alt Hacker News> Blew my mind that there was a wire that went all the way to London from Australia!
Before the telegraph they used to do things wirelessly: https://www.brunningandprice.co.uk/_downloads/telegraph/tele...
(Not quite London to Australia though...)
In the late-1700s/early-1800s the Admiralty Telegraph was used to relay messages between London and Portsmouth (70 odd miles apart) using a semaphore type system with repeater stations every 10 miles or so.
Replies
In Tasmania, you can still see at least one semaphore station on Mt Nelson, which is above several suburbs on the south of the city of Hobart. I believe there was a semaphore route from the capital to Port Arthur (convict prison) and possibly other routes over the state too.
https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_histo...
Sadly the semaphore pole itself is gone. The building is still there and was used until 1969.
To think it was done even 1000s of years prior to that with just smoke and fire! Granted, the ability to communicate through the rain would be a necessity for the British.
Yes, the Uk (southern England in particular) is dotted with "Semaphore Hill"s or "Telegraph Hills"s. There's one very close to where I'm sitting now, a few miles NE of Portsmouth.