Talk:Walkie-talkie

Old talk

Was walkie-talkie really originally developed by Henryk Magnuski, Polish engineer? I have urge to put that into article...

See this page http://sitka.triumf.ca/morgan/dlhings/walkietalkie.html which credits a lot of other people. User:Rjstott

That page is now at http://dlhings.ca/walkietalkie.html BlueStraggler (talk) 23:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

According to my sources Magnuski was the main constructor of the SCR-300. However, the company's name was not yet Motorola at the time. The difference between those constructions mentioned on the abovementioned page and SCR-300 is that Magnuskis walkie-talkie was a hand-held radio, not a huge box carried by a radio operator. You can see the pic of his invention here. Halibutt 02:51, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

For the record, the SCR-536 was the "Handie-Talkie" and Don Mitchell, Chief Engineer of Galvin Manufacturing Company is credited with driving that development effort. He received a special citation from the Army for this work. Henry Magnuski's contribution towards the development of the SCR-300 "Walkie-Talkie", a 35 pound backpack radio, is documented quite well via two sources, cited below:

The Founder's Touch by Harry Mark Petrakis, 1965, McGraw-Hill, NY, p. 144-147

Chapter 13 - The Talkies - Handie and Walkie

Noble joined the company in early September 1940. He began by working on the possibility of adapting many of the AM systems common in that time to FM. He had no responsibility in the development of the "Handie-Talkie" radio but went to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, with Don Mitchell to make the presentation of the unit to the Signal Corps. Among the Signal Corps officers present at that time were two, Col. Colton , and Major J.D. O'Connell, who would play important roles in the development of a longer range portable unit than the "Handie-Talkie" radio.

Sometime after the United States had gone to war, on a visit to Washington, Noble was told by Col. O'Connell that the Signal Corps had let a contract for the development of a new AM portable transmitter-receiver. Noble told him bluntly that he felt this was a grave mistake, and that the area of development should be for an FM portable unit. Noble felt strongly such a unit could be developed and that Motorola could do it. As a result of this conversation, and Noble's confidence in the company's ability to meet the challenge, Col. O'Connell issued a Signal Corps contract for the development of an FM portable transmitter-receiver to Motorola.

A series of meetings were held with Signal Corps Engineers at Fort Monmouth, and engineering meetings at Motorola were attended by Noble's team which included Henry Magnuski, Marion Bond, Lloyd Morris, and Bill Vogel. Working furiously against time, this brilliant team developed a design which included a single tuning control to tune both the transmitter and the receiver simultaneously and an automatic frequency control to insure clear communication without the need for critical precision tuning on the part of the operator. They also overcame the primary problems of establishing an adequate power supply, a minimum number of crystals, and the fungiciding of the unit to allow it to withstand tropical temperatures and humidity.

The final critical acceptance test took place at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where Col. O'Connell had set up a conference for the testing of a variety of portable and mobile communications equipment. Members of the Infantry Board, always highly critical of the application of communications equipment to battlefield conditions, had been invited as observers. Bob Galvin accompanied Dan Noble and Bill Vogel to Fort Knox for these crucial tests. Since they only had two working models, each night was spent in the hotel checking them over carefully to make sure they were ready for additional tests the following day. The performance of the SCR-300, Walkie-Talkie, during those tests, its capacity to communicate through interfering ignition noise, and the rugged quality of the design, met with unusually enthusiastic response from the hard-headed Infantry and Signal Corps officers.

Motorola was to produce nearly 50,000 of these famed SCR-300 Walkie-Talkie units during the course of the war, the first units transported by air for use in the invasion of Italy by the Allied Forces. A sizeable quantity went to the Pacific. Perhaps their greatest contribution was in the European invasion, where their role in re-establishing order at the conclusion of the Battle of the Bulge gained Motorola tremendous recognition and a general feeling that perhaps the Walkie-Talkie was the single most useful piece of communications equipment employed in the invasion.

Noble was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Army for his part in the development of the Walkie-Talkie. Noble, accepting the award, stressed the major contributions of Magnuski, Vogel, Morris and Bond. He went on to say that the development of the Walkie-Talkie was an academic exercise compared to the contribution of the men on the battlefields, the men fighting the war.

