information, as well as various models semaphores, which were used in both the Old and New Worlds.Layouts of semaphore telegraphs of the Chateau (left) and Chappa systems (right).
Most effective system The semaphore type is still the telegraph of the French inventor Pierre Chateau. It was an optical system of semaphore towers, which were in direct visual communication with each other, located at a distance of usually 10-20 km. On each of them there was a crossbar about three meters long, at the ends of which movable rulers were attached. With the help of traction, the rulers could be folded into 196 figures. Its original inventor was, of course, Claude Chappe, who chose 76 of the clearest and most distinct figures, each of which denoted a specific letter, number or sign. The borders of the lines were equipped with lanterns, which made it possible to transmit messages even in the dark. In France alone, by the middle of the 19th century, the length of optical telegraph lines was 4828 kilometers. But Chateau improved the system - instead of individual letters and signs, each combination in his interpretation began to denote a phrase or a specific order. Of course, the police, government agencies and the army immediately appeared with their own code tables.An example of an encrypted message that had to be sent using a semaphore telegraph.
In 1833, the Chateau semaphore telegraph line connected St. Petersburg with Kronstadt. The main telegraph station was, oddly enough, right on the roof of the Emperor's Winter Palace. In 1839, the government telegraph line was extended to the Royal Castle in Warsaw, a distance of 1,200 kilometers. Along the entire route, 149 relay stations with towers up to 20 meters high were built. Observers with telescopes were on duty at the towers around the clock. At night, lanterns were lit at the ends of the semaphores. The line was served by over 1000 people. It existed until 1854.All standards for the transfer of information were regulated by special instructions.
But the real breakthrough came only in September 1837, when at New York University, Samuel Morse demonstrated to an enlightened public his early designs for electric telegraphs - an intelligible signal sent along a wire 1,700 feet long. Now this would be called a presentation to potential investors, but then for Morse, who was not an engineer by training, but an artist, this was the last chance to get funding for his developments. Fortunately for him, a successful industrialist from New Jersey, Stephen Weil, was present in the hall, who agreed to donate two thousand dollars (a lot of money at that time) and provide a room for experiments on the condition that Morse would take his son Alfred as an assistant. Morse agreed, and this was the most successful step in his life. Alfred Vail had not only real ingenuity, but also a keen practical sense. Over the following years, Vail was largely instrumental in developing the final form of Morse code, introducing the telegraph key instead of the connecting rod, and reducing the size of the apparatus to the compact model that became generally accepted. He also invented the printing telegraph, which was patented in Morse's name, in accordance with the terms of the Vail-Morse contract.A rare Morse apparatus - demonstration of operation and description of functionality.
One of the first phrases that Morse transmitted using his apparatus was “Wonderful are Thy works, O Lord!”
In Russia, by the way, they did without Morse's invention - the telegraph of the Russian inventor Schilling was already in operation, however, the only line in St. Petersburg was laid by order of Nicholas I, it connected his office in the Winter Palace with the reception rooms of the Government - apparently, so that ministers could move faster with reporting to the monarch. At the same time, a project was implemented to connect Peterhof and Kronstadt by telegraph, for which a special isolated electrical cable laid along the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. By the way, this is one of the first examples of the use of the telegraph for military purposes.Diagram of the first electric telegraph lines in Russia.
By the middle of the 19th century, there were several telegraph communication lines in the world, which were constantly being improved. After testing, ordinary wire was rejected and replaced by braided cable. Interestingly, one of the great ideas that spurred the development of telegraph communications in the United States was the desire to transfer money throughout the country. To organize such a system, the Western Union company was organized, which is still alive today."Cap" of the imperial telegram.
In Russia, telegraph communication developed simultaneously with the construction of railways and was initially used exclusively for military and government needs. Since 1847, the first telegraph lines in Russia used Siemens devices, including a horizontal pointer apparatus with a keyboard. The very first telegraph station began operating on October 1, 1852 in the building of the Nikolaevsky railway station (now Leningradsky and Moskovsky railway stations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, respectively). Now anyone could send a telegram to Moscow or St. Petersburg, and delivery was carried out by special postmen on chaises and bicycles - everyone understood that this was not a letter and the information had to be conveyed quickly. The cost of sending a message within the city was 15 kopecks for the fact of sending a message and on top of that - a penny per word (at that time, the tariff was significant - like a couple of minutes of conversation over satellite communication now).October 1852 - the first Moscow telegraph began operating at the Nikolaevsky station in Moscow.
If the message was long-distance, then additional tariffs were applied. Moreover, the service was highly intelligent - texts were accepted in both Russian and French and German languages(try now to send a message from the district telegraph at least in English!).The telegraph from the station building is transferred to one of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin.
