Inventors for steering torpedoes and vessels from a distance without connecting wires: an integral part of W/T science.
Mr Govan [of Glasgow] had invented what was considered to be a crude method which was difficult to evaluate properly, but probably with much more experimentation, it might have its uses for what today, we would call radio controlled boats. On the other hand, Professor Fitzgerald and Dr Trouton of Dublin, had invented something which could easily replace HMS Vernon's own electrically steerable steamboat.
There was no merit in either city for using their inventions to electrically control and guide a torpedo to its target.  The existing R.N., Brenton Torpedo was still the best and cheapest automobile torpedo known.

Instructions for installing W/T Instruments into HM Ships after the necessary fittings have been made to the masts and ship.
Fitting the wire aerials.
Batteries should be capable of giving four hours of operating time which equates with 2000 words at 10 wpm.
What the spark should look like, and then send a short [a dot] but a very short short to give a good thick spark and then a long [a dash] for an equable spark.  If these are witnessed then the instrument is in adjustment.
Note the comment about X-Ray's - the W/T spark coil can be used by a doctor for emergency medical purposes for X-Raying a patient.
Radiation ?  What about my prospects of being a father one day ?
What happens if when I press my Morse key I see no spark ?
The signalling key [not an ordinary telegraph key].  This is how to send the Morse code properly whilst observing the formation of the spark.  Maximum speed is 15 wpm.  The art of Morse via sparks is SHORTEN THE DOTS AND LENGTHEN THE SPACES. 
Stand clear everybody and what of this ? "If an Arc should form at the nipples of the key when sending a message, it is easily extinguished by a sharp puff of air from the mouth. "  WOW!
The receiver had to be locked away in its own box before the Morse key could be pressed.
The spark had to be watched at all times because it was possible when sending  the very quick shorts [dot] that the spark would not appear.  When it didn't, the operator had to re-send the message or a part of the message again instantly, the error being highlighted on the ink-marker.
Imagine having to read the images [longs, shorts and spaces] of the Morse ink-marker tape to be able to write down each and every letter/figure separately before the signal could be understood.  For those of you who actually used one [a Type 'X' or KL7 off-line coding machine] handling the groups/plain language for the big stick-down and editing was a bad enough task, but this.....!  

Tuning was laborious to say the least and prone to all kinds of anomalous results.  Note that from the very beginning of time [our time] V's were used for testing and tuning.
The rules for coping with and understanding distance, and when the signal is lost or about to be lost, are darn right scary.  Getting the coherer to its most sensitive condition by exciting it with a flame thrower [OK - gas lighter] is above and beyond the call of duty given that I am already living in fear that the Morse key will burst into flames requiring a gale force blast from my panic-stricken mouth to dowse them.  Had I been there, I would have coined an operating signal whose meaning would have been 'nothing heard and I am off'.

When charging batteries was a chore, a discipline and a time consuming exercise.

By 1899 there had been a transatlantic telegraph cable between Europe and the USA for over forty years. The earliest of these cables sent messages in hours rather than the weeks or months taken by ships, and the system was considered God-sent. The cables laid in the 1860's changed all that and the message were sent in a matter of seconds. Although the speed had been dramatically increased, the problem of only one signal at a time caused great backlogs and one can imagine the frustration of an operator, say in the UK, having to wait until the US operator had stopped sending before he could send the next message E to W. Early in the 1870's duplex was invented which allowed messages to be sent both ways simultaneously, and then in 1874, Thomas Edison invented quadruplex allowing two messages to be sent at the same time.  The cable carried Morse code, and a good operator could earn a fortune in bonuses clearing as many messages as possible. The operator sat listening to the clicks coming through the cable and the very best could master 40wpm, a mega fast speed let me assure you.

One of the fundamental problems of transmitting a signal through a lengthy submarine cable was that the electric current tended to be very low making the signals difficult to detect. William Thomson, a Scot who became Lord Kelvin, discovered a way of detecting and measuring such a tiny signal. He of course knew of the Galvanometer which was developed as early as 1802 and which detected an electric current, but science had moved on and it was too insensitive to detect currents which were in the order of one one hundred thousandths [1/100,000th] of a 100W electric light bulb. He decided to use a mirror and after his success with it, he called his device a mirror Galvanometer.  The Thomson mirror Galvanometer could detect signals one thousand times fainter than any other receivers. This device allowed signals passing through submarine cables to be easily read and seen, for what he quite literally did was to get the cable signal, raw Morse code, to flash on a mirrored pin-point light which to the trained eye, could be read rather like a flashing light sending a signal between two ships.

The cables belonged to the world of commerce, lock stock and barrel, and had nothing to do with the Admiralty. However, since they were already laid, might it not be at least prudent to investigate their use in times of war?  This pdf file tells of how a Royal Naval team went to search out some answers to that question.

This is a piece of paper tape with signals inked on it by a syphon recorder.

Problem of the RN having operators who cannot read the mirror light and the signal it portrays even at slow speeds, even though these are highly trained operators at great speeds on flashing lights. Speed of 'mirror speaking' [as coined by the cable men] should be 15 to 20 wpm.

Experiments at Penzance.

Which grapnel to use to pick up the cable from the sea bed.

Naval team involved and their findings.

Further trials at sea in a cable laying ship are thought possible and worthy of the effort involved.

The Sullivan Galvanometer is preferred to the Thomson model.

A watching-brief is being kept and trials will take place in HMS Vernon on the suitability and viability of using submarine cables for warfare communications.

The spark gap induction coil will take centre stage but with a different spark gap set and using different voltages.

The large hissing noise one hears is a great off putter, but the system works well despite this.

The rays pass through some objects with greater ease than through others - with the hand, all the bones can be seen.

Great care must be taken to make sure that the equipment doesn't blow itself up

The patient is then made comfortable and the part to be examined is placed...........