A Personal Journal: 50 Years at Motorola by Andy Affrunti Sr. Privately published manuscript, 1985

P. 63-64

Soon after I started in the research lab in late 1940, Henry Magnuski and I received our first assignmment based on a military contract: a portable FM communications radio. It was a typical Monday morning when Dan Noble approached Henry and me and asked both of us to sit at my workbench. Dan motioned Henry to sit at his right and me at his left and placed an official looking sheet of paper on the bench. I noticed the fancy heading that read, United States Army Signal Corps. Dan read the eight paragraphed items aloud and finished by saying, "Henry and Andy, I want you to start working on this immediately. During my visit to the Signal Corps last week they placed a life-and-death priority on this program for the infantry. You will get whatever assistance you need and I expect to see a prototype fabricated as soon as possible."

Shocked by the demand he placed on us, we read and reread this one sheet of paper several times. The Signal Corps designated this communications equipment as a portable infantry battalion transceiver nomenclatured SCR-300. We soon realized that this was a specification document to design and develop a portable, frequecy modulated radio receiver and transmitter powered by batteries. The complete equipment should not weigh over 35 pounds and be carried on the back of an infantry combat soldier. It should provide solid communications over a distance of three miles and be water-proofed against rain. No more than two crystals could be used and it should cover a frequency range continouously variable from 40.0 to 48.0 megacycles providing 48 channels of communications.

p. 73-74

We tested and retested our prototype in the lab and finally just a few days before the Signal Corps representatives came, Henry and I were ready. We stood eight miles apart - more than twice the specification - on a bright spring day in 1941, he standing on the flat roof of the Tropic-aire building next to the Augusta Boulevard plant, I in the Thatcher Woods Forest Preserve parking lot to the west of the plant. Marconi or Bell couldn't have felt better when they heard others on radio or telephone than I did when I heard Henry's Polish-accented voice from Augusta Boulevard: "Ondy, do you hear me?"

"Yes, Henry," I said from my forest preserve station, "I hear you very good, loud and clear."

When we reported to Dan Noble and our lab associates the successful result of our test, everyone was jubilant. Our prototypes housed in the two green wooden boxes took on an aire of great importance. A week later in the same location the field test was repeated for Signal Corps officials who gave us a quick verbal approval to develop a production prototype.

---

So it would appear that proper credit for the SCR-300 goes to Dan Noble for conceiving an FM portable unit, and the team of Magnuski, Bond, Morris and Vogel for the actual implementation and production. The FM circuit design and development appears to be the work of Magnuski as the principal RF engineer. --hankm 23:25, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Choosing a walkie talkie

This [http:// consumers.endlex.com/Entertainment/walkietalkie.html link] in the article is pretty useless. The information isn't specific to walkie talkies - looks like a generic article with walkie-talkie thown in lots of times. Link spam? Anyone got any better sources? Pgr94 19:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's linkspam alright. This kind of link has been added to about 30 other articles. Graham87 15:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Choose a picture

Two pictures of FRS W/Ts is one too many; do we like the first or second one better? The first one shows several slightly different types - teh second shows some generic bubble-pack toys. I'm prejudiced in favor of the first since I took the picture. May I zap the second one? --Wtshymanski 17:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Additional comment moved from article

A history of radio is not required here. I've moved the following strangely-formatted additions here to talk since they are out of place in the walkie-talkie article.--Wtshymanski 23:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)Wireless Communication

Prior Inventions

The invention of the walkie-talkie is preceded by the discovery of radio and the invention of wireless communication. The invention of wireless communication was made by Guglielmo Marconi. Born in Italy in 1874 to a Catholic father and a Protestant mother, he had an interest in science from an early age. He attended the University of Bologna and studied electro-magnetics before becoming interested in radio. He wanted to create a device which would allow ships to communicate with shores without wires. He built a team of accredited scientists and electricians to help him with the project. Beginning in the 1890’s he was able to send bursts of radio 100 yards and was gradually increasing the distance. By 1897 he was sending signals across the English Channel; in December of 1901 he and his team sent the first transatlantic signal from Canada to Britain. Although he could only send Morse code, his system was then used for ships crossing the Atlantic, including the H.M.S. Titanic. However credit for the device is often also given to his coworker Nikola Tesla, because he and Marconi battled for the patent. In the end the United States Supreme Court granted Tesla the patent over Marconi in 1943, but not before Marconi had made his own company and a rather large profit.

Reginald Fessenden

One of the biggest steps in this journey was made by Reginald Fessenden who began working with radio in 1897, and also taught Marconi. He invented the receiver in 1900, which allowed machines to better receive incoming radio waves and also expanded the distance within which these machines could communicate. He also designed the first wireless telephone but at first could only send Morse code. Later he improved his designs which soon allowed voices to be transmitted. He sent the first voice transmission on December 24, 1906 on a device known as a “radio telephone.” He also sent the first two way telegraph across the Atlantic from Scotland.