True, it was not particularly convenient to work there, and in May 1856 the telegraph from the station building was transferred to one of the buildings of the Moscow Kremlin (a communications center would later be equipped there). At the station there was only a telegraph machine for the needs railway- we assure you, he did not stand idle. During the Emperor's stay in Moscow, private dispatches were received in one of the rooms at the Trinity Tower of the Kremlin. By the way, local telegraph lines were installed in the country back in 1841 - they connected the General Headquarters and the Winter Palace, Tsarskoye Selo and the Main Directorate of Communications, the St. Petersburg station of the Nikolaevskaya Railway and the village of Aleksandrovskoye. From those times until the middle of the 20th century, black Morse writing machines from Siemens and Halske were used. The devices were widely used and had a large number of modifications, the best of which was the version of the Dinier brothers. And the Yuza direct-printing machine, invented in 1855, was used in Russia from 1865 until the Great Patriotic War of 1941.Checking the correctness of the clock was established by a special decree.
By the end of 1855, telegraph lines had already connected cities throughout Central Russia and reached Europe (to Warsaw), Crimea, and Moldova. The presence of high-speed data transmission channels simplified management government agencies authorities and troops. At the same time, the introduction of the telegraph began for the work of diplomatic missions and the police. On average, a report the size of one A4 page “jumped” from Europe to St. Petersburg in an hour - a fantastic result at that time. A little later, with the help of telegraph stations, another useful service was organized - precise installation time. Atomic clocks on communication satellites were still a long way off, so with the help of telegraph stations, which by the end of the 19th century were located in almost all major cities Russian Empire, the uniform time was set using the chronometer of the General Staff. Every morning for telegraph operators throughout the country began with the signal “Listen” from the Winter Palace, five minutes later the command “Clock” and “walkers” across the country started simultaneously.October 1869 - Telegraph station on Myasnitskaya Street.
In connection with the construction of the Moscow city telegraph network (a network of city telegraph stations), the telegraph station from the Kremlin was moved first to Gazetny Lane, and then to a specially adapted building on Myasnitskaya Street, next to the Post Office. Since the 1880s, the station began to use devices from Baudot, Siemens, Klopfer, Creed, as well as teletypes. In December 1898, a call center for the first, longest in Russia, long-distance telephone line St. Petersburg-Moscow was equipped in the building of the Moscow Central Telegraph Station.An example of a perforated tape.
At the same time, in the middle of the 19th century, Charles Wheatstone developed a device with perforated tape, which increased the speed of the telegraph to 1,500 characters per minute - on special machines, operators typed messages, which were then printed on tape. And it was this that was then loaded into the telegraph for sending through communication channels. This was much more convenient and economical - one telegraph line could work almost around the clock (later, in the 70s of the 20th century, GRU special forces encryption machines worked on the same principle, “spitting out” an encrypted message in a fraction of a second). A little earlier, in 1850, the Russian scientist B. Jacobi created a direct-printing machine, which was brought to perfection by the American D. Hughes in 1855.The telegraph operator's workplace on a Bodo-duplex machine - to print on five keys, he used two hands - two fingers on the left hand and three on the right, the combinations had to be pressed simultaneously and quickly.
The Baudot device operates in duplex mode (in total, up to six working stations could be connected to one transmitter) - the response data was printed on paper tape, which had to be cut and pasted onto the form.
The telegraph signal amplification point for the Baudot apparatus was placed at a distance of 600-800 km from the transmitting center in order to “drive” the signal further: to work, it was necessary to synchronize the electricity in two channels and carefully monitor the information transmission parameters.
Control panel of the telegraph signal amplification point for the Baudot apparatus.
Demonstration of the Baudot apparatus.
Another acceleration of technical thought occurred in 1872, when the Frenchman E. Baudot created a device that made it possible to transmit several telegrams simultaneously over one line, and the data was no longer received in the form of dots and dashes (before that, all such systems were based on Morse code), and in the form of letters of the Latin and Russian (after careful revision by domestic specialists) languages. The Baudot apparatus and those created on its principle are called start-stop apparatus. In addition, Baudot created a very successful telegraph code (Baudot Code), which was subsequently adopted everywhere and received the name International Telegraph Code No. 1 (ITA1). The modified version of the code is called ITA2. In the USSR, based on ITA2, the telegraph code MTK-2 was developed. Further modifications to the design of the start-stop telegraph apparatus proposed by Baudot led to the creation of teleprinters (teletypes). The unit of information transmission speed, the baud, was named in honor of Baudot.Telegraph in the Russian Empire and the USSR
The beginning of the 20th century for telegraph communications in Russia can be considered a full-fledged Golden Age. Half a century after the opening of the first telegraph, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as other large cities of the Empire, many telegraph offices were opened, distributed according to territorial criteria. The media have the opportunity to release operational news, which is reported by correspondents from the scene. For the central telegraph, located here since 1870, a separate floor is being built in the post office building on Myasnitskaya and about 300 communication lines from all over the country are connected there - now the Main Post Office of Moscow is located there. Communication between the telegram reception department and the computer room with the telegraph machines displayed there was carried out with the help of couriers - boys aged 10-12 had to run for several hours between floors with telegraph forms.The main working hall of the telegraph on Myasnitskaya in Moscow.
