{"id":10053,"date":"2023-07-04T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2023\/07\/04\/a-very-early-radio-controlled-device-using-spark-and-a-coherer-in-spain\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:02:05","slug":"a-very-early-radio-controlled-device-using-spark-and-a-coherer-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2023\/07\/04\/a-very-early-radio-controlled-device-using-spark-and-a-coherer-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"A Very Early Radio-Controlled Device — Using Spark and a Coherer, in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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Click on the picture for a better view — check out the coherer and the tapper <\/span><\/div>\n

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Hack-A-Day has an interesting story about Leonardo Torres Quevedo and his very early automated chess machine. Torres Quevedo was a Spanish inventor active in the early years of the 20th century. <\/b><\/div>\n

The chess device was really interesting, but two things caught my eye about this fellow: 1) he lived and conducted some of his experiments in my old home of Bilbao, Spain and 2) he built a very early radio-control system that used — in the receiver — a coherer as the detector. <\/b><\/p>\n

There is a lot material on Torres Quevedo. Here is just a sample of what is out there <\/b><\/p>\n

His book: https:\/\/www.torresquevedo.org\/revistas\/index.php\/BIB\/issue\/view\/12\/1.<\/a> Discussion of the Telekino device is on pages 109-127. <\/b><\/p>\n

The Branly Tube or Coherer: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Coherer<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leonardo_Torres_Quevedo<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/2998424_Early_Developments_of_Wireless_Remote_Control_The_Telekino_of_Torres-Quevedo<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/cyberneticzoo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Telekine-Yuste.pdf<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

1903 article in Electron (Spain) about the Telekino and Coherers. https:\/\/hemerotecadigital.bne.es\/hd\/viewer?oid=0028654330&page=6<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

https:\/\/alpoma.net\/tecob\/?p=13766<\/a> This article contains the diagram of the device (see above). You can see the coherer with its tapper. <\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Here we see the Telekino installed in a boat in Bilbao harbor.<\/div>\n
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Click on the picture for a better view — check out the coherer and the tapper Hack-A-Day has an interesting story about Leonardo Torres Quevedo and his very early automated chess machine. Torres Quevedo was a Spanish inventor active in the early years of the 20th century. The chess device was really interesting, but two … Continue reading “A Very Early Radio-Controlled Device — Using Spark and a Coherer, in Spain”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,204,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-old-radio","category-r-c-plane","category-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10057,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053\/revisions\/10057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}