Two Way Radio

In 1933 an American inventor named Frank Gunther invented a two way dispatch radio for use in police cars in Bayonne, New Jersey. Unlike what would soon become the walkie-talkie these devices required an operator to send messages out to other receivers. While these receivers could talk to the operator they could not talk to each other. Also these devices were mounted in cars, and could not yet be carried around easily.

The Walkie-Talkie Al Gross

Therefore the next step was to make wireless communication like this portable and usable without an operator. However the invention of the portable two-way is generally credited with the American inventor Al Gross. (There are some claims that a Canadian named Donald Hings may have also invented it, but it is more probable that he just developed a different kind a few years later. There is little conclusive evidence showing him as the inventor of the walkie-talkie. Alfred Gross was born on February 22, 1918 in Toronto, Canada. He and his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio not long after his birth. When he was nine, he and his family took a trip on Lake Erie. He was amazed by the ship’s radios and asked the captain to explain how they worked. What started as curiosity seemed to develop into a lifelong pursuit. By the time he was 16, he had reportedly built a radio station, called W8PAL, in his basement using materials from the local junkyard.

During the War

By 1936 Gross had a strong interest in radio, especially operating it above 100 megahertz. He attended what is now Case Western Reserve University in 1938, and created his first portable two way device. He attracted the attention of the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. They recruited him to help build new technologies for the troops in World War II. In 1941 he had created air to ground two way radios, named Joan and Eleanor, although he had already made ground to ground radios by 1938. He received the patent for the design in 1939. (Daniel Hings received one in 1942.) The elements of Gross’ design were considered classified by the U.S. government until 1975-76. Despite the long time kept under wraps, Gross was unable to make any real money from his designs because he failed to see the usefulness of his inventions. Therefore he did not renew his patents before the U. S. released his work. He is also credited with creating the first cellular phone and the first pager, but did not renew the patents on these inventions either.

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I think removal of this material is the right move. I was going to do something similar. hankm 00:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:H23AAB and P33AAC Handie Talkie Manual.jpg

Image:H23AAB and P33AAC Handie Talkie Manual.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 17:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Alternatives

Please include VoIP over Wifi/WiMax as a alternative see http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2005/voIP_WiFi.asp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.175.36 (talk) 09:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

External links

I belive a few of them are not relevant to this article (Lee DeForest, The invention of radio, Retro.Com) and should be removed. Sv1xv (talk) 15:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Range

What's the range on those devices? This important fact is missing from the article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the exact conditions. Typically a few hundred meters, it can be a few kilometers if a clear line of sight exists between the two stations, or much less inside buildings. 10-15 or more kilometers if a repeater is used, depending on the location of the repeater. Sv1xv (talk) 04:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

SSB, CW etc on ham H/T

"All mode" portables like the Tokyo HyPower HT750 are rare exceptions and never caught up. 99.95% of all ham HT transmit only FM, although many can receive all modes. Even AM is not supported, while it is standard for airband and older CB walkie-talkies. Unless we include radios like FT-817. We should change wording to somewhat. Sv1xv (talk) 14:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Check out the recent edit. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It is very good now. I may edit a little the part about marine and airband WTs. Sv1xv (talk) 16:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

RE: Amateur radio and multiple modes; please don't confuse your personal experience, probably within the USA, with the actual situation, especially in other nations. There are many, many HF transceivers which are multi-mode and quite a few which are ALL mode transceivers. Indeed I am currently sat only a foot from a portable transceiver which covers a chunk of the RF spectrum and will transmit in both AM and FM (with the various submodes, like SSB, CW and so on included) across that entire range (where permitted by law). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.192.80 (talk) 13:05, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Smartphone apps

There are a growing number of smartphone apps that use the walkie-talkie PTT paradigm. Should they be mentioned in this article and if so as "modern day versions" or in a section of cultural influence of PTT as a concept? Joe407 (talk) 08:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps not at great length, but worth a mention especially if there's a good citation. There's also a PTT in mobile telephone services that lets a group of phone users talk as if using walkie-talkies but that is described in Push to talk and might just be mentioned here. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

OK now we have an WP:RS on the topic referring to these apps as Walkie-Talkies. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/technology/personaltech/zello-heytell-and-voxer-make-your-smartphone-a-walkie-talkie-david-pogue.html?pagewanted=all Now I just need to find the time to write the paragraph. Joe407 (talk) 12:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Walkies which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Additions

Some people believe that walkie talkies can pick up cell phone conversation... sourced to radiofinds.com. Unfortunately, blogs are not WP:RS. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC)