George Sweigert
Encyclopedia
George H. Sweigert is widely credited as the first inventor to hold a patent for the invention of the cordless telephone
. Google Patents link. http://www.google.com/patents?id=sidyAAAAEBAJ&dq=george+sweigert
Born in Akron
, Ohio
, Sweigert served five years in the US Army as a radio
operator in World War II
in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Fiji and New Georgia (assigned to the 145th Headquarters Company under the 37th Infantry Division (United States)). Following the war, Sweigert attended Bowling Green State University
near Toledo, Ohio.
Sweigert credited his military service for invention of the radio telephone, citing experimentation with various antennae, signal frequencies, and types of radios.
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.
The US Patent and Trademark Office issued US Patent 3,449,750 to Sweigert on June 10, 1969. The New York Times reported the award of the patent in the June 14th, 1969 edition. (page 52, column 6) In the article, Sweigert gives the first known printed description of how the "remote phone" might be used as a remote office or around the home, foreshadowing the way cell phones are used today. A friend told Sweigert that the article appeared in the Times, but Sweigert did not believe it completely until he received official word from the US Patent and Trademark Office later that week.
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 issued by the Federal Communications Commission.
Source: US Patent Trade Office
, Alexander Graham Bell
, Lee DeForest, Edwin Armstrong
, Albert Einstein
, and Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Sweigert was coincidentally born in the same city that hosts the National Inventors Hall of Fame
, Akron, Ohio.
Sweigert studied the life stories of these inventors, and he frequently would recount the early technical and legal struggles of these inventors to get their inventions patented and protected.
Edison's early technical struggles with full duplex (two way) communication was another favorite subject, born out of Edison's desire to "speed up" telegraphic conversations by sending and receiving at the same time. Whether Edison could actually perform this telegraphic feat has never documented, but Sweigert credited this story with his inspiration for a full duplex cordless telephone. Sweigert studied how duplexes reduced frustrations dealing with technologies, going all the way back to the early days of telegraphy.
Sweigert admired Alexander Graham Bell
's work with the deaf as an inspiration for development of the telephone. One of Sweigert's sons is hearing impaired. This may explain Sweigert's intricate use of amplifiers in the initial invention. Sweigert was physically disabled, and saw the cordless phone as a similar to the telephone in terms of motivation and inspiration for the development of the invention. Sweigert sided with Alexander Graham Bell
in the Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy, although Elisha Gray
was another Cleveland inventor. He did credit Gray with being the first to come up with a way of multiplexing
several messages simultaneously on the same wire.
He also enjoyed the fact that Bell was a complete amateur compared with professional established laboratories of Elisha Gray and super-inventor Thomas Edison. He greatly admired Edison's work on improving the vibrating diaphragm
to vary the induced resistance from varying frequency in the voice. He frequently cited Bell besting Edison on the invention of the telephone as Edison's motivation to invent the phonograph. He expressed dismay how Bell missed inventing the phonograph after his frequent lectures about visualizing audio waves and electrically reproducing them. Sweigert credited being able to visualize human voice waveforms as another key in perfecting the cordless phone.
Sweigert also admired Edwin Armstrong
and his invention of FM radio. Armstrong's concept of the superheterodyne receiver
to filter out noise and amplify the original signal is used in the cordless phone. He also admired Armstrong's courage to challenge the status quo of AM radio and its powerful leader, David Sarnoff
.
. Sweigert's philosophy was "the simpler, the better, as could be understood by a child". He often recounted Einstein's experience of reading a children's story about a child racing a telegraph signal going through a wire.
His later years were spent trying to perfect antennae designs, applying the work of James Clerk Maxwell
's work on electromagnetic theory and Maxwell's Equations
. His persistent frustration after the invention of the cordless phone was not being able to do the advanced calculus required by these equations for advanced antennae design.
Sweigert predicted that half of the people in the world would own a wireless phone in the time of his children. With the current world population of wireless phones at 3.2 Billion in 2008, he was probably not far wrong with this prediction. He predicted integrated cameras, GPS, accelerometers, and other advanced sensors in the 1969 moon lander would be integrated into the wireless phone. Sweigert received notice of his patent approval the same day of the first moon landing on June 20, 1969.
and the electronic amplifier
. Sweigert nicknamed his oscilloscope
in his home electronics lab "Philo" in honor of Philo Farnsworth
, critical to Sweigert for visualizing his "word worms". He also admired Farnsworth for his ability to challenge RCA
, founding the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1938. While reading about Farnsworth and his later work on submarine detection equipment, he was led to a research and development position with Magnavox
Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana
in 1969.
Sweigert took the R&D position with Magnavox
Corporation in 1969 in Fort Wayne to work on Army field radios for soldiers in the Vietnam War
. He sympathized with the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam jungles which were similar to the jungle conditions he fought in at Guadalcanal
and Bougainville Island
in the Second World War. Magnavox
field radios were key to the US Army for the entire Vietnam War. Sweigert was fascinated by the development of the integrated circuit
and its potential uses to reduce the size of electronic products. He was friends with many of the people involved in the founding of Bowmar Instrument Corporation in Fort Wayne, the makers of the first electronic pocket calculator, or more popularly known as the Bowmar Brain.
Sweigert taught electronics at the vocational college level in his later years for ITT Technical Institute
in Fort Wayne despite his physical disability. He credited ITT
for purchasing the Farnsworth Television from Philo Farnsworth
, enabling him to finally receive compensation for his invention. Sweigert sympathized with the struggles in the later life of Edwin Armstrong
and wanted to avoid a similar fate in his own life.
for his work with wireless telegraphy
. He was internally conflicted on whether Nikola Tesla
or Marconi should be credited with the invention of radio
.
Cordless telephone
A cordless telephone or portable telephone is a telephone with a wireless handset that communicates via radio waves with a base station connected to a fixed telephone line, usually within a limited range of its base station...
. Google Patents link. http://www.google.com/patents?id=sidyAAAAEBAJ&dq=george+sweigert
Born in Akron
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, Sweigert served five years in the US Army as a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
operator in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Fiji and New Georgia (assigned to the 145th Headquarters Company under the 37th Infantry Division (United States)). Following the war, Sweigert attended Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...
near Toledo, Ohio.
Sweigert credited his military service for invention of the radio telephone, citing experimentation with various antennae, signal frequencies, and types of radios.
Radio telephone
With the patent application submitted on May 2, 1966 to the US Patent and Trademark Office, Sweigert submitted a working model of the phone in addition to the required description. 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
Induction coil
An induction coil or "spark coil" is a type of disruptive discharge coil. It is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current supply...
. Sweigert, who suffered severe back pain from a war injury, saw the device primarily helping handicapped and elderly people.
The US Patent and Trademark Office issued US Patent 3,449,750 to Sweigert on June 10, 1969. The New York Times reported the award of the patent in the June 14th, 1969 edition. (page 52, column 6) In the article, Sweigert gives the first known printed description of how the "remote phone" might be used as a remote office or around the home, foreshadowing the way cell phones are used today. A friend told Sweigert that the article appeared in the Times, but Sweigert did not believe it completely until he received official word from the US Patent and Trademark Office later that week.
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 issued by the Federal Communications Commission.
Patent
- US 3,449,750—Duplex Radio Communication and Signalling Appartus—G. H. Sweigert
Source: US Patent Trade Office
Early Role Models
Sweigert's heroes included Samuel Morse, Thomas EdisonThomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
, Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
, Lee DeForest, Edwin Armstrong
Edwin Armstrong
Edwin Howard Armstrong was an American electrical engineer and inventor. Armstrong was the inventor of modern frequency modulation radio....
, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, and Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Sweigert was coincidentally born in the same city that hosts the National Inventors Hall of Fame
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recognizing, honoring and encouraging invention and creativity through the administration of its programs. The Hall of Fame honors the men and women responsible for the great technological advances that make human,...
, Akron, Ohio.
Sweigert studied the life stories of these inventors, and he frequently would recount the early technical and legal struggles of these inventors to get their inventions patented and protected.
Edison's early technical struggles with full duplex (two way) communication was another favorite subject, born out of Edison's desire to "speed up" telegraphic conversations by sending and receiving at the same time. Whether Edison could actually perform this telegraphic feat has never documented, but Sweigert credited this story with his inspiration for a full duplex cordless telephone. Sweigert studied how duplexes reduced frustrations dealing with technologies, going all the way back to the early days of telegraphy.
Sweigert admired Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
's work with the deaf as an inspiration for development of the telephone. One of Sweigert's sons is hearing impaired. This may explain Sweigert's intricate use of amplifiers in the initial invention. Sweigert was physically disabled, and saw the cordless phone as a similar to the telephone in terms of motivation and inspiration for the development of the invention. Sweigert sided with Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
in the Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy, although Elisha Gray
Elisha Gray
Elisha Gray was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company...
was another Cleveland inventor. He did credit Gray with being the first to come up with a way of multiplexing
Multiplexing
The multiplexed signal is transmitted over a communication channel, which may be a physical transmission medium. The multiplexing divides the capacity of the low-level communication channel into several higher-level logical channels, one for each message signal or data stream to be transferred...
several messages simultaneously on the same wire.
He also enjoyed the fact that Bell was a complete amateur compared with professional established laboratories of Elisha Gray and super-inventor Thomas Edison. He greatly admired Edison's work on improving the vibrating diaphragm
Diaphragm (acoustics)
In the field of acoustics, a diaphragm is a transducer intended to faithfully inter-convert mechanical motion and sound. It is commonly constructed of a thin membrane or sheet of various materials. The varying air pressure of the sound waves imparts vibrations onto the diaphragm which can then be...
to vary the induced resistance from varying frequency in the voice. He frequently cited Bell besting Edison on the invention of the telephone as Edison's motivation to invent the phonograph. He expressed dismay how Bell missed inventing the phonograph after his frequent lectures about visualizing audio waves and electrically reproducing them. Sweigert credited being able to visualize human voice waveforms as another key in perfecting the cordless phone.
Sweigert also admired Edwin Armstrong
Edwin Armstrong
Edwin Howard Armstrong was an American electrical engineer and inventor. Armstrong was the inventor of modern frequency modulation radio....
and his invention of FM radio. Armstrong's concept of the superheterodyne receiver
Superheterodyne receiver
In electronics, a superheterodyne receiver uses frequency mixing or heterodyning to convert a received signal to a fixed intermediate frequency, which can be more conveniently processed than the original radio carrier frequency...
to filter out noise and amplify the original signal is used in the cordless phone. He also admired Armstrong's courage to challenge the status quo of AM radio and its powerful leader, David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
.
Wireless Networking
Sweigert's eureka moment for the cordless phone was similar, imagining the human voice waveform for a word as a short "wavelet" traveling through the air and then the wire, linking the words together to reproduce a conversation. He envisioned a home where all kinds of devices generated "message wavelets" to share the electromagnetic spectrum, foreshadowing EthernetEthernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
. Sweigert's philosophy was "the simpler, the better, as could be understood by a child". He often recounted Einstein's experience of reading a children's story about a child racing a telegraph signal going through a wire.
His later years were spent trying to perfect antennae designs, applying the work of James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell of Glenlair was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. His most prominent achievement was formulating classical electromagnetic theory. This united all previously unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and optics into a consistent theory...
's work on electromagnetic theory and Maxwell's Equations
Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations are a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits. These fields in turn underlie modern electrical and communications technologies.Maxwell's equations...
. His persistent frustration after the invention of the cordless phone was not being able to do the advanced calculus required by these equations for advanced antennae design.
