Heliograph

A Heliograph is a wireless telegraph and an early communication technology suited to the pre-electronic societies.

Description (Specifications)

It signals by flashes of sunlight (generally using Morse code) reflected by a mirror. It transmits communications across vast distances using optical methods transmitted to receiver and transmission stations. The flashes are produced by momentarily pivoting the mirror, or by interrupting the beam with a shutter. The heliograph was a simple but effective instrument for instantaneous optical communication over long distances for TL:1-6 sophont societes. Its main uses are typically military, survey and forest protection work.

Image Repository

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Word Etymology

The term comes from Terran words (helios (Greek: ἥλιος), meaning "sun", and graphein (γράφειν), meaning "write").

History & Background (Dossier)

The earliest stations tend to use fire basins or mirror-reflected light in the TL:1-3 tech epoch while later periods use flags, signal towers, or even early transmitted electrical impulses as in the more defined telegraph. These more advanced technologies become eminently workable by the TL:4-6 tech epoch.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Heliograph. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Semaphore_telegraph. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Telegraphy. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science