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This idea has been used many times, this is an early (if not the first) example.

Unwitting Earthmen follow instructions and build a Matter Transmitter and Receiver!

'Twenty-four earth hours,' [the Martian Master] said; 'and then your receiver on earth will be awaiting you. That time we can measure to the moment, and that is well. For it is not you three Earth-beings who will flash back to earth when that moment comes! It will be Martians, the first of our Martian masses who have waited for ages for that moment and who will begin then our conquest of the earth! 'Yes, Earth-beings, our great plan comes to its end now at last! At last! Age on age, prisoned on this dying, arid world, we have desired the earth that by right of power shall be ours, have sought for ages to communicate with its beings. You finally heard us, you hearkened to us, you built the matter-transmitting and receiving station on earth that was the one thing needed for our plan. For when the matter-receiver of that station is turned on in twenty-four of your hours, and ready to receive matter flashes from here, it will be the first of our millions who will flash at last to earth! (The monsters from 'The Monsters of Mars' by Edmond Hamilton) 'I, the Martian Master, say it. Those first to go shall seize that matter-receiver on earth when first they appear there, shall build other and larger receivers, and through them within days all our Martian hordes shall have been flashed to earth! Shall have poured out over it and conquered with our weapons your weak races of Earth-beings, who cannot stand before us, and whose world you have delivered at last into our hands!'

Technovelgy from Monsters of Mars, by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Astounding Stories in 1931 Additional resources -

If you feel the need to rub your hands together and cackle maniacally, go right ahead.

Note that the crocodile-men were armed!

"Each of the creatures wore on his torso a gleaming garment like a coat of metal scales, with metal belts in which some had shining tubes."

The tubes were deadly “hand ray-tubes” that could disintegrate matter.

Compare to the gate from The Gate to Xoran (1931) by Hal K. Wells, the gateway from Wanderer of Infinity (1933) by Harl Vincent, the Jiffy-Scuttler from Prominent Author (1954) by Philip K. Dick, Ramsbotham Gate from Tunnel in the Sky (1955) by Robert Heinlein, the farcaster from Hyperion (1989) by Dan Simmons.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Monsters of Mars
  More Ideas and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
  Tech news articles related to Monsters of Mars
  Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton

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