DERIVATIVES OF CHAPPE

One of the biggest problems with Chappé’s optical telegraph (and by extension, those that happened to it in other European countries) was that the symbols or signals produced by the telegraph were flat, so they had to be looked at from the front to be read well. An optical telegraph viewed from the side did not display any information at all, or was difficult to read correctly, as you might imagine. This forced the paths of the optical telegraphy lines to be almost rectilinear and having to make a curve along the way was really complicated. Of all the optical telegraphy systems that would exist in Europe, those devised by the Spaniards Betancourt and Mathé were the ones that allowed a greater angle of vision (more than 45º), much higher than that of Chappé’s telegraph, so both systems were highly praised in scientific circles on the continent. But what was perhaps the greatest drawback of optical telegraphy systems was derived from the logical inconveniences of their medium. At night they were not viable and although experiments were made by fixing lanterns to the signaling elements of the telegraphs, the truth is that none of the prototypes would pass the test with satisfactory results in any European country. On the other hand, with heavy rain, fog, snow or haze, the adjacent stations became practically invisible, so the transmission had to be interrupted.