Induction and The Risky Dr. Loomis
In 1865 the dentist Dr. Mahlon Loomis of Virginia may have been the first person to communicate wirelessly through the atmosphere. Between 1866 and 1873 he transmitted telegraphic messages a distance of 18 miles between the tops of Cohocton Mountain and Beorse Deer Mountain, Virginia. Perhaps taking inspiration from Benjamin Franklin, at one location he flew a metal framed kite on a metal wire. He attached a telegraph key to the kite wire and sent signals from it. At another location a similar kite picked up these signals and noted them with a galvanometer. No attempt was made to generate high frequency, rapidly oscillating waves, rather, signals were simply electrical discharges, with current turned off and on to represent the dots and dashes of Morse code. He was granted U.S. patent number 129,971 on July 30, 1872 for an "Improvement in Telegraphing," but for financial reasons did not proceed further with his system.
The text of this sign reads: "T-11: Forerunner of Wireless Telegraphy. From nearby Bear's Den Mountain to the Catoctin Ridge, a distance of fourteen miles, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, Dentist, sent the first aerial wireless signals, 1866-73, using kites flown by copper wires. Loomis received a patent in 1872 and his company was chartered by Congress in 1873. But lack of capital frustrated his experiments. He died in 1866. Virginia Conservation Commission 1848."