Communication Systems/Communications History

This page will attempt to show some of the basic history of electrical communication systems. Chronology History_of_telecommunication 1831 Samuel Morse invents the first repeater and the telegraph is born 1837 Charles Wheatstone patents "electric telegraph" 1849 England to France telegraph cable goes into service—and fails after 8 days. 1850 Morse patents "clicking" telegraph. 1851 England-France commercial telegraph service begins. This one uses gutta-percha, and survives. 1858 August 18 - First transatlantic telegraph messages sent by the Atlantic Telegraph Co. The cable deteriorated quickly, and failed after 3 weeks. 1861 The first transcontinental telegraph line is completed 1865 The first trans-Atlantic cable goes in service 1868 First commercially successful transatlantic telegraph cable completed between UK and Canada, with land extension to USA. The message rate is 2 words per minute. 1870 The trans-Atlantic message rate is increased to 20 words per minute. 1874 Baudot invents a practical Time Division Multiplexing scheme for telegraph. Uses 5-bit codes & 6 time slots—90 bps max. rate. Both Western Union and Murray would use this as the basis of multiplex telegraph systems. 1875 Typewriter invented. 1876 Alexander Graham Bell and Elisa Grey independently invent the telephone (although it may have been invented by Antonio Meucci as early as 1857) 1877 Bell attempts to use telephone over the Atlantic telegraph cable. The attempt fails. 1880 Oliver Heaviside's analysis shows that a uniform addition of inductance into a cable would produce distortionless transmission. 1883 Test calls placed over five miles of under-water cable. 1884 - San Francisco-Oakland gutta-percha cable begins telephone service. 1885 Alexander Graham Bell incorporated AT&T 1885 James Clerk Maxwell predicts the existence of radio waves 1887 Heinrich Hertz verifies the existence of radio waves 1889 Almon Brown Strowger invents the first automated telephone switch 1895 Gugliemo Marconi invents the first radio transmitter/receiver 1901 Gugliemo Marconi transmits the first radio signal across the Atlantic 1901 Donald Murray links typewriter to high-speed multiplex system, later used by Western Union 1905 The first audio broadcast is made 1910 Cheasapeake Bay cable is first to use loading coils underwater 1911 The first broadcast license is issued in the US 1912 Hundreds on the Titanic were saved due to wireless 1915 USA transcontinental telephone service begins (NY-San Francisco). 1924 The first video signal is broadcast 1927 First commercial transatlantic radiotelephone service begins 1929 The CRT display tube is invented 1935 Edwin Armstrong invents FM 1939 The Blitzkrieg and WW II are made possible by wireless 1946 The first mobile radio system goes into service in St. Louis 1948 The transistor is invented 1950 Repeatered submarine cable used on Key West-Havana route. 1956 The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable, TAT-1, goes into operation. It uses 1608 vacuum tubes. 1957 The first artificial satellite, Sputnik goes into orbit 1968 The Carterphone decision allows private devices to be attached to the telephone 1984 The MFJ (Modification of Final Judgement) takes effect and the Bell system is broken up 1986 The first transAtlantic fiber optic cable goes into service Claude Shannon Harry Nyquist