Wireless message

If wireless communication was around a few years before WW1 why didn't all pilots use it?

[Shipmodeler]

Back in those days, the only craft big enough to carry one were the big bombers. Which, by the way, did have them (the zeppelins staakens did) I believe the radios in those day were rather large.

[Lufbery]

Smaller planes carried them too -- but remember that communication wasn't done by voice, but by key (dots and dashes).

Regards,

I was interested because I have a popular mechanics book from 1913 which shows how to build a small wireless telegraphs this one can travel one and a half miles on land,and probably would go farther in the air.Was high command worried about the Germans getting there hands on a receiver?Here is a picture of the telegraph in my book anyone seen it in some of the WW1 pictures?

[Epee]

When deployed on the Mexican Campaign before US entry in WW1 my Grandfather trained with the signal corp. In his belongings he left me 2 postcard photos of military communications gear circa 1916. One is a heliograph, a very complex device used to send morse messages via reflected sun light. These were surprisingly effective over long distances given the right conditions but their limitations are obvious. The second card shows an Army field wireless. This consists of two artillery limber sized carriages, one for the transmitter the other for the batteries, and a large, almost telephone pole sized antenna. Assuming you dispensed with the antenna pole and didn't need all the batteries (giving the flight duration) you were still left with a set that needed two horses to pull it.