Page:United States patent 1108529.pdf/10



To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I,, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Providence, in the county of Providence and State of Rhode Island, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Telegraph Systems, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to a telegraph system, and particularly to a wireless telegraph system. Its main object is to provide an improved means for transmitting signals of a signal-code system and converting them into corresponding characters of another system, and particularly to transmit signal-code characters through a natural medium and convert them into characters of another system, such as letters, figures, etc., of a language.

My present invention is in the nature of an improvement upon that shown, described and claimed in the patent granted to me August 2, 1904,, for a receiving telegraph instrument capable of translating the characters of a telegraph code into letters, figures, and words by the analysis of the signal components of the code characters sent and the translation of these into representative movements or functions capable of forming a plurality of different combinations each corresponding to a different letter, figure or other language character.

This invention is also in the nature of an improvement upon that shown, described and claimed in the application filed by me August 4, 1904, Ser. No. 219,541, for improvements in the art of and apparatus for electrical signaling, in which there is disclosed a method of transmitting electrically the signals of a telegraph code and converting elements of the signals sent into modified signal elements at the receiving station, the particular object of such invention being to permit the transmission through a natural medium of interrupted electrical disturbances or vibrations in the form of signals and the translation of such interrupted signals into continuous signals&mdash;such as continuous dots and dashes&mdash;at the receiving point. The invention set forth in said application does not, however, provide specifically for the transmission of signals of a signal-code system through a natural medium and the translation of such signals into corresponding characters of another system&mdash;such for example as the characters of language&mdash;but only provides specifically for the translation of such characters into modified signals of the same system, that is, into modified electrical signals.

As to the principal feature thereof, this invention is an improvement upon both of those set forth in said prior patent and application, in that it extends and combines the principle of translation of signals into letters and words set forth in said patent, and the principle of translating interrupted vibrations or wireless signals into continuous electrical signals suitable for transmission on telegraph line wires, and permits the application of these combined principles to the purposes of wireless telegraphy and the utilization of these two principles of translation for the purpose of first converting the interrupted disturbances or vibrations constituting wireless signals into modified or continuous signals capable of operating instruments in ordinary telegraphic line-wire circuits, and then converting such modified or continuous signals into corresponding letters, figures, etc. By combining these principles I am enabled by means of a system such as is disclosed herein, and particularly by the use of a receiving instrument of the type illustrated, to transmit wireless messages by means of wireless transmitting apparatus of well-known types and print such messages either at the main receiving station or at any number of substations near to or remote from the main station and connected therewith by the line wires of ordinary land lines.

The principal means which renders it possible to convert wireless signals into letters, figures, etc., is a receiving instrument substantially of the type disclosed in my said prior patent, that is, it is a translating receiver controlled by combinations of signals representing the respective code characters of a telegraphic code and controlling by analysis and synthesis the selection of devices representing the characters of ordinary language, these devices being selected by the receiving instrument when the representative groups of signals corresponding to their code characters are received by the