The history of the two-way radio

Police going mobile in Australia and the US, 1923-1933

Most accounts credit Senior Constable Frederick William Downie of Australia with developing the first mobile voice-broadcasting radio in 1923. At the time, police officers had to rely on public phone booths to communicate—an obviously inefficient system that made real-time coordination nearly impossible.

Downie’s solution wasn’t exactly portable; the radio unit reportedly took up the entire back seat of a police vehicle. Still, it marked a major leap forward by enabling officers to stay connected while on patrol.

A few years later, in 1928, the Detroit Police Department experimented with its own version of mobile radio. However, this system only allowed for one-way communication. Progress continued: by 1929, some California police cars were equipped with basic radio receivers, and in 1933, nine patrol cars in New Jersey became the first to use radios capable of true two-way communication.

Despite these advances, regulatory hurdles remained. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initially banned interdepartmental radio communication, insisting departments rely on telephones or telegraphs instead. This restriction was finally lifted in 1935, opening the door for broader adoption and innovation. Still, the technology remained far from accessible—early radio systems were so costly that they often exceeded the price of the police vehicles themselves, and they were a far cry from the portable “walkie-talkies” we know today.

Walkie-talkies: America vs Canada, Gross vs Hings 

Who invented the two-way radios we think of as “walkie-talkies, and when were two-way radios invented?” There is some debate as to whether it was an American or a Canadian. It would likely be safest to say that two men, the American Alfred Gross and the Canadian Donald Hings, independently had similar ideas almost simultaneously.

Canada’s Donald Hings (1937)

A prospecting problem

British-born Donald Hings worked for Canada’s Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company (CM&S). The company was busy with aerial prospecting in remote areas. All they had was Morse code communication, and this presented several problems. Users had to memorise the code. It would be transmitted to ground receivers and then relayed to the home base. This made communication cumbersome.

In addition, electromagnetic interference, such as that caused by the Northern Lights, presented an additional obstacle to communication. Hings was already a keen hobbyist who loved to tinker. His interesting hobby came to the attention of CM&S, and they asked the self-taught inventor to see if he could find a better solution.

The first “packset”

What CM&S wanted was reliable communication that could be used by pilots to direct teams of prospectors on the ground and allow for direct messaging to the home base. His first attempts resulted in the Light Aircraft Emergency Set or “packset.” It weighed around 12 pounds and had a range of 210 kilometres. It was put to work for CM&S in 1937 and was patented in 1939.

An article in the Vancouver Sun quotes Hings as saying he first heard news of the war as he stepped out of the patent office. Then and there, he realised that his invention, with a few improvements, could prove extremely useful for the war effort. Instead of seeking profit, he gave his idea to the Canadian Federal Government.

Wartime innovation

Improvements included lightweighting for greater portability, waterproofing, a means of scrambling messages to avoid interception, an early noise filter, and better earphones. Working with the National Research Council in Ottawa and later, as a colonel in the Royal Signal Corps, he went on to develop his idea even further.

His wartime version of the packset is said to have been dubbed a “Walkie-Talkie” by a journalist who saw a soldier walking while talking over his radio during a demonstration of the invention.

However, the term “walkie-talkie” is claimed to have been coined to refer to Gross’s radios and those developed by Motorola. Whatever the origin of the slang name, Hings was a pioneer and was honoured with a place in the Telecommunications Hall of Fame in 2006.

America’s Alfred Gross (1938)

Alfred Gross was fascinated with electronic communications since childhood. His hobby prompted him to study electrical engineering, and while still a student, he developed a handheld two-way radio. Although some of his work may have been earlier, the date of his invention is generally considered to be 1938.

With war on the horizon, the US government was particularly interested in his invention. Indeed, much of his work was considered classified, only coming to light in the 1970s. He first demonstrated his invention in 1941 and was immediately recruited to develop a ground-to-air radio system.

It was to be used for reconnaissance, and Gross conceived the idea of using a higher frequency to prevent enemy interception of messages. After the war, Gross continued to innovate and is credited with inventing the first pager and the first cordless telephones. Today, he is honoured as an inventor in the truest sense of the word and is often credited as being the inventor of the two-way radio.

The Galvin Manufacturing Company (Motorola)1940-1943

Hard on the heels of these two pioneers, and still in business today, Motorola (then known as the Galvin Manufacturing Company) also deserves its place in two-way radio history. The company was contracted to develop wartime field radios in 1940. An engineering team led by Daniel Noble took on the task and introduced its take on the two-way radio in 1943.

Its famous SCR-300 two-way radio was only the first of a long string of innovations that have continued to the present day. Advances included a change toward very high-frequency FM transmission, with Henryk Magnuski, Lloyd Morris, and Bill Vogel all occupying important roles in the development team.

Further advances toward the two-way radio as we know it today

Following World War II, innovation continued apace. In the 1950s, transistors allowed for the development of smaller, lighter two-way radios, and as the twentieth century progressed, battery technology, antenna design, and frequency modulation improved. Duplex communication, which means that more than one person can talk at a time, and digital two-way radios were first introduced in 2007.

More recently, broadband push-to-talk (BBPTT) has taken the concept of two-way radio into the digital age. By leveraging Wi-Fi and cellular networks, this technology enables instant communication not only on traditional radio-style devices but also across smartphones, tablets, and PCs. This advancement has significantly broadened the scope and flexibility of two-way communication in both public safety and commercial environments.

Nowadays, two-way radios of one form or another are affordable and available to just about anyone. They range from simple, short-range options that do not require licensing to long-range radios with a range of special features.

From families who are out of range of mobile signal on camping trips to small businesses, and from cutting-edge industries to emergency services, two-way radios are still important communications devices in the modern world. They still save lives, and they still help us to stay in touch, even when other communication methods fail.

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