During the First World War in Russian army The newly created communications units, which were engaged in establishing telephone and telegraph lines, performed well. By the beginning of the war, in 1914, the highest military engineering unit was a battalion - in the Russian army there was one engineer battalion per infantry or cavalry corps. Moreover, out of the four companies of the battalion, one was telegraph. At the end of 1916, the Russian High Command created for each corps an entire engineering regiment of two battalions - an engineer (two engineer companies and one road-bridge) and a technical (two telegraph companies and one searchlight), as well as a field engineering fleet. Infantry divisions received an engineering company, consisting of two half-companies, a telegraph department and a park platoon.A rare portable telegraph - such models have been used in combat units since the days of Russo-Japanese War 1905.
All devices had a personal number and release date; V in this case- 1904.
Practice of working a portable field telegraph based on Morse code.
With establishment on the territory of the country Soviet power, a significant part of the telegraph communication lines was given to party bodies, the NKVD, the army and the people's commissariats. In addition, the top of the People's Commissariat of Communications was staffed by state security officers - communications, even in peacetime, was a strategic area that needed to be protected and controlled. That is why, in the seventh year of Soviet power, the Central Committee decided to build a special building for the telegraph. It was supposed to be located near the Kremlin and the First House of the People's Commissariat of Defense (a special 4-story building was built there for military communications), house a long-distance communication station (at that time a very valuable thing), the entire People's Commissariat of Communications, as well as a central telegraph station. This is how the historical building of the Central Telegraph arose, occupying an entire city block on Tverskaya, 7 (previously it was Gorky Street).Memorial plaque about the construction of the Central Telegraph building.
The bulk of the Central Telegraph, 1948.
Modern view of the Central Telegraph 82 years after the start of construction.
Scheme of operation of pneumatic mail for sorting telegraph messages.
The building was erected with a large margin of safety ( Special attention was paid to the protection of communication lines in underground communications) and in record short time- construction took a year and a half and ended in 1927. The style of construction has various interpretations, but one of the most common is the transition from modernism to constructivism. total area premises - 60 thousand square meters. m. For about two years, the telegraph was equipped with various equipment, the arrangement of work premises was underway (four internal mail systems alone were installed, including pneumatic mail). Officially, the new building on Tverskaya was called the “House of Communications named after V.N. Podbelsky”, but sometimes it lost out to the unofficial one - “Mechanized Palace”. Here the use of direct-printing machines by A.F. Shorin and L.I. Treml began, and from 1937 the domestic ST-35 direct-printing machine began to be introduced.Today every child knows what a telephone is. The problem of transmitting messages over long distances has been solved. How did they transmit information before?
Many scientists racked their brains for a long time about what device to use to transmit information, and came up with a design called the “telegraph”.
A telegraph apparatus is a set of devices designed to transmit any information over long distances using wires, radio and other means.
- Electrical.
- Optical.
- Wireless.
- Photo telegraphs.
Optical telegraph
The French scientist K. Chappe in 1792 found a way to transmit messages using light signals. This system had a transmission speed of several phrases per minute.
Electric telegraph
A real telegraph apparatus was invented in the second mid-19th century, when a current source was created, the effect of current was studied and the problem of transporting electricity over long distances was solved.
The Russian scientist P.L. Schilling developed the world's first electromagnetic telegraph, which worked on the principle: absolutely any letter of the alphabet corresponded to a specific system of symbols, manifested as black and white circles on the telegraph.
Phototelegraph
In 1843, scientist Alexander Bain created a system that made it possible to send drawings, pictures and maps over wires. And at the destination station they were captured on film. This design called a fax machine.
Wireless telegraph
Russian scientist A.S. Popov invented a device that was designed to record radio waves in 1895. With the help of this device, Popov transmitted any information in the form of a message from the shore to a military ship.
Telegraphy contributed to the growth and development of society and the economy. People began to quickly transmit information to each other over long distances.
To this day, radio and telephony are firmly established in human life. Every day television does not stand still and develops, thanks to outstanding scientists.
