Flash for Dummies (me); very basic questions

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18052721
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Well, I got my order from Adorama last night. Right off the bat I am having extreme frustration.

I put batteries in one of the flashes, flipped the switch to the "ON" position, and bingo! The flash unit comes on just as one would expect it to.

So then I get the transmitter out of the box, put it onto the hot shoe of my 1D Mark 4, switch both switches to the "ON" position, and......nothing. That's right, nothing. Does anybody have any idea how you are supposed to get these transmitters turned on? Do they take batteries or something? I thought it would just use the camera's power, can't it do that via the hot shoe? Plus it doesn't look like there is anywhere to put batteries into it.

Is there some kind of "flash mode" on the camera that I have to have it set to? I mean, do I actually have to change some of the settings on my camera body so that it knows it is supposed to fire a flash, or does the camera just know that when there is a transmitter mounted on the hot shoe?

I was really wanting and needing to have this whole thing figured out and set up and working flawlessly for this evening's shoot. Now it looks like I'm screwed. Any help would be very appreciated.

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