Hi ELF folks,  I think we should consider the possibility that Loomis sincerely believed that telegraphy without wires was possible but that his experiment was flawed.  It might even have been finessed in the absence of independent electrotechnical witnesses as he pursued his higher purpose of getting the finances to truly bring to some kind of telegraphy without wires to reality.  This was the 19th century after all.  As to the patent, think of the patent medicines of the day. 

        Even if the patent office required a model, as was common then, he could have supplied a model of his apparatus.  Even though the Wikipedia article cited below takes issue with the 129971 patent for lack of much specific information, I've read it and don't have a big problem over that.  I'm inclined toward some kind of electric circuit model of the atmosphere that could help us understand what might be possible at a few Hertz, since the wavelength is over 20,000 kilometers and whatever energy is around is either near-field or some kind of weak conduction.  Our concern here is the feasibility itself of the Loomis approach or some type or other of 20th-21st century tech offshoot apparatus that we might get to operate at ELF. 

       As to the less happy possibility of  finessed work in the 1860s,  I can imagine a clip wire to the antenna lead, 2nd key, and hidden second key operator at the receiving end with a watch and a list of prearranged times to key the Loomis galvanometer.  Presumably there was some sort of shed or enclosure in which the experiment was set up that could permit the presence of someone else out of sight beside or beneath it.   Various concerns about the documentation and experimental methodology are set out in the Critiques section about 2/3 down in this Wikipedia article.  Whatever we might think of Loomis' work, I look forward hopefully to more progress with ELF at DK7FC.   73, Jim H   W5EST