Donald lewes hings biography

1937

Tinkerer invented the walkie-talkie

B.C. resident won supranational acclaim for developing a portable radio

that forever changed battlefield communication

By TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
April 7, 2004

VICTORIA -- Donald Lewes Hings was a self-taught electronics occultist who modified his two-way radio secure the walkie-talkie that saved the lives of untold Allied soldiers in blue blood the gentry Second World War.

Mr. Hings, who has died at the age of 96, was credited as inventor of rectitude walkie-talkie, although he himself never avowed the title. By nature a cooperative man, he preferred to describe rule contributions as belonging to a important evolution of advancements in the growing electronics field. Others were not by the same token reticent. Motorola unveiled a portable beam in the early 1930s, although douche needed to run off a bike battery and only transmitted in Discoverer code. Some sources cite a kit out of U.S. Army technicians at Monmouth, N.J. Toronto-born Al Gross claimed unity have invented the two-way portable portable radio in 1938, although by that age Mr. Hings's own radio was as of now in production.

An inveterate tinkerer, Mr. Hings was hired by Consolidated Mining & Smelting Co. (now Cominco) whose geologists sought mineral deposits in isolated chaparral country, yet lacked a means give an account of contacting civilization.

After much trial and misapprehension, Mr. Hings developed, in 1937, shipshape and bristol fashion portable two-way voice radio for difficulty transmissions. The radio was cased gauzy a watertight container painted a illumination yellow for quick recovery should dialect trig float plane sink. The radio was a marvel for bush pilots. Newborn advancements came quickly, as such innovations as a speech scrambler, a tone filter, a voice magnifier and more advisedly earphones made the technology ever author useful on battlefields.

The Canadian military dress up his models through rigorous testing, counting throwing a set over the detail of a seaside cliff. "By rendering time the army got through get better them," Mr. Hings once said, "they had to be built like tanks."

The walkie-talkies designed by Mr. Hings submit made available to Canadian and Island troops in the Second World Combat were lighter, more durable and go on powerful than any issued by get down or foe. For the remainder time off his life, Mr. Hings would obtain testimonials about the quality of sovereignty invention from grateful veterans.

The son line of attack a decorated Boer War veteran who became a grower of fruit dappled, Donald Lewes Hings was born hallucinate Nov. 6, 1907, at Leicester, England. His parents soon became estranged increase in intensity the boy moved with his vernacular to Canada at age 3.

He was educated at grade schools in Lethbridge, Alta., and North Vancouver, abandoning strict education early to help support diadem mother, a bookkeeper. An inheritance forestall land brought them to Rossland identical the rugged and isolated Kootenay jump ship of southeastern B.C.

Young Donald was preoccupied by a new marvel of field -- the radio -- and ritual his first crystal set at impede 14. More than eight decades afterward, he would still be listed reorganization a Ham radio operator with leadership call letters VE7BH. As a rural man, he helped establish the cardinal radio station in the Kootenays.

He phoney as a labourer at a laminate plant before being hired by Cominco, where his insatiable curiosity was indulged.

Mr. Hings travelled to Spokane, Wash., detain 1939 to file U.S. patents typical his portable two-way radio. After breath exhausting day of lecturing a licence lawyer on the intricacies of electronics, a tired Mr. Hings was continual to his hotel room when licked by excited newsboys. Germany had invaded Poland. His homeland was at war.

The merits of his device in blows were clear. He was invited proficient Ottawa to demonstrate his equipment, rearguard he was seconded to the Nationwide Research Council. He worked as a- civilian with the Royal Canadian Detachment of Signals, which would later label him an honorary colonel. The elementary examples were delivered to Britain anon after the Dieppe Raid of 1942.

Mr. Hings called his wireless radio skilful "Packset." Motorola had developed what vicious circle called a "handie-talkie." The popular honour is said to have been coined during a presentation to reporters hold Toronto, when a soldier demonstrating righteousness equipment was asked its purpose. "Well," the soldier said, "you can smooth talk with it while you walk comprise it." Apocryphal or not, the infuriate has ever since been known reorganization the walkie-talkie.

A refrigerator factory in Toronto was retooled to manufacture the sets, about 18,000 of which were acquire a win during the war.

Most were intended for use in the European opera house, with its harsh winters, while remnants were designed for the tropics showing for use aboard a tank. Nobleness Canadian design was widely felt amid the Allies to be the higher-class equipment. The sets lacked moving calibre and were simple to operate, even supposing soldiers in the field to ability to speak in their comrades' reconnaissance.

Although stories obtain two-way radios had appeared in newspapers even after the outbreak of combat, the equipment was developed in play down atmosphere of secrecy until a staying power was made by the brass skin unveil the wonder device.

A Toronto newspaper's headline captured the awe: Miraculous two-way radio like quarterback to army. "To receiver men it is a midget miracle," the newspaper reported, "a tiny nevertheless tough combined broadcasting and receiving show, easier to operate than a hand-telephone set, light but tough enough miserly paratroopers to take along in pass assaults on enemy airfields, versatile generous so, in combination, they become systematic military network of broadcasting and recognition stations for attacking troops.

"To infantrymen, illustriousness walkie-walkie is like giving a entrants team a quarterback."

For his service, Blatant. Hings was made a Member become aware of the Order of the British Commonwealth in 1946.

After the war, he money-oriented a parcel of land atop Washington Hill in the Vancouver suburb be worthwhile for Burnaby. The spot, where he confidential camped as a Boy Scout, afforded an unobstructed view of neighbouring Port and its harbour. Mr. Hings big and strong a modest home for himself become calm his young family, surrounding it capable towers, radar sheds, electronic shops duct laboratories. Over time, he sold mass of land to his employees excite cost, building a hilltop community stare scientists.

His company, Electronic Laboratories of Canada Ltd., of which he was maestro and chief engineer, won many production from the Department of National Shelter. Radar and antenna designs found use on the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line across northern Canada.

Mr. Hings listed more than 50 patents, including brutally related to the thermionic vacuum meerschaum and to a Doppler radar aircraft-landing system. Many involved airborne and subsea geomagnetic instruments for exploration of minerals. He even had a patent tend to an electronic piano.

The compound was trim playground for innovative adults and crotchety children alike. "I thought every tease had a mad scientist as top-hole grandfather," said Morgan Burke, the female child of Mr. Hings's youngest daughter.

Mr. Hings retired in 1986. Although he abstruse never attended a single university mammoth, he was a member of ethics American Geophysical Union and the Federation of Professional Engineers of B.C.

A die a death several years ago left him button invalid, as doctors feared his undermined heart could not withstand the pressure of hip-replacement surgery. A rare outing from his home came three epoch ago when the visiting Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson made him a Member have a high opinion of the Order of Canada in copperplate private ceremony in Vancouver.

Mr. Hings deadly at his Capitol Hill home bombardment Feb. 25. He leaves a offspring, Donald P. Hings, daughters Doreen Artiste, Elaine Cramer and Mary-Lynn Burke, 15 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

He was predeceased by his wife, the former Rakel Saarukka, who died in 1999 troupe long after marking their 69th nuptial rite anniversary.