Sweigert predicted that half of the people in the world would own a wireless phone in the time of his children. With the current world population of wireless phones at 3.2 Billion in 2008, he was probably not far wrong with this prediction. He predicted integrated cameras, GPS, accelerometers, and other advanced sensors in the 1969 moon lander would be integrated into the wireless phone. Sweigert received notice of his patent approval the same day of the first moon landing on June 20, 1969.
Later years
Sweigert greatly admired Philo Farnsworth for his invention of television, and more specifically his work with the cathode ray tubeCathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
and the electronic amplifier
Electronic amplifier
An electronic amplifier is a device for increasing the power of a signal.It does this by taking energy from a power supply and controlling the output to match the input signal shape but with a larger amplitude...
. Sweigert nicknamed his oscilloscope
Oscilloscope
An oscilloscope is a type of electronic test instrument that allows observation of constantly varying signal voltages, usually as a two-dimensional graph of one or more electrical potential differences using the vertical or 'Y' axis, plotted as a function of time,...
in his home electronics lab "Philo" in honor of Philo Farnsworth
Philo Farnsworth
Philo Taylor Farnsworth was an American inventor and television pioneer. Although he made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television, he is perhaps best known for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device , the "image...
, critical to Sweigert for visualizing his "word worms". He also admired Farnsworth for his ability to challenge RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
, founding the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1938. While reading about Farnsworth and his later work on submarine detection equipment, he was led to a research and development position with Magnavox
Magnavox
Magnavox is a US electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California. They formed Magnavox in 1917 in order to market their inventions....
Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...
in 1969.
Sweigert took the R&D position with Magnavox
Magnavox
Magnavox is a US electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California. They formed Magnavox in 1917 in order to market their inventions....
Corporation in 1969 in Fort Wayne to work on Army field radios for soldiers in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. He sympathized with the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam jungles which were similar to the jungle conditions he fought in at Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...
and Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
in the Second World War. Magnavox
Magnavox
Magnavox is a US electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California. They formed Magnavox in 1917 in order to market their inventions....
field radios were key to the US Army for the entire Vietnam War. Sweigert was fascinated by the development of the integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
and its potential uses to reduce the size of electronic products. He was friends with many of the people involved in the founding of Bowmar Instrument Corporation in Fort Wayne, the makers of the first electronic pocket calculator, or more popularly known as the Bowmar Brain.
Sweigert taught electronics at the vocational college level in his later years for ITT Technical Institute
ITT Technical Institute
ITT Technical Institute is a for-profit technical institute with over 130 campuses in 38 states of the United States. ITT Tech is owned and operated by ITT Educational Services, Inc. , a publicly traded company headquartered in Carmel, Indiana. ITT Educational Services, Inc...
in Fort Wayne despite his physical disability. He credited ITT
ITT Corporation
ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...
for purchasing the Farnsworth Television from Philo Farnsworth
Philo Farnsworth
Philo Taylor Farnsworth was an American inventor and television pioneer. Although he made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television, he is perhaps best known for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device , the "image...
, enabling him to finally receive compensation for his invention. Sweigert sympathized with the struggles in the later life of Edwin Armstrong
Edwin Armstrong
Edwin Howard Armstrong was an American electrical engineer and inventor. Armstrong was the inventor of modern frequency modulation radio....
and wanted to avoid a similar fate in his own life.
Trivia
Sweigert also admired Guglielmo MarconiGuglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
for his work with wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy
Wireless telegraphy is a historical term used today to apply to early radio telegraph communications techniques and practices, particularly those used during the first three decades of radio before the term radio came into use....
. He was internally conflicted on whether Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
or Marconi should be credited with the invention of radio
Invention Of Radio
Within the history of radio, several people were involved in the invention of radio and there were many key inventions in what became the modern systems of wireless. Radio development began as "wireless telegraphy"...
.
External links
- Carterphone Decision
- YouTube Video
- First Presidential Radio Telephone Call
- US Patent Number 3,449,750 DUPLEX RADIO COMMUNICATION AND SIGNALING APPARATUS FOR PORTABLE TELEPHONE ... G. H. SWEIGERT