The distant signal is the "early warning" indicator for the home signal,

it's used to give an early indication to the driver of what to expect when he arives at the home signal.

I hope not because that could signal the end of us humans too. After all, monkeys are our distant anthropological cousins.

The TV signal from the far city reached you via radiation.

That is true even if it arrived by fiber-optic link, for the electronic light source at the broadcast end is radiating the signal. And clever optics concentrated it into the fibre optic.

Wireless networks often use repeaters to extend the network signal to distant locations. Ethernet repeaters are commonplace as well, as there are limits to the lengths that cables will function at.

the most distant