Receipt vs reception

[micaelo]

Hello, everybody!
In the following fill-in-the-gap exercise "Weather specialists have placed instruments all over the world, for the ... and transmission of precise data to weather stations", I'm given the root "receive". I filled in it with "reception" being pretty sure that was the correct answer. However, the answer key only provides the answer "receipt", so apparently my choice is incorrect. But, don't we use "reception" for the act of receiving something? Why is it incorrect?
Thanks.

[David L.]

I am a native speaker, and so I would have been marked as incorrect also...unless...unless...(lol)
Let me assure you, "receipt" as the answer is incorrect.
In some business transaction, when I have, say, paid a blll/settled an account, or paid a deposit, the other person will write out a receipt.
We refer to 'TV reception", the receiving of television signals by the aerial or dish outside the home.
If I were forced to make the choice, then I would have to pick "reception". However, the sentence suggests that what is referred to is a collection of weather instruments which measure temperature and humidity and other data relating to the weather, and then transmit this back to some central monitoring and collection point. We would not speak of a thermometer as 'receiving' information, or that the thermometer (and other measuring instruments) are there for the "reception" of the temperature etc.
An instrument which receives and then re-transmits information is called a transponder.

[Anglika]

"Receipt" can and is used to mean the receiving of something - see here for usages: [DAVIES/BYU] British National Corpus

So the use of receipt in this sentence is acceptable although "reception" could be an alternative.

[David L.]

I've heard of "the receipt of stolen property" as the formal statement of the crime, and that in casual conversation "He has been charged with receiving stolen goods"; but I've never heard or come across in my reading where receipt was used when referring to what weather instruments are designed to detect.