George Sweigert
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- For the U.S. basketball player see George Webb Sweigert.
George H. Sweigert (1920-1999) is widely credited as the first inventor to hold a patent for the invention of the cordless telephone.
Born in Akron, Ohio, Sweigert served for four years in the US Army as a radio operator in World War II in Guadalcanal, Bouganville, and New Georgia (assigned to the 145th Headquarters Company under the 37th Infantry Division (United States)). Following the war Sweigert briefly dated Eva Marie Saint while he attended Bowling Green State University (near Toledo, Ohio).
Sweigert credited his military service for invention of the radio telephone, citing experimentation with various antennas, signal frequencies, and types of radios. Sweigert rigged some battlefield radios to send and receive on different frequencies, enabling full duplex communication. Full duplex communication was a key feature that allowed the users to avoid the word "over" at the end of each communication, making conversations more natural.
[edit] Cordless phone
In the patent application submitted on June 10, 1966 to the US Trade and Patent Office, Sweigert submitted a working model of the phone in addition to the required description. An image of the original patent application can be viewed at [1]. A Cleveland Plain Dealer article published shortly after the patent was filed documented the first public demonstration of the cordless phone with a picture of the device and the inventor.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer article cited that Sweigert actually used a part from his washing machine for the invention - the solenoid used to lift the phone's receiver when a current was sensed in the induction coil. Sweigert, who suffered severe back pain from a war injury, saw the device primarily helping handicapped and elderly people.
Sweigert vision of "a phone carried in a shirt pocket" that could be used to "call anyone in the world, anytime" was realized years later by Martin Cooper of Motorola with the invention of the cellular phone. Shortly before he died, Sweigert received a long distance call on a Motorola cellular phone, realizing his lifelong dream.
It is also worth noting that Sweigert held two amateur radio licenses: W8ZIS (Ohio) and N9LC (Indiana). He was an amateur extra radio operator, the highest class of amateur radio. He also held a First Class Radiotelephone Operator's Permit.
[edit] Patent
- US 3,449,750 -- Duplex Radio Communication and Signalling Appartus -- G. H. Sweigert
Source: US Patent Trade Office [2]
At the time of its issuance, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission remarked, "this is the most significant advancement in telecommunications since the invention of color television". Indeed, full duplex radio communications is the cornerstone upon which cellular telephone communications was built. In a sense, anyone using a cellular phone today owes their full duplex communication conversation to Sweigert and to amateur radio experimentation.
[edit] Trivia
Sweigert's heroes include Alexander Graham Bell, Samuel Morse, and Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Sweigert was coincidentally born in the same city that hosts the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Akron, Ohio.
